We know that our growing weight is detrimental to our health, we know we need to turn our careers around, and we know we can make a better income out of the current financial situation, scattered and confused. We want to wrap up relationships, but there is a force within us that is preventing us from being our best version. We can’t take a step towards our goals even if we want to. This force is called “shadow” in the language of psychology.
People who teach honesty are often found to be corrupt, pious, and pious men and women are often seen engaging in bizarre sexual activities, and those who hate homosexuals are often secretly themselves. They are seen as active in these activities, most people live a double life, and their public and private image are different. Is it their hypocrisy or their shadow?
The founder of the concept “Shadow” is the famous twentieth-century psychiatrist Carl Jung. The negative aspects of our personality (sometimes even the positive aspects) that our parents and society do not accept, our minds skillfully lock them in that part of the brain where the light of consciousness cannot reach named “Shadow”. Shadows are usually the “dark traits” of our personality.
Man cannot live without a sense of belonging. In childhood, we are praised for good habits, and sweet things, but if we express our anger, jealousy, selfishness, greed, or say something that is beyond the realm of so-called distinction, it is severely reprimanded. A child kills all the feelings, emotions, sexual desires, and talents of his inner world to meet the standards set by his parents and the outside world, but unfortunately, they do not all die but are thrown into the unconscious. When they go, they go out of our consciousness. Carl says that all those neglected or disgusting parts bother us for a lifetime.
We forget to understand that we will get rid of those aspects of personality that are detestable to us or that are considered evil and satanic traits by pushing them unconsciously. According to Carl Jung, those suppressed aspects form a separate personality in our subconscious which is called the “shadow self”. This is the double image that we hide not only from ourselves but from the world. This double image of ours is often seen by others but far beyond our own consciousness. The more we try to suppress it, the more it goes away from our consciousness and becomes even stronger, and so one day we subconsciously take certain actions and decisions that cause irreparable damage to our reputation and structure. We wonder how we made such big mistakes.
Often the habit we dislike most the others is our own shadow, we suffer from it because we have never had a strong reaction or hatred towards this habit. The process of bringing shadow into one’s consciousness and integrating it with one’s personality is called “shadow integration”. In this process, psychotherapists who specialize in “Jungian psychology” help to do what is called “shadow work”.
Why is shadow work important?
How will we be prepared to face the challenges of life if our most precious asset, our brain, is wasting all our energy in the ongoing battle between our conscious and unconscious personality, how will our mental growth be? How can we solve the problems that are waiting for our attention when we are stuck in the battle of our own feelings and emotions in our minds?
Who will win his own battle? We are also the greed within us, we are also generosity. Lust or selfishness is within us. We can do shadow work ourselves. Of course, this process takes a lot of time, because it takes time to remove the layers of the unconscious mind and bring the suppressed feelings, desires, and talents to consciousness. Shadow work requires patience, acceptance, attention, self-awareness, and brutal honesty. This is not an easy task at all. Bringing to mind the aspects that we hate and accepting ourselves as a whole can be a painful process.
Meditation and journaling can also be helpful.
You don’t have to post your shadows on Facebook or share them with others, it’s personal work, keep it to yourself. However, it is not wrong to ask others for feedback on your habits. Feedback makes us better human beings, hateful criticism only increase hatred and it is a sign of your insecurity.
We all want a space where we can freely explore all the dimensions of our brain and body. If you get this kind of space in life, please make those around you feel this freedom too. It is very easy to judge or criticize such and a person is very hypocritical or bad, but it is certainly very difficult for others to accept all their shortcomings and understand them, and this is possible only when you have your own dark treats (shadow). It’s easy to criticize but hard to support the people around you!
