If you imagine someone who is brave enough to withdraw all his projections, then you get an individual who is conscious of a pretty thick shadow. Such a man has saddled himself with new problems and conflicts. He has become a serious problem to himself, as he is now unable to say that they do this or that, they are wrong, and they must be fought against… Such a man knows that whatever is wrong in the world is in himself, and if he only learns to deal with his own shadow he has done something real for the world. He has succeeded in shouldering at least an infinitesimal part of the gigantic, unsolved social problems of our day.
— Carl Jung, Psychology and Religion
Every part of our personality that we do not love will become hostile to us.
― Robert Bly, A Little Book on the Human Shadow
Psychiatrist Carl Jung refers to “the shadow” as disowned aspects of ourselves that remain hidden or part of the unconscious. They are aspects of our personality that our egos are unaware of because they have repressed or rejected them, banishing them to the darkness of the depths of our unconscious selves.
These elements are often negative, such as greed, murderous desires, jealousy, rage—essentially aspects that society frowns upon so in order to get along well in the culture we live in, we repress them. But the shadow does not always hold negative traits. Sometimes we repress our divine nature, our relevance in the world, our worth—either because society finds these elements suspect or because we have other issues of low self-esteem.
Erich Neumann, a psychologist and student of Jung, describes the shadow beautifully:
“All those qualities, capacities, and tendencies which do not harmonize with the collective values – everything that shuns the light of public opinion, in fact – now come together to form the shadow, that dark region of the personality which is unknown and unrecognized by the ego.”
That pretty much sums it up.
What does the shadow mean to us in our lives? Why is it important to take note of it?
In order to live as our highest selves, we need to integrate all aspects of who we are. There can be no part of our psyche that remains alien to us.
Individuation
Individuation is the process of becoming your true self/highest self—overcoming societal and cultural pressure to live, think, feel, or behave the way society expects us to. It means dropping personas (those false selves we adopt in order to fit in) and realigning with our deepest nature.
Integration
Integration is achieved, in part, by integrating or assimilating the shadow. In other words, bringing the dark into the light. This process of integration is also called, “eating the shadow.”
Realization
It’s important to realize what shadow is: It is not evil, nor should it be a source of shame. The shadow is merely that which we repress or keep down. Just like the previous installment where we talked about problems being blessings, so is facing the shadow aspect of self.
It may sound distasteful because we are dealing with the gunk clogging the pipes of our psyche. We have to dig out the hair clumped with toothpaste and spit and soap scum. When you think of it that way, you can see why people avoid doing this shadow integration work. As Jung points out:
“People will do anything, no matter how absurd, in order to avoid facing their own souls. One does not become enlightened by imagining figures of light, but by making the darkness conscious.”
Recognition
How to recognize the shadow: You may recognize the shadow by noting the way you behave. Being forgetful, for example. What does it mean when you can never find your keys when it’s time to go to work? Or shifting your attention from one thing to another. What is it that makes you need distraction? The shadow is in there.
Finding the Shadow
An easy way to find the shadow is to ask: What pisses me off? Rather, what personality aspects piss you off in others? Maybe you’ve even targeted one particular person to project your shadow rage onto. I can think of a few myself.
Again, Jung points out that “knowing your own darkness is the best method for dealing with the darknesses of other people.” It doesn’t mean that these people are not distasteful or even dysfunctional in their actions. But what integration of the shadow means is that you face and take ownership of that hidden part of your self.
Everything that pisses you off about someone else, is the alarm bell saying, “That’s it! That’s your shadow! Integrate it!” There’s the Buddhist teaching that we should thank those who make us angry for showing us what we need to work on.
I consider myself to be a fairly even-keel, open-minded person. I believe that everything in the universe is my sibling and I do my best to live that truth…until I get behind the wheel of a car and some pinhead cuts me off.
I can—and have—screamed, “It’s okay!” at the offending person from the isolation tank of my car, but it almost makes me feel worse. Definitely not as satisfying as imagining a cop pulling him over or his car miraculously seizing up in the middle of the road and watching him have to inch over to the break-down lane.
These are not nice thoughts. These are shadow thoughts.
The part of myself I have repressed is the selfish, ego-centric part of myself. The part that doesn’t give a rat’s patoot if I inconvenience another human being. The part that even feels entitled to drive wherever and however I like.
We can go deeper: I’ve repressed the part of me that is so self-absorbed that it doesn’t even know to care about others.
But you might say, what’s wrong with that? It is good to care about others. It is important to share the road with others. These people have to learn! Remember, it’s not about what is right or wrong and it has absolutely nothing to do with the virtuous or non-virtuous actions of my pinhead brother in human form who cut me off. It’s about my awareness of what I have hidden in myself.
How to Integrate the Shadow
So how can we integrate this shadow self? First, we must be aware of it. We need to name that which we have hidden. In my case, the whole selfishness thing. We also need to embrace the shadow aspect without judgment. In short, we must shed light on the parts we’ve kept stuffed down so they are no longer hiding in darkness.
I’ll give you a softer version of what shadow integration/eating looks like:
There was a wonderful American poet named Lucien Stryk who was also a translator of Buddhist writings and Zen poetry. He was a colleague and mentor of my father’s and also a family friend. As a Buddhist scholar, you can imagine that Lucien was very respectful of the earth and all its inhabitants.
He was also a smoker. When he came to visit, once in a while, he would toss his cigarette butt onto the ground along the path he was walking. A consciously disrespectful act.
Now, he would always pick it up on his way back, but the act of disrespecting the earth even momentarily (and in such a small way) kept this part of his shadow integrated—the part that shuns anything that is not in constant reverence of nature.
What good does this integration do? In Lucien’s case, it may well have stopped him from projecting his shadow onto others by feeling anger toward those who litter or, worse, those who profit from the destruction of the earth. He made his shadow part of himself so that he could meet its outside manifestation with equality and compassion.
Again, Jung teaches that if you don’t deal with the hidden aspects of yourself inside, you will meet them in the outside world.
Have you ever wondered why some people (maybe even you) attract the same kinds of personalities over and over again? That’s why. We are self-regulating beings. If your dreams can’t get your attention, your thoughts will try, then your body. And if none of that works (or even simultaneously) the very thoughtful world will provide you with countless opportunities to practice integrating your shadow. It’s all part of becoming our highest self.
The privilege of a lifetime is to become who you truly are.
—C. G. Jung