The Shadow of Your Mind

“To confront a person with his shadow is to show him his own light”

~ Dr. Carl G. Jung

One of Carl Jung’s claims to fame is the concept of the “Shadow” and the need for an individual to face this hidden aspect of themselves. This mysterious-sounding shadow self is, to summarise things in a ridiculously simple manner, pretty much every part of yourself that you dislike, detest and work hard to keep out of your public persona.

To make things worse, apparently the more you hide these aspects of yourself, the harder they work to express themselves in some way or another. A favourite trick is to make you feel anger, or some other negative reaction, towards a person or situation that mirrors your hidden bad stuff!

When you react negatively to someone else, or so the story goes, you do so because they remind you of something you hate about yourself. Sneaky little shadow!

Acceptance and Recognition

In much the same way that it works for alcoholics, the first step to address the problem of your shadow is to recognise and accept that the problem exists. Once you become aware of this other side of yourself, you start looking for it and once you start looking, you start seeing!

Now let’s not get confused here – this isn’t about “good you” versus “bad you”, it’s far more complex than that! Over time everyone builds up an image of themselves and works hard to put out the desired self-image to the rest of the world. Any aspect of personality that does not conform (to this image) gets suppressed, and eventually it slides off into the dark gloomy world of the Shadow where it figures out a way to reveal itself regardless of what you think of it!

Me and My Shadow

If you think you’ve found an aspect of your shadow and feel comfortable with it, you almost certainly have not found any such thing. I say this with absolute conviction, based on the “discovery” of a number of false shadow aspects, and the totally different feeling you get when you find a genuine one; in the case of the latter, it’s actually very disconcerting!

In my case, I’ve arrived at the “facing your shadow” point through two separate routes; an experience that has led me to realise that the personal development associated with building a business and the “personal alchemy” that accompanies a spiritual path (particularly an earth-based Pagan pathway) are different perspectives of the exact same thing. In terms of the concept of facing the shadow, these perspectives can be summarised as follows:

Jungian: need to reconcile both aspects of your self, bring the shadow aspects into the light, and integrate them into your life.
Business: need to step out of the comfort zone, develop your weak spots and work through your fears.
Spiritually: personal alchemy, in simplistic terms, is a process of achieving balance; strengthening the weaker aspects of your self.

It doesn’t take too much effort to see the similarities in these 3 processes; it is certainly no coincidence that the concept of “dark night of the soul” seems so naturally connected to the idea of “the Shadow”.

Come Out From The Shadows, Mr Gecko!

As a concrete example of how these seemingly unrelated paths can converge, I have issues with the idea of making money. Sounds crazy I know!

However it is both true and probably more common than you might expect. The “mask” I have developed over 25+ years has very much been one of social consciousness, left-leaning politics and an idealistic view of how the world should work. I react strongly against people I perceive to be “only in it for the money”.

My business reflects this – it was founded on the idea of providing solutions for “the little guy”, yet venturing down that path has led to me having to confront certain aspects of business that make me extremely uncomfortable.

At the same time, I have reached a point in my personal/spiritual development that has highlighted my weak spots to be located in the areas of being practical (planning, organising, feet on the ground) and material wealth. Not only are these weak spots, they are the aspects that must be developed in order to achieve balance.

Finally, if I take the Jungian approach to things, I finally start to admit that being able to create security for myself and my family in a material sense IS important to me. I’m not about to become a “greed is good” Gordon Gecko clone, however by bringing this desire for material wealth out of the shadows and integrating it into my public persona, I effectively start wearing a mask that is one step closer to being a true portrait.

So my development as a business owner and as a spiritual dreamer, actually turn out to be part of the same overall project.

What Are YOU Hiding?

Everyone’s path is different, and the exact way in which progress is made will vary from person to person. However planting the seed of an idea can help you set off in the right direction, so with that in mind you may find it worthwhile to:

Start taking notice of who makes you angry and why. Ask yourself what shadow aspect they may be triggering.
Read various analyses of yourself (e.g. numerology, astrology and “personality type” quizzes. Take note of which phrases you strongly agree with, and which you dismiss as being completely wrong. Even if you don’t believe in, say, astrology, the real magic is in the self-analysis process.
Spend time quietly contemplating who and what you think you are. Mentally note those things that anger you and that you dismissed as not being “you” – now look deeper to see if you can find these things. hidden away. Be honest with yourself, no-one else is listening!

Just allowing yourself to think and question yourself in this way can start a process that can lead to a shadow aspect revealing itself unexpectedly. When that happens, you’re one step closer…

Have fun chasing those shadows!

Gaz

Photo by nate steiner