Will the real me please stand up? Dealing with the Shadow........

 

What came over me? What was I thinking? When I did that, where was the "real" me? I am a "good" person, I don't do stuff like that.

Have you ever had those thoughts?

Have you ever found yourself in a situation where the "good" you somehow deserted you and the "bad" you took over? (Whatever those terms mean to you)

Carl Jung, a Swiss psychotherapist says this:  "Everyone carries a shadow, and the less it is embodied in the individuals conscious life, the blacker and denser it is."

According to Jung, the Shadow represents everything about ourselves we don't like, but somehow are able to see in others.

There are many examples of people who have publicly rallied and fought passionately against issues only to be discovered at a later point to be engaged in the very behaviour/issue they are fighting against.

The pastor/minister preaching against the indulging of the flesh only to be discovered in a brothel,
 the man advocating against violence toward women finding himself being charged with domestic violence, 
or the mother telling her children to practise abstinence from alcohol and drugs although knowing that she has bottles of gin hidden in the cupboard,
or the spouse pontificating fidelity while carrying on an affair,
or the youth making fun of his/her classmate at school while secretly spending every weekend hanging out with him/her, and so on.........

Jung: "The Shadow personifies everything that the person refuses to acknowledge about him/herself".

(A famous example perhaps would be Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.)

Perhaps one can define the Shadow as those aspects of ourselves that are repressed, denied, unconscious, and undeveloped. According to Jung we all have a Shadow and the only way to overcome and understand our Shadow, is to develop our self awareness, to bring our darker unconscious side into the light of our consciousness.

How does one do such?

We have to confront the Shadow.

One way of doing so may be to take responsibility for our actions.

It can be hard to accept in oneself a behaviour that one is generally against, and the temptation to shift blame in fear of the consequences, may prevail.  Example: "I am against stealing, but taking a few things from the stationary cupboard at work is not really stealing, I mean, I mainly use it for work after all." "Telling my teenage kids not to drink alcohol although I enjoy my wine is not at all hypocritical, I deserve to relax after a hard days work." "A slap is not the same as hitting, I mean, come on, the kid was getting on my last nerve." "Yeah, I know he/she is married, so what?...I didn't start the affair."

Or: Jealous? me? never. Envious? me? don't be silly. Sore loser? Too competitive? Stingy?

I wasn't my fault, he/she/they/ are to blame.

Difficulties, disasters, heartbreak, disappointments, and other painful experiences are part of the human condition. Some of those experiences may be due to bad luck, unforeseen circumstances, unprecedented events, et cetera. however, some of the difficulties and pain we experience, is a result of our own actions, decisions and interpretations.

Sidebar:    [ There is freedom and a great sense of empowerment in taking on the responsibility of ones own life. Becoming aware of the manipulations of the Shadow dissolves its power. I.e.; "If everything bad that happens in my life is always someone else's fault then what power do I have to change the outcomes?" ]

If you find yourself behaving or doing things incongruent with how you see yourself, if you hear yourself saying: "Yeah, but that's not really how I am," but when asked your friends say: "Yes, you are like that,"....it may be time for you to connect with your shadow. The thing with friends and loved ones is that they do not have the same "blind spots"(= parts of our psyche we are ignorant of) about us as we do, and vice verse. Just like we love those we love warts and all, (including their dark and light sides), so do they. (Love us)

If we truly would like to find out more about our Shadow, a good place to start is to ask a friend or a loved one: "In your opinion, what are my strengths and weaknesses?" and then when given an answer, resist any urge to lunge into justifications. If we accept for instance, the responsibility of being viewed as short-tempered, then we have the power to change it. Like Dr. Phil says: "We can not change what we do not acknowledge."

The more we know about ourselves the more choices we have to "be" and behave in ways which are congruent with who we perceive to be our true selves.

"Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men? The Shadow knows."

So says The Shadow in the opening lines to one of the most famous adventure heroes of the twentieth century.

 

“Everything that irritates us about others can lead us to an understanding of ourselves.”

“I am not what happened to me, I am what I choose to become.”

“Until you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life and you will call it fate.”

 (Carl Jung)