Carl Jung and the Shadow: The Ultimate Guide to the Human Dark Side
Part 1: How well do you know yourself?
If you’re like most people, you probably have a decent idea about your own desires, values,
beliefs, and opinions.
You have a personal code that you choose to follow that dictates whether you are being a
“good” person.
If there is any one thing you can know in this universe, surely it is who you are.
But what if you’re wrong?
What if much of what you have come to believe about yourself, your morality, and what
drives you is not an accurate reflection of who you truly are?
Now, before you launch into a, “Hey, you don’t know me, you don’t know my life, you don’t
know what I’ve been through!”-style defense, ponder this for a second:
Have you ever said or done something really shitty, mostly on an impulse, that you later
regretted?
After the damage was done and the other person involved was hurt, you couldn’t bury your
shame fast enough. “Why did I say that?” you might have asked yourself in frustration.
It’s that “Why?” question that indicates the presence of a blind spot. And though the reason
for your reaction may have been obvious (perhaps even “justified”), the lack of control you
had over yourself betrays the existence of a different person lurking beneath your carefully
constructed idea of who you are.
If this person is coming into focus for you, congratulations—you’ve just met your shadow
self.
The Shadow: A Formal Introduction
“The shadow is a moral problem that challenges the whole ego-personality, for no
one can become conscious of the shadow without considerable moral effort. To
become conscious of it involves recognizing the dark aspects of the personality as
present and real. This act is the essential condition for any kind of self-knowledge.”
— Carl Jung, Aion (1951)
The “shadow” is a concept first coined by Swiss psychiatrist Carl Jung that describes those
aspects of the personality that we choose to reject and repress. For one reason or another, we
all have parts of ourselves that we don’t like—or that we think society won’t like—so we
push those parts down into our unconscious psyches. It is this collection of repressed
aspects of our identity that Jung referred to as our shadow.
If you’re one of those people who generally loves who they are, you might be wondering
whether this is true of you. “I don’t reject myself,” you might be thinking. “I love everything
about me.”
However, the problem is that you’re not necessarily aware of those parts of your personality
that you reject. According to Jung’s theory, we distance ourselves psychologically from those
behaviors, emotions, and thoughts that we find dangerous.
Rather than confront something that we don’t like, our mind pretends it does not exist.
Aggressive impulses, taboo mental images, shameful experiences, immoral urges, fears,
irrational wishes, unacceptable sexual desires—these are a few examples of shadow
aspects, things people contain but do not admit to themselves that they contain. Here are a
few examples of common shadow behaviors:
1. A tendency to harshly judge others, especially if that judgment comes on an impulse.
You may have caught yourself doing this once or twice when you pointed out to a friend how
“ridiculous” someone else’s outfit looked. Deep down, you would hate to be singled out this
way, so doing it to another reassures you that you’re smart enough not to take the same risks
as the other person.
2. Pointing out one’s own insecurities as flaws in another.
The internet is notorious for hosting this. Scan any comments section and you’ll find an
abundance of trolls calling the author and other commenters “stupid,” “moron,” “idiot,”
“untalented,” “brainwashed,” and so on. Ironically, internet trolls are some of the most
insecure people of all.
3. A quick temper with people in subordinate positions of power.
I caught this one all the time when I worked as a cashier, and it is the bane of all customer
service employees. People are quick to cop an attitude with people who don’t have the power
to fight back. Exercising power over another is the shadow’s way of compensating for one’s
own feelings of helplessness in the face of greater force.
4. Frequently playing the “victim” of every situation.
Rather than admit wrongdoing, people go to amazing lengths to paint themselves as the poor,
innocent bystander who never has to take responsibility.
5. A willingness to step on others to achieve one’s own ends.
People often celebrate their own greatness without acknowledging times that they may have
cheated others to get to their success. You can see this happen on the micro level as people
vie for position in checkout lines and cut each other off in traffic. On the macro level,
corporations rig policy in their favor to gain tax cuts at the expense of the lower classes.
6. Unacknowledged biases and prejudices.
People form assumptions about others based on their appearance all the time—in fact, it’s a
pretty natural (and often useful—e.g. noticing signs of a dangerous person) thing to do.
However, we can easily take this too far, veering into toxic prejudice. But with so much
social pressure to eradicate prejudice, people often find it easier to “pretend” that they’re not
racist/homophobic/xenophobic/sexist, etc., than to do the deep work it would take to override
or offset particularly destructive stereotypes they may be harboring.
7. A messiah complex.
Some people think they’re so “enlightened” that they can do no wrong. They construe
everything they do as an effort to “save” others—to help them “see the light,” so to speak.
This is actually an example of spiritual bypassing, yet another manifestation of the shadow.
Projection: Seeing Our Darkness in Others
“If only it were all so simple! If only there were evil people somewhere insidiously
committing evil deeds, and it were necessary only to separate them from the rest of us and
destroy them. But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human
being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart?”
― Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
Seeing the shadow within ourselves is extremely difficult, so it’s rarely done—but we’re
really good at seeing undesirable shadow traits in others. Truth be told, we revel in it. We
love calling out unsightly qualities in others—in fact, the entire celebrity gossip industry is
built on this fundamental human tendency.
Seeing in others what we won’t admit also lies within is what Jung calls “projection.”
Although our conscious minds are avoiding our own flaws, they still want to deal with them
on a deeper level, so we magnify those flaws in others. First we reject, then we project.
One way that we all experience this dichotomy of rejection and projection, for example, is
when we have a hard time admitting that we’re wrong.
When I was seven, I had the grand idea that my younger brother and I would run away.
Nothing was particularly unpleasant in our home lives at the time; when my brother asked
why we were running away, I simply shrugged and said, “Because all the kids do it.”
We packed our blue Sesame Street suitcase with all the essentials: cookies, toys, and juice
boxes. After taking the screen down from our first-story bedroom window, we tossed the
suitcase onto the ground below. I urged my brother to jump out first and, with complete trust
in me, he did. As he crouched behind the thorny hedge just beneath the window, I swung my
leg outside and sat poised between the safety of my bedroom and the open air of the outside
world.
I looked at the cars driving by, suddenly aware of the boundary I was about to cross. On one
side of the window I was safe; my mom knew where I was and I was doing everything she
expected me to. On the other side of the window, however, rules were being broken. If she
knew that we were going outside without her knowledge, our mom would surely kill us.
This moment of panic inspired in me a sudden need to retreat into the safety zone. I called
down to my brother, telling him that I had forgotten something and would be right back—
instead I hurried to tell my mom that he was running away. She scrambled outside, where she
found him in the bushes, still waiting for me. The look of betrayal contorted his features as
he gaped at me, and I parried with a self-righteous stare. He was grounded, while I became
his “saviour.”
While it’s easy to see my behavior as simply that of a shitty, mean sister (which, trust me, I
have assured myself repeatedly that I was being), there was actually an entire invisible
psychological process happening beneath the surface. As soon as I realized that my brother
and I were doing something that wasn’t the fun and brazen endeavor I imagined and would
actually land us in a massive heap of trouble, I had to devise a way to protect myself from the
consequences.
My seven-year-old “big sister” ego identity wouldn’t permit me to admit that I was wrong—
such an act would put my social status into question for me (and more importantly, my
subservient little brother). Instead, I projected the wrongness onto my brother and ran to tell
my mom. I suspect that my unconscious mind wanted to see the consequences of that
wrongness played out in order to learn the lesson of how to avoid the trouble in the future… I
just maybe didn’t want to experience those consequences for myself.
By projecting the deviant behavior onto my poor little brother (whom, I assure you, I spoil to
death in our older age as penance), I avoided having to confront the dangerous behavior in
myself. And this is something that, in our own ways, we all do.
In this case, being in the wrong was the thing I rejected in myself. Most people hate admitting
when they’re wrong because doing so is accompanied by the uncomfortable emotions of
embarrassment, guilt, and shame. Rather than confront the possibility of being wrong,
therefore, people often go to extreme lengths to prove to themselves and others that they
are right—even if it means hurting someone else.
Unfortunately, our impulse to avoid the unpleasant confrontation with the truth is so strong
that we remain completely unaware of what’s happening. The mind ignores and buries all
evidence of our shortcomings to protect itself—i.e. to prevent the experience of pain—storing
it deep within our unconscious minds. This doesn’t make those thoughts, memories, and
emotions go away, but it does put them somewhere we don’t have to “see” them.
Our conscious minds are where our ego personality dwells—the “I” that walks around every
day talking to other people. When you think of who “you” are, this is the part of yourself you
usually identify with.
However, that “you” is only the part of your identity that is visible to you. Your conscious
awareness is like a light enabling you to observe what is happening inside your mind.
Beneath that conscious “light” is a whole world of “darkness” containing those very aspects
of ourselves that we have strived to ignore. The ego is only the tip of the iceberg floating
above the sea, but the unconscious mind is the vast mountain of ice lurking beneath the
surface.
Much of that bulk consists of our repressed thoughts, memories, emotions, impulses, traits,
and actions. Jung envisioned those rejected pieces coming together to form a large, unseen
piece of our personality beneath our awareness, secretly controlling much of what we say,
believe, and do.
This secret piece of the personality is the shadow self.
Origins of the Shadow
Our society teaches us that certain behaviors, emotional patterns, sexual desires, lifestyle
choices, etc. are inappropriate. These “inappropriate” qualities are usually those that disrupt
the flow of a functioning society—even if that disruption means challenging people to accept
things that make them uncomfortable. Anyone who is too challenging becomes outcast, and
everyone else moves on.
Now, we humans are highly social creatures, and the last thing we want is to be
excommunicated from the rest of our tribe. So, in order to avoid being cast out, we do
whatever it takes to fit in. Early in our childhood development, we find where the line
between what is socially “acceptable” and “unacceptable” is, and we spend the rest of our
lives trying to toe it.
When we cross that line, as we all frequently do, we suffer the pain of society’s backlash.
People judge us, condemn us, gossip about us, and the unpleasant emotions that come with
this experience can quickly become overwhelming. However, we don’t actually need people
to observe our deviances to suffer for them. Eventually, we internalize society’s backlash so
deeply that we inflict it on ourselves.
The only way to escape from this perpetual recurring pain is to mask it. Enter the ego. We tell
ourselves stories about who we are, who we are not, and what we would never do to protect
ourselves from suffering the consequences of being an outcast. Ultimately, we believe these
stories, and once we develop a firm belief about something, we unconsciously discard any
information that contradicts that belief. In the world of psychology, this is known as
confirmation bias: humans tend to interpret and ignore information in ways that confirm
what they already believe.
The problem is that literally everyone possesses qualities that society has deemed
undesirable. People fall short of others’ expectations, have a temper flare-up, are excessively
gassy, etc. The ideal individual in any society is one who lives up to impossible standards.
What no one wants to admit to others is that we are all secretly failing to meet those
standards. Women wear makeup, men use Axe deodorant, advertisers Photoshop celebrities,
people filter their personalities with photos and status updates on social media—all to mask
perceived flaws and project an image of “perfection.” Jung called these social masks we all
wear our “personas.”
“Unfortunately there can be no doubt that man is, on the whole, less good than he imagines
himself or wants to be. Everyone carries a shadow, and the less it is embodied in the
individual’s conscious life, the blacker and denser it is. If an inferiority is conscious, one
always has a chance to correct it. Furthermore, it is constantly in contact with other
interests, so that it is continually subjected to modifications. But if it is repressed and isolated
from consciousness, it never gets corrected.”
— Carl Jung, Psychology and Religion (1938)
Uncommon thoughts and emotions put us at an even higher risk of being alienated from
society. Ideas that are challenging or contrary to social norms are considered dangerous and
are best left unexpressed if one wishes to “fit in.”
Emotionally, any mood other than happy, or at least neutral, is considered undesirable. Rather
than admit we are going through a difficult experience, thus making others uncomfortable
with the knowledge that we are uncomfortable, we say that we’re fine when we’re really not.
Ironically, this need to avoid things that make us and others uncomfortable undermines our
ability to confront and either heal or integrate them. And if this failure to heal is bad for us
as individuals, the effects of that failure on a mass scale are catastrophic.
When our cultures were in their infancies, past humans beheld their more animalistic
tendencies (murder, rape, war, etc.) with revulsion and fear. They developed a moral code,
most often based on religious beliefs, about how the ideal, or “enlightened,” human should
behave.
While these ideals were intended to be inspiring, giving humans a model for spiritual growth,
they were challenging in their tendencies to go against fundamental aspects of human nature.
In many ways this is a good thing, since a society that allows rape, murder, and rampant
violence does not tend to be a very good one to live in.
However, our collective moral codes fall short because they only offer ideals. Religious and
secular morals only tell us who to be, not how to become that person. When solutions are
offered, they are bogged down in esoteric practice that the average person has a hard time
understanding—at least not without years of mentoring and study, something that not all of
us have the luxury to undergo. We can’t all be monks, after all.
The result is that we struggle to change in ways that require us to suppress our base animal
instincts without giving them safe outlets through which to manifest. In other words, we push
our failures into the unconscious, where we can ignore them and go on pretending to be the
people society wants us to be. We get to pretend to be enlightened without actually doing the
deep inner work that it takes to move through the developmental process.
Enlightenment: The Shadow Formula
“Until you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life and you will call it fate.”
— Carl Jung
Jung’s proposed solution to this schism is for the individual to undergo “shadow work.” What
we repress never stays repressed, it lives on in the unconscious—and, despite what our egos
would have us believe, the unconscious mind is the one really running the show.
“Filling the conscious mind with ideal conceptions is a characteristic of Western theosophy,
but not the confrontation with the shadow and the world of darkness. One does not become
enlightened by imagining figures of light, but by making the darkness conscious.”
— Carl Jung, “The Philosophical Tree,” Alchemical Studies (1945)
Shadow work, then, is the process of making the unconscious conscious. In doing so, we gain
awareness of our unconscious impulses and can then choose whether and how to act on them.
We begin this process when we take a step back from our normal patterns of behavior and
observe what is happening within us. Meditation is a great way to develop this ability to step
back from ourselves, with the goal being to gain the ability to do this as we go about our
daily lives.
The next step is to question. When we observe ourselves reacting to psychological triggers,
or events that prompt an instant and uncontrolled reaction from us, we must learn to pause
and ask ourselves, “Why am I reacting this way?” This teaches us to backtrack through our
emotions to our memories, which hold the origins of our emotional programming.
Identifying triggers can be a difficult process due to our natural desire to avoid
acknowledging the shadow. Our tendency is to justify our actions after the fact, when really
the best thing we can do is avoid acting reactively or unconsciously in the first place.
Cultivating an awareness of the shadow is the first step to identifying our triggers—but
before we can do that, we must first overcome our instinctive fear of our shadows.
Perhaps the biggest issue people face when confronted with the shadow is the question, “Am
I a bad person?” Acknowledging the shadow means acknowledging that we contain
darkness, a capacity for malevolence. As Jung wrote in Psychology of the Unconscious:
“It is a frightening thought that man also has a shadow side to him, consisting not just of
little weaknesses and foibles, but of a positively demonic dynamism. The individual seldom
knows anything of this; to him, as an individual, it is incredible that he should ever in any
circumstances go beyond himself. But let these harmless creatures form a mass, and there
emerges a raging monster; and each individual is only one tiny cell in the monster’s body,
so that for better or worse he must accompany it on its bloody rampages and even assist it
to the utmost. Having a dark suspicion of these grim possibilities, man turns a blind eye to
the shadow-side of human nature.”
Jung indicates that under certain circumstances, all human beings have the capacity to do
horrible, brutal things. And somewhat paradoxically, familiarizing ourselves with these dark
potentialities and accepting them as part of us is perhaps the best way to ensure that they are
never actualized. But again, it’s profoundly difficult to do this, particularly because we
desperately don’t want to think of ourselves as “bad” people.
So, do taboo thoughts, hurtful actions, and the capacity to commit atrocities make you a bad
person? No, not necessarily. Of course, everyone has a different definition of how “good”
and “bad” people act—and those moral definitions are to some extent irreducibly subjective
and arbitrary—but when it comes to the general consensus of “goodness,” you can make
mistakes and hurt others without having an awareness of what you’re doing and still be a
good person. Beyond that, once you acknowledge the massive potential for both light and
darkness within each human being, the dichotomy of “good” people vs “bad” people begins
to seem reductive and misleading. Above all, you’re human, and as such, too complex to be
neatly categorized.
Nonetheless, the idea of being a good person is not without merit, and most of us intuitively
understand that it’s a fine idea to move in the direction of greater self-awareness, selfmastery, and compassion. Doing difficult shadow work—recognizing and correcting our
unconscious destructive patterns—is a crucial aspect of becoming a better person.
Once we identify the original sources of our psychological triggers (e.g. repressed fear, pain,
aggression, etc.), only then can we begin to heal and integrate those wounded parts of
ourselves. Integration, in Jung’s definition, means that we cease rejecting parts of our
personalities and find ways to bring them forward into our everyday lives. We accept
our shadows and seek to unlock the wisdom they contain. Fear becomes an opportunity for
courage. Pain is a catalyst for strength and resilience. Aggression is transmuted into warriorlike passion. This wisdom informs our actions, our decisions, and our interactions with
others. We understand how others feel and respond to them with compassion, knowing that
they are being triggered themselves.
One aspect of integrating the shadow is healing our psychological wounds from early
childhood and beyond. As we embark on this work, we begin to understand that much of our
shadow is the result of being hurt and trying to protect ourselves from re-experiencing that
hurt. We can accept what happened to us, acknowledge that we did not deserve the hurt and
that these things were not our fault, and reclaim those lost pieces to move back into
wholeness. (For especially deep traumas, it is advised to work with a trained psychologist on
these issues.) This is a very intensive and involved process and merits another separate article
to cover, but those who wish to know more can find a myriad of information on the subject in
books, videos, articles, and self-improvement groups.
Unfortunately, many philosophies insist that people can become enlightened without doing
this deep inner work. The proposed solution within these philosophies seems to be to actively
ignore unconscious impulses rather than to dig in and understand them.
Not trying to point fingers, but many of these philosophies come from Newer (*cough,
cough*, Age) ideas, which often misinterpret ancient teachings to fit into the modern desire
for convenience and comfort. I’d love to rip these teachings a new one in another article, but
for now, it is good to be wary of anyone who insists that you can reach enlightenment
without working on those parts of yourself that are messy and painful. Ultimately, you’ll
have to use your own discretion to decide what resonates most with you—but don’t be
surprised to find yourself facing a crisis if you opt to take the path of avoidance.
As Jung points out, we can’t correct undesirable behaviors until we deal with them head on.
The shadow self acts out like a disobedient child until all aspects of the personality are
acknowledged and integrated. Whereas many spiritual philosophies often denounce the
shadow as something to be overcome and transcended, Jung insists that the true aim is not to
defeat the shadow self, but to incorporate it with the rest of the personality. It is only
through this merging that true wholeness can be attained, and when it is, that is
enlightenment.
The Jungian model of the psyche. Here the shadow is referred to as the “shade.”
If You Want to Save the World, Tend to Your Shadow
“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 (1938)
While shadow work is a rewarding way to cultivate a deep and intimate understanding of
ourselves, and thus evolve as individuals, the truth is that the world needs us to embark on
this journey sooner rather than later. The collective shadow houses society’s basest impulses:
those of greed, hatred, and violence. If one person acting on these impulses can do a lot of
harm to others, what happens when we act on them as a collective?
We can see the answer manifest in our world today. Unfettered greed leads to a stop-atnothing drive to boost profits, which takes its toll on the Earth as we alter ecosystems and
climate patterns to exhaust natural resources. Regional violence escalates in the areas affected
by famine, drought, and climate disasters that irresponsible consumer practices,
overpopulation, and industrialization create. The poor become poorer as corporate interests
sway public opinion to form policies that benefit the rich at the expense of everyone else—
especially those who are most disadvantaged.
We hate and fear what we don’t understand, prompting us to pursue violence against people
rather than seek diplomatic solutions with one another. We project our own worst qualities
onto our enemies to justify the violence against them. We hoard resources, ignore the
suffering of others, and continue the patterns of behavior that pollute the world we all call
home.
These behaviors are not exclusive to the Western world, or to the Middle East, or South
America, Africa, or any one region or people. We all do it, either by participating in the
entities directly involved in the conflicts, or by allowing them to continue through our own
inaction.
While these large-scale problems may seem impossible for any one person to influence, we
each have more power in this game than we may think. For all our discussion of the abstract
power of societies, they are still made up of individual people. When two people connect,
they form a relationship. A group of relationships forms a community, and the place where
communities intersect is what we come to know as society.
Each of us is responsible for forming the social codes of our communities. Racism, for
example, is a huge issue in the United States in the present moment and Americans are
struggling to find a way to correct this prejudice and the inequality it creates. Whereas
previously racism was a way to structure American society, modern Americans have decided
this racial hierarchy is no longer appropriate. So, now, when people call out and denounce
racism in their communities, they establish that racism is not an acceptable part of the social
code. On the other hand, people who practice racism establish that it is appropriate, and
people who ignore racism enable it.
Every day, you are building the culture of your community. When you smile at strangers, you
promote a culture of kindness and connection. If you avoid making eye contact or speak to
others coldly, you build a community based on distrust and animosity.
Our actions extend far beyond ourselves—they have a ripple effect on society as a whole.
Consider cities like New York that have a reputation for being “rude.” Can a city really be
rude? No, of course not—but all the individual people living there can.
Unfriendly communities are not hostile because of just one or two people, but because the
majority of people act that way. When you have a large group of people living in close
proximity all projecting and acting out their unconscious impulses on one another, the result
is a toxic culture. People who hurt each other stop trusting one another, and without trust,
communities fall apart and individuals become isolated.
However, this wave can be countered with a conscious effort to breed trust, connection, and
kindness.
These connections rebuild fragmented communities, helping us to overcome our isolation and
tap into a collective or community mentality. When this happens we stop thinking selfishly
and start thinking empathetically and cooperatively. As loving, healthy communities connect
with one another, they work together to create public policies that benefit more people,
extend help to those who need it, and work to preserve the natural world they inhabit.
And this all begins with you.
When you work to heal and integrate your shadow, you find that you stop living so reactively
and unconsciously, thereby hurting others less. You build trust in your relationships, and the
people whose lives you touch open themselves to others, building even more healthy
relationships. Even random acts of kindness to strangers will increase the likelihood that they
will be kind to strangers in turn, which will lighten the mood of a community overall.
You hold within you the power to catalyze a ripple that will vibrate through the lives of the
people around you. The world desperately needs more kindness, more trust, and more
cooperation to heal divisions, address pressing global issues, and avoid catastrophes that
could lead to the extinction of humanity and many other species. Doing deep inner work may
seem like a self-absorbed process, but you’ll come to find that, at its core, it truly becomes
about so much more than just you.
Save your shadow self, save the world.
Part 2: Am I a Bad Person? Navigating an Encounter with Your Shadow Self
Have you asked yourself the question?
You know the one I mean.
Maybe you said or did something out of character. Maybe you couldn’t even explain it to
yourself. Maybe someone got hurt. Maybe you were hurt. Perhaps you were afraid of what
you saw in you.
And then, before you could even begin to make sense of what happened, there it was. The
Question.
Am I a bad person?
Rings a bell, doesn’t it? No, no — don’t feel bad. You’re not alone in your self-questioning.
But let’s look at how you responded to the question.
Did you quickly dismiss the thought, afraid to find the answer? Or perhaps the question sent
you spiralling down the rabbit hole of self-doubt?
No matter your immediate response, the question certainly must have shaken you to your
core. You couldn’t unsee what you saw, and no matter how much you tried to push the
question from your mind, the aftertaste of it lingered, tainting your perception of yourself.
The truth is, almost everyone wants to think of themselves as a good person, a moral person,
a person who always puts their best foot forward and lives in the world with integrity.
But there is another universal truth that is much harder to digest: everyone — no matter how
well-intentioned and pure of heart — has a dark side.
Meet Your Shadow Self
The “shadow” is a term coined by Swiss psychiatrist Carl Jung to describe those aspects of
our personalities that we reject and repress. By society’s standards, we all embody traits that
are “unhealthy,” “inappropriate,” or “unacceptable.” Maybe we’re jealous. Maybe we’re
harshly judgmental. Maybe we backstab others to get ahead.
But the problem is, these kinds of thoughts and behaviors don’t jive well with our images of
who we are. After all, we like to see ourselves as good people, right?
So, the mind ignores those aspects of ourselves. We don’t own our shadow. We repress it, we
justify it, we excuse it, we call it something else.
“The persona is the mask we wear in relation to the world and others. It is created through a
combination of socialization, societal expectations, one’s experience of the world, and the
natural attributes and tendencies of the individual. It combines elements of how we want to
see ourselves, ideally, and how we want the world to see us, as well as how the world does
see us and wants us to be. Our persona defines our social identity; it is constructed in
relation to the roles we play in our lives and in our world, how we want to look and be seen.
It is the face we wear to be presentable and acceptable to our society. It is not necessarily
who we really are, but who we want and pretend to be to others and, many times, to
ourselves.”
— David Schoen, War of the Gods in Addiction
However, — and yes, this will be on the test — we cannot heal what we refuse to
acknowledge.
— Carl Jung, Aion (1951). CW 9, Part II: P.14
According to Jung, true self-knowledge is the only path to wholeness. The key to taming the
shadow is not to ignore or deny it, but to accept and integrate it.
“One does not become enlightened by imagining figures of light, but by making the darkness
conscious.”
— Carl Jung
This is why The Question is so important to our self-development. If we do not have the
courage to confront ourselves, how can we ever hope to be the best version of us that we can
be?
You might be thinking, “Sure, sure, that all sounds great — but how do I begin to do this
shadow work?”
Well, first, you have to know what to look for.
Mapping the Shadow
Before you can begin to work with your shadow, you need to know where to find it.
Remember, your shadow aspects are those that you have buried deep in your unconscious
mind, so you’ll need to create a psychological treasure map of sorts to dig them up.
Your shadow is a very tricky thing, and it’s had years to learn how best to hide from you.
However, the shadow doesn’t hide to vex you, but rather, to protect you.
Each shadow thought or behavior surrounds a core of pain within you. All of your traumas —
fears, humiliations, moments of rejection or abandonment, etc. — form tiny planets buried
beneath layers of reactionary behaviors.
Just as the Earth’s atmosphere shields us from the sun’s rays and prevents our oxygen from
escaping out into space, our shadows shield our traumas from outer triggers and prevent them
from seeping into our conscious awareness, which would keep us in a state of constant
suffering.
The sum of these repressed “planets” is the shadow — an entire universe within us that we
have yet to explore. But just as space is perfectly dark, so, too, is our unconscious mind —
blind spots in our personalities form obstacles between us and true self-knowledge.
Luckily, we can identify symptoms of the shadow to find its boundaries, enabling us to shine
the light of our conscious awareness into this vast unknown territory.
Every once in a while, you may find yourself reacting strongly to people or situations in ways
that you don’t understand. When this happens, you are likely being “triggered” on an
unconscious level. The adverse emotions that come up are a sign that your shadow is being
awakened in response to an old trauma that was reactivated — an old wound that was
reopened, perhaps without us even knowing what has happened. Here are some signs that you
are facing an encounter with your shadow.
Irrational anger or quick temperedness. One of the most common indications that your
shadow is being triggered is when you get very angry very quickly. You might snap at others
or lash out physically before you have even had a chance to think rationally about the
situation. You might later realize that your anger or actions were unjustified, yet you still
can’t shake the feeling of anger despite your reasoning.
Guilt. Ah, guilt — the bane of the Western psyche. Guilt is a complex emotion to unpack,
and the process is made so much more difficult by its prevalence in Western culture. So often
we feel guilty about things we shouldn’t feel guilty about, while we ignore the guilt that we
should feel when we wrong others. Whatever the case, guilt is a strong indicator that
something is going on beneath the surface.
Fear or anxiety. At its heart, the shadow contains all of our survival instincts. When we feel
threatened, the shadow rears its head, ready to jump to our defense. Feelings of fear or
anxiety are most common at the forefront of a shadow experience, so when they pop up, it’s
time to do some introspection.
Dark thoughts. Have you ever had a strong desire to punch someone in the face? Or maybe
you’ve imagined horrible things happening to someone who has wronged you. Perhaps
you’ve awakened from violent, fucked up dreams, or shaken yourself out of a daydream
where you were imagining disturbing scenarios. The truth is that we all have dark thoughts
on occasion, and their presence in our mind is a sign that our shadows are alive and well.
Impulsive behaviors. If you’ve ever grabbed something unnecessary in the checkout line,
blurted your thoughts without filter, or randomly “missed” the interstate exit that would take
you to the job you hate, then you are no stranger to impulsive behaviors. I realize that last
example was a bit overly specific, but … don’t mind that. The point is, acting or speaking on
impulse means that your shadow has jumped up and taken the wheel for a bit.
Unjustifiable hatred. As refined, modern, woke people, we’re not supposed to hate anyone
or anything. But just between you and me … there’s always that one person we absolutely
cannot stand. Everything about them sets us off, and we probably don’t even know why.
They’ve never done anything wrong to us, really, but there’s just something about them that
fucking grinds our gears. Well, ready for the plot twist? That’s your shadow right there,
darling.
Avoidance. This one is perhaps the trickiest, because we can be so good at avoiding people
and things that make us uncomfortable that we don’t even realize we’re doing it. It becomes
second nature to change the subject, or flip the channel, or avoid eye contact, or drive a
different route to avoid confronting something we don’t want to. Whether we avoid songs or
places because of the memories they hold, or avoid people or topics of conversation because
they challenge us, avoidance means a confrontation with the shadow is inevitable.
Perpetual negativity. We all know that one person who never seems to have anything
positive to say. They’re always having a bad day, always trash talking others, always
pessimistic about the future. Maybe the negativity is disguised as hip cynicism, or bold irony,
or too-cool aloofness, but the underlying cause is the same. And maybe that person actually
resides somewhere in our own minds. So, when everyone and everything else seems to suck,
that’s a sign that it is what’s going on inside that sucks. Er — well, we’ll say, “is unresolved
on a psychological level.”
Obsessive behavior. Are you one of those people who really needs things done a particular
way? Or maybe you get fixated on the way others pronounce certain words. Are you a
backseat driver? Do you micromanage others? Are you that person who always has to know
what everyone else is up to at all times? Do you go full stalker mode when you have a crush
on someone? All of these impulses boil down to one obsessive need: the need to control. And
obsession is the realm of the shadow.
“Closer examination of the dark characteristics – that is, the inferiorities constituting
the shadow – reveals that they have an emotional nature, a kind of autonomy, and
accordingly an obsessive or, better, possessive quality.”
— Carl Jung
Self-destructive behavior. Although self-destructive behavior can be apparent when it
comes in the form of substance abuse, dangerous risk-taking, or outwardly turbulent
behavior, this shadow drive has its more subtle side, as well. Negative self-talk, selfsabotage, defensiveness that kills all relationships and prevents true intimacy — these
behaviors are also self-destructive. And all destruction, both inner and outer, is the work of
the shadow.
Strong adverse reactions to criticism. No one really likes to be criticized. It is perfectly
natural to get upset when you do encounter criticism, since we all have egos and none of
them like to be challenged. However, if you find yourself reacting strongly to criticism, i.e.,
getting fiercely defensive, snapping or shouting, diverting the conversation, or reversing the
criticism in a counter-attack, chances are your shadow just got stepped on.
The human shadow is a vast and complex phenomenon, and it expresses itself in countless
ways. However, these are amongst the most common symptoms that will arise when you do
face an encounter with your own shadow.
So, now that we’ve affirmed that we all have shadows and identified where our own resides
in us, let’s take another look at the big question.
Am I A Bad Person?
So, truthfully, I cannot answer this question for you. It is a conversation that needs to happen
between you and your own soul. Society provides a template for what a “good person” looks
like — what a good person does, what a good person says, things that a good person would
never do, say, or think.
Perhaps a more accurate starting point would be to ask ourselves the following: can you be a
good person and still have a dark side? If you strive to treat others with compassion and
integrity, and live your life to the best of your abilities, does the existence of your dark side
negate all that and make you a bad person?
No. It simply makes you human.
Perhaps the problem stems from the fact that we dehumanize the human dark side. We look
at people whose dark overshadows their light — the murderers, the rapists, the terrorists, the
agitators — and we call them monsters. It is easier to label them and simplify the problem
than to look at each individual life, to address the cultural problem of how we deal with
mental illness, to trace the line of suffering in a family, to look at the cultural and societal
factors that contribute to that suffering. To properly address these issues would take a
massive shift on a cultural level, one that no individual could initiate on one’s own.
So, it’s easier to push the problem aside, to banish it to our prisons and our psychiatric wards,
to let darkness be the realm of the “other” — not the realm of every human mind.
“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. The endless series of shadow and doppelgänger figures in mythology, fairy tales and
literature ranges from Cain and Edom, by way of Judas and Hagen, to Stevenson’s Mr. Hyde
in the ugliest man of Nietzsche; again and again such figures have appeared and made their
bow before human consciousness, but the psychological meaning of this archetype of the
adversary has not yet dawned upon mankind.”
— Erich Neumann, Depth Psychology and a New Ethic
Now, back to our question. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve asked this of myself, or how
many times I’ve talked a loved one through the same question. We look around and perceive
the people around us to be so certain, so at peace in their own minds with who they are that
we fail to realize we are all asking ourselves the same thing.
Let’s ask the question another way. This is a vast oversimplification of a complex moral
problem, so it will prove problematic in some regards. But, by breaking it into an easier
question, we’ll improve our chances of finding a truer answer.
Are you hurting people (or animals) on purpose? Or, is the suffering you cause merely a
byproduct of your own pain, of your own defensiveness, of your own shadow at work in the
world? Do you gain satisfaction from creating suffering in others, or do you strive to avoid
causing pain, and work to rectify the situation when you do hurt others?
Of course, we can say that people who hurt people on purpose are also hurt. This is why this
line of questioning is problematic. And then there are those who fall in the murky gray area
of human nature — those who will be casually cruel to people in the service industry, exploit
their position of power over their subordinates at work, humiliate their peers in front of
others, etc.
But we will call conscious intention our baseline, because people who are awake to their own
compassion and empathy will do whatever they can to avoid inflicting pain on others.
It is a frightening thought that man also has a shadow side to him, consisting not just
of little weaknesses- and foibles, but of a positively demonic dynamism. The
individual seldom knows anything of this; to him, as an individual, it is incredible that
he should ever in any circumstances go beyond himself. But let these harmless
creatures form a mass, and there emerges a raging monster; and each individual is
only one tiny cell in the monster’s body, so that for better or worse he must
accompany it on its bloody rampages and even assist it to the utmost. Having a dark
suspicion of these grim possibilities, man turns a blind eye to the shadow-side of
human nature. Blindly he strives against the salutary dogma of original sin, which is
yet so prodigiously true. Yes, he even hesitates to admit the conflict of which he is so
painfully aware.
— Carl Jung, “On the Psychology of the Unconscious”
Now, the extent to which we are conscious of our intentions plays a big role in how we
answer this question for ourselves. Looking back at the behaviors of the casually cruel, we
have to ask ourselves, “Did this person wake up this morning and say to themselves, ‘I’m
going to go ruin a barista’s day today’? Or, ‘I’m going to go create years’ worth of trauma for
my coworker by making fun of them with my friends in the break room’?” Because the
answer to this question is most commonly, “No. They don’t consciously intend to hurt others.
They simply find ways to feed the needs of their own ego, to make themselves feel powerful
in an attempt to counteract previous feelings of powerlessness in their own lives, and then
they give it no further thought beyond what it takes to satisfy that unconscious need.”
Does that make the behavior alright? Fuck, no — and I have years of baggage from working
in customer service to back that up. But does it help us understand others? Does it help us
understand ourselves? Absolutely. And that’s how we begin to answer the question for
ourselves — by observing our behavior, by tracing our intentions, and by confronting the
truth of what and how we need to change to be better versions of ourselves.
Reading the Shadow Map
We have already created a map of the shadow by defining its boundaries with shadow
symptoms — but a map is only useful if it actually gets us somewhere. If we’re going to
work with our shadows, we have to understand them, so let’s revisit the symptoms by looking
at their sources in our psyches.
Irrational anger or quick temperedness. Boiled down to its bare bones, the shadow holds
our survival instincts — instincts that have been hard-wired into our DNA for countless
millennia. Irrational anger and quick temperedness mean that our brain has switched over
into fight-or-flight mode, and that, in this case, we have (obviously) chosen to fight. Bottom
line: for whatever reason, something about the situation at hand has made us feel threatened
in some way.
“The change of character brought about by the uprush of collective forces is
amazing. A gentle and reasonable being can be transformed into a maniac or a
savage beast. One is always inclined to lay the blame on external circumstances, but
nothing could explode in us if it had not been there. As a matter of fact, we are
constantly living on the edge of a volcano, and there is, so far as we know, no way of
protecting ourselves from a possible outburst that will destroy everybody within
reach. It is certainly a good thing to preach reason and common sense, but what if
you have a lunatic asylum for an audience or a crowd in a collective frenzy? There is
not much difference between them because the madman and the mob are both moved
by impersonal, overwhelming forces.”
— Carl Jung, Psychology and Religion
Guilt. Guilt can go one of two ways. Either we are guilty because we find ourselves in
violation of society’s accepted norms (i.e., we like/desire/think/feel something that society
has deemed unacceptable), or we are guilty because we know we are
wrong/unjustified/causing another person pain.
Fear or anxiety. Again, this comes down to our survival instincts. When faced with fight-orflight mode, in the case of fear and anxiety, we have opted for flight. The brain’s goal is to
keep us safe, to keep us alive — and we don’t always stop to think, “Hey, a room full of
strangers isn’t going to kill me. Social discomfort isn’t going to kill me. Thanks for the
warning, brain, but I’ll take it from here.” When the shadow is in control, it perceives a threat
and does whatever it needs to protect us from that perceived threat.
Dark thoughts. Westerners live in a sanitized world. We don’t encounter death and violence
and destruction in our everyday lives, but we know all those things exist. Our media and
entertainment are saturated with this part of our reality, but how often do we confront death
in our own lives? How often do we confront the violence inherent in human nature, or in
ourselves? Not often enough. So, the shadow reminds us of these things when it can, which is
usually when we’ve dropped our guard and drifted into sleeping dreams or waking fantasies.
And this is the essential message of the shadow and the unconscious mind: nothing that is
buried stays buried forever.
Impulsive behaviors. Just as the shadow helps us process things we don’t confront often in
our conscious lives, it also helps us meet needs that we don’t know how to meet consciously.
If we blurt something out on impulse, it means we really needed to say it, but didn’t know
how (although taking the time to figure it out could save us and others a lot of trouble). If we
do something impulsively, it shows that we have an unmet need or desire and need to work to
find a way to fulfill ourselves in healthier and/or more conscious/intentional ways. Not to say
that all impulsive behavior is bad — it can be exciting, it can bring variety and novelty. It is
simply a sign for us to analyze to bring us to a better understanding of ourselves.
Unjustifiable hatred. Once more we are brought back to the survival instinct. When we hate
someone or something, it is because we feel threatened. Maybe we hate someone who’s
“perfect,” and their perfection makes us feel inadequate, which makes us feel insecure, which
is a threat. Maybe we hate someone because they remind us of everything we don’t want to
be — everything we are afraid we might be. And there is another great lesson of the shadow:
everyone we encounter is a mirror, reflecting us back to ourselves.
Avoidance. Is there an echo in here? Avoidance is a survival mechanism. We avoid people,
places, and things that bring up painful memories because we are protecting ourselves from
pain. We avoid people and situations that challenge us because we don’t like feeling insecure.
Everything we avoid has its root somewhere in our psyche — traumas we experienced when
we were young, heartaches we endured as we grew older, losses and failures and humiliations
at all stages of life. The problem is, when we avoid things, we may be avoiding the pain they
bring in the short-term, but we do so at the expense of learning from our experiences, of
healing our wounds, and growing as individuals.
Perpetual negativity. Although it may seem counter-intuitive, perpetual negativity is also a
mechanism of the survival instinct. Negativity, depression, aloofness, and cynicism can
become a comfort zone. When we are in those states, we are indeed suffering — but in doing
so, we are attempting to protect ourselves from the “greater” sufferings: Failure.
Disappointment. Rejection. Being hurt when we are vulnerable.
Navigating the waters of life is exhausting, but it is the rise and fall of emotion that truly
makes the human experience so profoundly beautiful. So many of us live a life of gray
because we are afraid to be blinded by color. But if the price of sublime ecstasy is to endure
moments of great suffering, one must ask oneself, is it worth it? You won’t know until you
try.
Obsessive behavior. We’ve already identified that obsessive behavior stems from a need to
exert control in our lives. And that traces back to — you’ve guessed it — our survival
instincts. Our ancient brain doesn’t like uncertainty. We don’t like chaos, and we don’t like
the unknown. They remind us of long, dark winters where we weren’t sure if our food
sources would last, and nights where we weren’t sure whether predators or rival tribes were
lurking, waiting for their chance to pounce.
Obsession is our mind’s way of analyzing a situation, of looking for patterns, of searching for
ways to bring a person or situation under our control. The problem here is twofold. First,
when we attempt to control people, we alienate them, we disempower them — we hurt them.
And second, control is only an illusion. And illusions are no match for the sword of truth.
Self-destructive behavior. On one hand, we indulge self-destructive behaviors, such as
addiction and reckless, endangering actions, to mask the pain of life. We might distract
ourselves from the pain, or get high on the adrenaline rush of novelty and danger. And yet, on
the other hand, self-destructive behaviors can serve an even deeper purpose.
At any given moment, our unconscious minds whisper to us of our deeper needs. The shadow
wants to be acknowledged, so it will breed destruction to knock down barriers that stand
between our conscious minds and true self-knowledge. The effect of self-destructive behavior
on our lives is that things fall apart. Something isn’t working, so we unconsciously tear
everything down to create an opportunity to build anew. This paradox of the psyche is not the
healthiest way to breed change, but it can be effective if we awaken to our deepest truth of
self.
Strong adverse reactions to criticism. While falsehoods can hurt us, the truth stings even
more. If you find yourself reacting strongly to criticism, that’s a sign that it’s time to pause
and ask yourself some hard questions. Is it possible that you’re reacting strongly because
there is some truth in the feedback you’ve heard? Do you need to confront some weaknesses
within yourself and make some changes? What’s so triggering for you, and why?
“Unfortunately there can be no doubt that man is, on the whole, less good than he
imagines himself or wants to be. Everyone carries a shadow, and the less it is
embodied in the individual’s conscious life, the blacker and denser it is. If an
inferiority is conscious, one always has a chance to correct it. Furthermore, it is
constantly in contact with other interests, so that it is continually subjected to
modifications. But if it is repressed and isolated from consciousness, it never gets
corrected.”
— Carl Jung, Psychology and Religion
Every moment of our lives, our shadow is always lurking just beneath the surface of our
awareness, ready to provide us with signs and clues that point to true self-knowledge and the
chance to heal and grow as individuals. We simply need to put in the work to decipher how
our shadow is manifesting within our lives and what messages it holds for us.
The more you come to understand how your own mind works, the more you’ll see these same
principals at work in the people around you. Empathy and forgiveness come more easily
when you see that others are simply acting out the same unconscious patterns that you are.
Everyone is just trying to get by in the best way they know how — yet, our overactive
survival responses get thrown together in a society built on competition, which leaves us
trampling over each other at every step.
“We know that the wildest and most moving dramas are played not in the theatre but
in the hearts of ordinary men and women who pass by without exciting attention, and
who betray to the world nothing of the conflicts that rage within them except possibly
by a nervous breakdown. What is so difficult for the layman to grasp is the fact that in
most cases the patients themselves have no suspicion whatever of the internecine war
raging in their unconscious. If we remember that there are many people who
understand nothing at all about themselves, we shall be less surprised at the
realization that there are also people who are utterly unaware of their actual
conflicts.”
— Carl Jung, “New Paths in Psychology”
For the most part, people don’t consciously intend to hurt you — they are merely embarked
upon whatever course of action they find necessary to fulfill their egoic and bodily needs.
And if you get hurt along the way, that is simply a side effect of their actions — not the end
goal.
Upon self-reflection, you’ll find this to be true of yourself, as well. No, you’re not perfect.
Yes, you hurt people sometimes. But do you mean to? A lot of times the answer is no.
But every once in a while … yes, we do hurt people on purpose.
We don’t walk into a store thinking, “Oh, I am in such a shit mood. I think I’ll ruin
someone’s day today.” Yet we often walk around with our thinly veiled shadows, allowing
external triggers to nudge us into flipping off other drivers when they cut us off in traffic, or
glaring at people in the grocery store when they let their kids turn the cereal aisle into a
jungle gym, or snapping at cashiers for taking too long to wrap up the conversation with the
person in front of us, or doing really spot-on impressions of our coworkers that are funny but
still really mean, or silently judging the wooks at concerts for getting all worked up over LED
gloves …
Ahem. So yeah, anyway. We can’t change these behaviors until we become conscious of
them. And the only way to cultivate conscious awareness of our shadow behaviors is to be
honest about our intentions, which means we have to be very brave in confronting the truth
that we find within our hearts and minds.
Society’s Shadow is Our Shadow
I want to revisit the shadow symptom of guilt, because as you cultivate awareness of your
shadow and take an internal inventory of your thoughts and actions, this feeling will come up
a lot. Try not to over-internalize unnecessary guilt when you sift through your psychological
contents.
Remember that so much of our shadow is the culmination of generations of conditioning. We
share a collective shadow within our ancestral lineages, and an even larger one within our
societies. Many of our original wounds come from our parents, who were hurt by their
parents, and so on. And we’re hurt by the people we grow up with, our peers at school, our
siblings and cousins, our friends, and eventually, our colleagues and associates. And they
were all hurt by others, too.
When I was a little girl, my parents and grandparents would call on our Catholicism to scold
me when I misbehaved. “Mama Mary is watching you,” they would say, pointing to a
painting of the Virgin Mary. I think they kept especially sad depictions of Mary and Jesus
around to drill in the sense of disappointment, shame, and guilt when they caught me doing
something bad.
And I held those feelings in me so tightly that they became a part of my identity. “I’m a bad
girl. I’m dirty. I’m unworthy.” It wasn’t just that I was being bad in the eyes of my family —
I was a disgrace even in the eyes of the Divine. The Creator force itself was watching,
beholding and judging me in all my imperfection, so that at my very being, I was Bad. It was
a brand, a label, a stamp on my very soul that conditioned me to understand myself as a
vehicle of evil and impurity.
We all get it on some level, in whatever cultural context it’s framed in. Jesus is watching.
God is watching. Allah is watching. The ancestors are watching. The damn neighbors are
watching, for crying out loud.
Especially in Western society, we are raised to constantly ask ourselves whether we are bad
people — but with the inherent assumption that yes, we are. As though, simply by being
human, we are in some way impure, evil, unclean. We magnify the collective shadow, brand
human nature as bad, and then do everything we can to distance ourselves from our own
humanity.
“Filling the conscious mind with ideal conceptions is a characteristic of Western
theosophy, but not the confrontation with the shadow and the world of darkness.”
— Carl Jung, “The Philosophical Tree”
Perhaps the single biggest influence on the Western mind has been that of Christianity.
Whether we are of secular mind or choose to practice religion, our collective guilt and selfloathing have transcended their religious origins and penetrated our cultural mind for
hundreds of generations — with more and more to come. The Christian God — and his
secular substitutes (the Holy Church of Public Opinion, for example, or perhaps the more
timely Divine Temple of Political Righteousness) — is divine through his very ability to
judge humanity. And we don’t want to be human, right? Because human = bad. So, we try to
be like “God.”
And how, exactly, do we do that?
By its very nature, the shadow first internalizes, and then projects. What we see in us, we see
in others, and vice versa. We perceive that we are perpetually being watched and judged, so
we perpetually watch and judge others. We self-police — finding flaws, calling them out, and
whipping up a lot of dust to distract everyone from the fact that those very faults we decry so
loudly in others reside within us, as well.
And we have to confront the fact that our culture is built, to some extent, on meanness. We
love to gossip. We love to humiliate. We love to form in-groups and outcast others from
them. Sit in any school, or any work environment, watch every reality show ever and you’ll
see this in play.
“This confrontation is the first test of courage on the inner way, a test sufficient to
frighten off most people, for the meeting with ourselves belongs to the more
unpleasant things that can be avoided so long as we can project everything negative
into the environment. But if we are able to see our own shadow and can bear knowing
about it, then a small part of the problem has already been solved: we have at least
brought up the personal unconscious. The shadow is a living part of the personality
and therefore wants to live with it in some form. It cannot be argued out of existence
or rationalized into harmlessness. This problem is exceedingly difficult, because it not
only challenges the whole man, but reminds him at the same time of his helplessness
and ineffectuality.”
— Carl Jung
In a society built on competition, the strong win and the weak lose. So we spend an awful lot
of time working to be strong — or at least to appear that way. And what does strength look
like? Having numbers of people (i.e., a tribe) on your side. Hoarding resources. Hurting
others rather than being hurt by them. Being right, having the moral high ground, a claim to
legitimacy and entitlement that no one else has. These things boost our status in society,
making us popular, materially successful, morally “wealthy,” respectable, perhaps even
famous (or at least notorious).
And when we have these things, we can live on. We can procreate. Our names will outlive us.
We can beat death.
Except … not really.
Because there is always a reckoning. And I’m not talking about a reckoning in a religious
sense, but rather, the most important reckoning of all: the one you face within yourself.
At the end of it all, we still have to live — and die — with the fact of who we are, and what
we’ve done, and whether or not we feel at peace with the person we see in the mirror.
So, as you take stock of yourself, own your faults, own your weaknesses — but don’t
overcompensate by beating yourself up. Find that balance between self-flagellating and
playing society’s victim.
“In myths the hero is the one who conquers the dragon, not the one who is devoured
by it. And yet both have to deal with the same dragon. Also, he is no hero who never
met the dragon, or who, if once he saw it, declared afterwards that he saw nothing.
Equally, only one who has risked the fight with the dragon and is not overcome by it
wins the hoard, the “treasure hard to attain”. He alone has a genuine claim to selfconfidence, for he has faced the dark ground of his self and thereby has gained
himself. This experience gives some faith and trust, the pistis in the ability of the self
to sustain him, for everything that menaced him from inside he has made his own. He
has acquired the right to believe that he will be able to overcome all future threats by
the same means. He has arrived at an inner certainty which makes him capable of
self-reliance.”
— Carl Jung
And, the more you work on yourself — whether you do that through journaling, creating art,
working with a therapist, meditating and practicing mindfulness, attending workshops,
reading self-help books, talking with a trusted loved one, taking long walks, etc. — the more
you’ll find that, not only are you gaining the power to change yourself, but you are also
gaining the power to change your whole world.
“Your vision will become clear only when you can look into your own heart. Who
looks outside, dreams; who looks inside, awakes.”
— Carl Jung
Consider this: as much as our society is built on competition, it is also built on cooperation.
We can choose which side to continue building from.
If we spend all our time judging and branding human nature as bad, we overlook the deepest
core of what it means to be human: that, in the heart of every human soul, we will always
strive to be more.
“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
Change the world for the better. Love yourself. Do good things. Touch the people around you
in positive ways.
Forgive yourself for being human, embrace your light and your dark — and give others the
space to do the same.
Spend your whole life working to answer that question with, “No. No, I am not a bad person.
I am human. And I am beautiful.”
Surrender to the ebb and flow. Honor your cycles of self-destruction and recreation. Greet the
opportunity of every new day. Give yourself as many second chances as you need.
The only lasting change is positive change, because the human spirit will always rebel against
oppression and suffering. Trust that you — and we — will find our way through.
Embrace the change. Be the change. You have more power than you could ever know.
The Essential Jung by Carl Jung
If you’re ready to dive deep into the depths of your subconscious, to meet your shadow and
understand yourself, the works of Carl Jung are the place to start. Build the foundation to leap
into the depths from.