One of my characteristics is being open to finding, discovering, or locating interesting things in interesting places. So, for example, in the January 2012 issue of the US-publication Yoga Journal – I discovered a fascinating, albeit introductory article on “shadow work” (a particularly Jungian term): Me and My Shadow by Sally Kempton. I don’t do yoga, subscribe to the magazine, or typically see it. In fact I’d never seen it before. But “shadow work” interests me.
Why a yoga journal? I’m just curious and interested in nourishing my own journey or in bringing useful and oftentimes different perspectives to reflections around how we’re able to practically cooperate with grace and with the transformative work of the Spirit in becoming more fully and authentically human, freer (liberated), more alive, and aligned to my deepest or truest self.
Here are some excerpts:
Carl Jung describes a person’s shadow as “‘the person you’d rather not be’ – the opposite of your conscious personality” (which isn’t to say that your “conscious” personality is your “true self”!)
“…The shadow is all the selfish, primitive, egoic, violent, lazy, entitled aspects of yourself. The shadow includes all the aspects of your psyche that you prefer not to look at, the traits that… you’ve been ashamed of all your life, and the things about yourself that you [hide away from the sight of others, including yourself, i.e. your discarded self]…
… [These] negative tendencies remain hidden from our conscious awareness [and as a consequence] they … tend to drive our emotions and behaviours in unpredictable ways…
…Your unconscious shadow attitudes [and beliefs] become the lenses through which you look at life. Refusing to “own” a shadow tendency just makes you less conscious that it is distorting your perspective, [and thus your behaviour and choices]. When you can’t see something in yourself, you inevitably project the [characteristic] onto someone else, either judging them or admiring that quality in them…
… [The invitation] is to bring [our] shadow into awareness and take responsibility for it… Once you’ve “owned” your shadow, you can begin to modulate and integrate it… You’ll [also] find that shadow work can dissolve many of your negative feelings about yourself… It also becomes easier to notice and let go of unconscious behaviour patterns…
…it’s often painful to become aware of a deep-seated shadow trait, and the pain often goes back to early childhood…
…The problem is that as you repress … unacceptable behaviours [behaviours that meet with disapproval, or are rejected], you lose the opportunity to work with them and find the positive [dimension of those] traits. For example, the intensity that expresses itself in childhood anger – assuming that you’re a mentally healthy person – could grow into a mature quality that allows you to stand up to a bully or assert yourself in a challenging situation. Your sadness could develop into a capacity for deep empathy. Your fearfulness has the potential to blossom into a healthy vulnerability; your impulsiveness, into genuine spontaneity. This is why it doesn’t work to repress your shadow. Yes, it’s primitive, selfish, and sometimes volatile, but it’s also the source of the energy you need for creative and spiritual growth… You begin to recognize that it is possible to liberate the energy tied up in shadow energy and turn it towards a positive goal…”
Richard Rohr reflects that “…The more you are attached to any persona [i.e. “stage mask” or adopted ‘identity’, out of which you act], bad or good, any chosen or preferred self-image, the more shadow self you will have. So we need conflicts, relationship difficulties, moral failures, defeats to our grandiosity, even seeming enemies, or we will have no way to ever spot or track our shadow self. They are our necessary mirrors…” (Rohr, Breathing Under Water, pp. 33-34). However, what more often than not happens is that we run from relationship difficulties etc, making every excuse under the sun, blaming everyone else, while all the while failing to see the critical invitations to healing, wholeness, growth, and maturity. We’ll do and say anything to avoid self-confrontation; anything that brings us into a confrontation with our persona, our preferred, projected, and illusory self-image.
Bringing Your Shadow into the Light
Kempton suggests the following:
- “… A good place to start is by considering the traits for which people generally criticise you…”
“…It’s also important to notice when an encounter leaves you feeling emotionally charged. Why do you get so upset when the line at the ticket counter moves slowly? Could your fury come from a feeling of thwarted entitlement, a belief that life should arrange itself to fit your convenience [and needs]…
- … Another way to bring your shadow to light is to look at the people you feel vehemently negative about… The vehemence alone [indicates] that [there is likely] projection going on. The “dark” qualities [a person sees in others are often the] unacknowledged [same] aspects of themselves…
- [Positively], the people you idealize for their courage, creativity, wisdom, or charm mirror your own hidden potentials…
“Finding Freedom”
Kempton notes that it important we recognise and accept that like everyone else, we each contain both light and darkness, i.e. we have a “true or deepest self” and we have a “shadow” (or “false”, “hidden” and “disowned” selves cf. Hendrix, Rohr, Merton, Pennington, and Keats). If we can bring both our ‘positive’ and ‘negative’ characteristics into consciousness (i.e. we recognise, are aware of, and accept them) we can begin to intentionally work to integrate them, and to release the energy (and turn it towards a positive goal) that “has been tied up in privileging one side of the other.” “Change”, she says, “doesn’t come from blindly trying to suppress or get rid of the negative tendency or by refusing to acknowledge a positive one. It comes through the power we gain by becoming aware of the actual tendency.”
It is only when we come to know our own depths – our unique wisdom and our unique blindness, the way we are at our most loving and the way we are when we’re in the thralls of our “shadow” (our hidden and unconscious tendencies) – that we “become truly trustworthy to ourselves and others. That’s when we can authentically choose to live as our best Self” – as our truest or deepest self – that which the Spirit is nourishing, nurturing, and drawing from us.
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