Shadow: An Essential Part of Human Psychology
“The best political, social and spiritual work we can do is to withdraw the projection of our own Shadow onto others.” — Carl Jung
Carl Jung is an historic figure in the study of human psychology and has contributed immensely to the understanding of the unconscious aspects of ourselves. He was the first to use the word “Shadow” to describe the human unconsciousness. He felt that conflict between individuals, groups and countries was a failure to resolve the issue of our own Shadow.
Building on Carl Jung’s work, Robert Johnson wrote a book called Owning Your Own Shadow: Understanding the Dark Side of the Human Psyche. Robert Johnson describes the reconciliation of opposites as the integration of Shadow and Ego, and describes this process as not only leading to wholeness but to spirituality.
Robert Bly wrote A Little Book on the Human Shadow and describes the same process of integration that Robert Johnson does. In addition, Robert Bly uses the metaphor of “dragging a bag behind us that is weighted down with neglected parts of our unconscious”.
Debbie Ford wrote The Dark Side of the Light Chasers: Reclaiming your Power, Creativity, Brilliance and Dreams. There are numerous other authors with the same message, including Dr. James Hollis, Connie Zwieg and even Marianne Williamson.
So what is Shadow? Dr. Jung’s simple definition is that Shadow is the unconscious part of ourselves. How can it be that we have a large part of our psyche and our psychic energy that we are not conscious of? I believe the process starts very early in life. I believe that we are born with a personality type which we use to interact with others and that we also use our personality to defend ourselves from emotional wounding. If we are born in to a kind, loving family, then we have less need for our personality type and therefore are less rigid and more expansive in our interactions with others. If we are born into a more difficult birth family that is not as capable of protecting and loving us as children, then we become more rigid and tightly cling to defensive aspects of our personality type. All of us put some aspects of ourselves into Shadow no matter the environment that we experience as children, but some of us relegate a larger portion of our potential to Shadow and cling desperately to our personality type in order to defend ourselves.
We individually choose to send aspects of ourselves that we do not think are useful into Shadow. For those who know the enneagram, those disowned parts of ourselves are type specific and the purpose of disowning parts of ourselves is to solidify who we are with no uncertainty. For type 3, I am Successful and just so that it is clear, I do not even acknowledge the possibility that I am or could ever be unsuccessful. Obviously, this is a false position, but this process is true for every enneagram type.
In addition to us choosing to push parts of ourselves into Shadow, our family and society ask us to disown parts of ourselves. For instance, anger, sexuality, hyperactivity, selfishness, and arrogance might be deemed unacceptable by our parents, and they can insist that we disown these parts of ourselves. When we enter school, our teachers point out behavior that they want us to push into Shadow, and perhaps our Church and peer groups do as well. With all of these powerful entities asking us to disown parts of who we are, sometimes we lose our own authenticity.
What happens to the parts of ourselves that we place in Shadow? Not only do they not disappear, they also retain their energy. They want to be acknowledged, invited back into our lives and even honored for the role they play in shaping who we are. I believe that there is value in all aspects of our Shadow. Anger carries energy and may be used to protect ourselves or correct an injustice. However, if we acknowledge and honor our anger, then we should not export it indiscriminately onto others. The ultimate resolution of Shadow is to bring all of Shadow to consciousness and to view Shadow objectively and with compassion. Wholeness lies in the union of Ego (personality type) and Shadow.
One of my metaphors for Shadow is that when we disown part of our psychic energy, we place it in a storage unit. The energy is bouncing around inside the unit, banging into walls and trying to escape. One of the escape valves in human psychology is projection of the disowned emotional characteristics of ourselves onto others. If I do not want to recognize my own arrogance, then I find someone who has some degree of arrogance and I add my arrogance to the burden that he is already carrying. Psychological projection is a defense mechanism in which we attribute to others aspects of ourselves that we are unwilling to acknowledge as belonging to us.
Another release for Shadow is to act out the energy of Shadow unconsciously. I am convinced that the attraction of Raves (organized dance parties that are frequently associated with drug and alcohol usage and perhaps promiscuity) is that these settings give permission for the unbridled release of our socially unacceptable behavior. Likewise, Cage Fighting between two men or two women is socially sanctioned violence. By watching, we dissipate the energy associated with our own aggressive impulses. Why should we embrace Shadow and acknowledge its presence in our life and society? Shadow burns energy, and if we don’t acknowledge it for ourselves, we will be spending our energy guarding the storage unit to make sure that Shadow does not escape. We also run the risk of acting out Shadow or making decisions based on misunderstandings of our options to deal with our Shadow. In addition, projections can lead to disastrous consequences for other people. Burning witches at the stake is an example of projecting negative anima (negative femininity) onto females. Also, if we don’t acknowledge Shadow, we are missing opportunities for brilliance, creativity and even our own power (Debbie Ford’s book “The Light Chasers”).
“Everything that irritates us about others can lead us to an understanding of ourselves.” — Carl Jung
To summarize, Shadow is the unconscious parts of ourselves. It is just as important as our personality type, which we see as our conscious self. If we do not acknowledge Shadow it will express itself in inappropriate behavior or projection of the suppressed energy on to others.
Projection is a potentially hurtful defense mechanism. Racism, homophobia, and geniophobia are all examples of projection. Fortunately, most examples of projection are less destructive but still harmful. When we project our unconscious aspects of ourselves on to others, we miss the opportunity to incorporate them into our wholeness. In addition, projecting our own arrogance or laziness or aggressive behavior onto another individual has consequences for them also.
We can recognize and deal with Shadow appropriately by using two exercises.
Exercise number 1: “I am/I am not” (see attachment). We are both “I am” and “I am not”. This exercise simply helps us to visualize the aspects of ourselves that we deny.
Exercise number 2 is as follows. Without identifying the person by name, fill in the blanks in the following sentence:
I dislike ____________________________ because (he/she/they) are so __________________________.
My own personal example would be: “I dislike this poker player because he is so arrogant.”
Using this simple exercise, you can continue writing as many statements as needed to identify the unconscious parts of your Shadow that you have projected on to others.
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With Love and Compassion,
Steve Purdom
