Within each of us is a being we simply cannot ‘know’, It speaks to us through dreams, through intuition. Letting us know that there’s more to us than the construct we merely ‘think’ ourselves to be.
Each of us, whether we like it or not, carries a hidden/ repressed side that we have often chosen, for survival, to conceal, even from ourselves!. However this dark side or shadow is not the villain. It is an essential component to truly understanding the wholeness, the completion, the totality of who we are.
Imagine blindly stumbling around a dark room searching for something important. Until you turn on the light you’ll be wasting your time, you will not be able to see or identify anything with clarity. Similarly without shining the light of conscious awareness (being still, honest & brave) on to all of your shadow aspects you’ll stumble over them repeatedly: old, limiting relationship patterns and dramas will repeat until you turn on the light of your authentic expression.
Turning the light of conscious awareness on to your shadow is not an instant process, it’s a life long journey of awareness and authenticity to illuminate all of your shadow. It takes great courage to become consciously aware of aspects within you that have been deemed, by your unconscious protector as unacceptable so are therefore rejected and repressed eg hatred, jealousy, greed, impatience, fear, guilt etc….
When you stop unconsciously suppressing, rejecting or justifying your shadow, it ceases to be the enemy. There ceases to be so much internal conflict between the conscious and subconscious within you. Instead your shadow becomes a source of great strength and awareness. By being curious and open to your intuitive feelings, sensations and impulses you naturally gain more insights about your WHOLE Being, there is inclusion of your fragmented parts. These parts fragmented in childhood when your authentic emotions weren’t held in love to explore them and understand them, in order to come to completion within your Being.
After all we do not become enlightened (complete and whole) by imagining and worshipping great gurus of light or ‘believing’ and convincing ourselves we are the light. We become enlightened as a ‘side effect’ of illuminating the shadow within us. Integration of shadow leads to holistic healing and balance which facilitates awakening. Awakening is conscious awareness and integration of shadow, nothing more, nothing less. Awakening is simply being aware of your inner processes as well as your outer worldly projections. They are One.
Illuminating the shadow within cultivates a bridge to a complete, authentic and truer version of yourself. If the shadow is ignored it grows and intensifies and shows itself in different ways eg repeatedly being triggered by others or causing triggers in others. Maybe whatever that quality is in them you are not accepting of or numbing out from is also within yourself.
The shadow NEVER goes away…IT IS YOU! :).
Suppressed, rejected and disowned aspects of you; cowering in the dark.
You can try to hide from it in activities, in pursuits of dreams and goals, in spiritual seeking and avoidance of any kind to numb yourself out from these discarnate parts for lifetimes…they’ll wait …they have eternity…THEY ARE YOU!
When you stop blaming the outside world, others, your circumstances, yourself, you start taking responsibility which is first step towards integration of your shadow.
Jung stated that not only do we have a ‘personal’ shadow but that our collective consciousness (society I suppose) also has a shadow (makes sense - what is society other than groups of humans), aspects of our collective that we’d rather not see. Just as an individual acts in ignorant and destructive ways when their shadow is repressed, so too does a society act in destructive ways. Again society is a conglomeration of mostly repressed and suppressed individuals.
Wars and societal conflicts often show themselves as a way of the shadow forcing its way to the surface for understanding and integration of what isn’t serving the whole, of what is dysfunctional. If the ‘true’ reasons for dysfunctionality are explored, acknowledged and accepted then maybe the wisdom gleaned through honesty and transparency about the conflict actually serves the whole group?
No different to conflict arising continually in a dysfunctional family dynamic…exactly the same. It arises for a reason, to draw our attention to dysfunction. If each member is mature enough, integrated enough, honest enough (a big one) and feels safe enough (another big one) to express their perspective without being attacked or arrogantly dismissed, then just maybe there’s enough clarity for pragmatic solutions to arise.
We all ‘think' our perspective is ‘right’ and it is in a way…so how do we ALL get our perspective at least heard without authoritarianism chiming in to be the only ‘righteous’ one. Authoritarianism shouts down or avoids or numbs out from, or cries about, any opposing view point. This is narcissism and we ALL have an aspect of it. The fight/ flight mechanism is involved in authoritarianism. It is obviously grounded or rather ungrounded in fear - I love you or hate you or I’m afraid of you, or, this is a great one “I’m spiritually more evolved than you so I rise above and unconditionally love bomb (actually numb out from) anything you do or say that opposes me, you can’t help your opinion, you are just lost and ignorant, you are just vibrationally not at where I’m at…LOVE YOU”. This just infuriates their loved ones and acquaintances because there’s no getting through and no real connection to these individuals, they are not integrated…they’re AWOL. It’s funny how spiritual identities humble themselves to a point (delusion) that they have no point of view, it’s tucked away, under wraps, in the shadow. If you have a human body you have a perspective!
(Spiritual narcissism is the trickiest kind. It is impenetrable! Whether you are at a yoga retreat or a New Age drumming circle you’ll likely hear all kinds of New Age BS beliefs; tales of star seeds and ‘higher’ missions and law of attraction teachings for the eligible candidates. I should know ha ha!! Been there, done that, worn the t shirt! (Not for long thankfully). We are so thirsty to belong that we’ll buy any concept and vehemently cling to it. Of course it’s natural to cling to any concept that makes us feel like life has meaning, like we are somehow important in the unfolding ‘bigger’ picture).
By examining with critical analysis the larger problems (dysfunction) within a community and primarily within our marriages and families we can recognise the influence of the repressed shadow. Ignoring or numbing out from or distracting ourselves from the problems or relationships that aren’t working won’t create necessary change; evolution. Change comes by the turning on of the light of conscious awareness. Choosing to face what we have always subconsciously ran away from, repressed and avoided about ourselves. Those uncomfortable conversations, individually and collectively, we must confront our darker sides. Eg systemic violence or daily injustices; they are not isolated events, they are manifestations of the shadow within all of us.
When an individual, a family and subsequently a country attempts to bury a history of oppression or injustices it often consciously and unconsciously repeats the same patterns, perhaps through cultural patterns accepted and repeated without ‘intelligent’ confrontation and intelligent analysis of what is dysfunctional. We really are not aware until we are!
Change can only begin when we face uncomfortable Truths. But confrontation of what isn’t working needs to be handled intelligently!!!! Intelligence in my book is an ability to hold ALL perspectives simultaneously (within and without) and weigh them up with an aim of pragmatic solutions for all. Unlike the climate we are currently experiencing where you are immediately cancelled if you hold any oppositional view point to ANYTHING!!!! This is blatant
Ly biased authoritarianism, fascism, narcissism dressed as liberalism. “Agree with me or I will fuck your life up!””. How can beneficial change for all possibly emerge from that premise?! To confront actual social issues in this way actually stymies the original cause that is supposedly being fought for!’ true, genuine causes get sabotaged by weakness, ungroundedness and fear masquerading as morality and virtue because it can hide in a group. In my humble opinion, which I don’t arrogantly believe is the only ‘right’ one, it is suppressed emotion that explodes out in to ‘bandwagon’ causes that have no intelligent basis or rationale. It’s repressed hatred looking for an outlet; this is becoming more and more obvious in the incredibly polarised view points and the violence that comes with that that we are seeing in our societies.
Our personal shadow is made up of everything we’d rather not see, can’t see or just plain refuse to see about ourselves. Our insecurities, fears, weaknesses or impulses, any ‘undesired’ traits. Any aspect basically that does not align with the image we wish to present to the world. These repressed aspects often surface during times of stress that’s when the ‘nice’ mask momentarily slips. If an individual only ever shows a ‘nice’ mask, trust me, they are faking it. They have meticulously curated a ‘nice’ mask that hides their actual feelings; they are able to smile so sweetly and play the ‘kind soul’ while underneath they are hiding seething resentment. I never understood how people were even capable of that, now I know, ‘survival’!. Did you know individuals can hide anger and resentment so deep down that they are not even aware they harbour it….and yet it dances unconsciously through their lives keeping deep, authentic, REAL connection with others at bay.
Can you think of a time when your emotional reactions were out of proportion to the event? It would have been your shadow making an appearance; trying to bring your attention to unexplored, unresolved, unintegrated parts of your psyche. Our shadow causes so much inner conflict. Eg Imagine a person who hides their sensitivity and who behaves more harshly in an attempt to be accepted, to stay safe in the ‘tribe.’ This creates a fracture between who they really are and the image they feel they must maintain. The greater this fracture grows the more difficult it becomes to integrate the shadow. Over time this can lead to anxiety, depression and self loathing (if introverted) and/ or behaviours even they personally would find incomprehensible when extroverted. I’m using these words as verbs here :). Neither expression of shadow is more morally superior btw. Same stick, different ends.
The shadow is most definitely not the enemy, although it definitely seems that way until it is met with openness, love and softness, even though you may hate those parts of yourself :). It controls you unconsciously until you face it head on. It is your creative life force, it houses so much untapped potential. Eg Many artists find their creative juices when exploring the darker aspects of their psyche, having the honesty to look deep inside and see what’s there and expressing these shadows externally in art forms. Others may channel repressed anger & rage in to passion of causes that actually benefit society as a whole.
As the psyche becomes integrated life gains personal and collective meaning. We are here to be EVERY part of ourselves; to return to Wholeness, not by praying or wishing for it…WE RETURN TO WHOLENESS BY KEEPING IT REAL!!
One amazing and fascinating aspect of the shadow is its ability to see reflected in another that which we refuse or simply can’t see within ourselves. Then it goes on a Witch hunt to kill that aspect perceived in another (metaphorically and sometimes literally); actually subconsciously trying to relieve ourselves of it. Imagine someone who despises dishonesty with a vengeance yet they are incapable of seeing how they may bend the truth to suit their advantage. Or a person who despises beautiful people looking amazing because they hide the fact to themselves that they too want to spend time on their appearance and look beautiful.
Projection is insidious because it disguises itself as moral judgements, harsh criticism or deep dislikes and disdain.
How often do we see rage in people about seemingly minor things, often it masks things about ourselves that we really can’t face. But paradoxically this behaviour strengthens the shadow making it even more destructive!
Overtly spiritual people are often hiding in a spiritual ego to avoid their shadow.
The more we become aware of our shadow the less likely we are to project it on to others; the more authentic and whole we become. The more authentic we are, the more naturally and effortlessly contented we are.
So funny the more my body & subconscious mind integrates the less and less inclined it is to ingest ‘spiritual’ material (books, videos etc…). I can’t remember the last impulse to reach for a ‘spiritual’ fix!
The less we seek completion in the world and others…adopting every fleeting ideology…be it spiritual or moral or ethical superiority…then we are left with the Truth of ourselves…trust me that is enough to be getting on with before we attempt to ‘improve’ the world with our immature, ignorant and simplistic reference points that we’ve absorbed….then we merely begin the true path (just scratching the surface) to becoming integrated…Whole…THEN…maybe….j
….just maybe…
we begin to inject a little authenticity in to our individual being, our own family dynamics and little circle first!
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