Can We Ever Truly Know Ourselves Without First Confronting Our "Inner Shadows"? > Likes and Comments

Hello everyone,

I’m hoping to get some perspectives from this group on a topic I’ve been exploring. It’s actually the theme thatsparked the entire journey of my recently published book, Journey to Red Dawn. It began with a concept, and eventually became the very foundation of the story:

Is confronting our 'inner shadows' the essential first step toward true self-awareness?

We often spend so much effort curating our 'light'—our successes, our virtues, our social faces—that we forget those shadows are not just obstacles, but essential parts of our wholeness. In my book, I follow a character who realizes that avoiding these hidden corners keeps them stuck in a loop, and that real change only begins when they stop running.

I’m genuinely curious to hear your thoughts—

Do you believe it's actually possible to become our authentic selves without ever confronting those darker, hidden corners of ourselves? Or is that 'shadow' work the secret engine that unlocks our real potential for growth?

I'd love to hear your perspectives (or even about characters in books you’ve read who had to undergo this kind of reckoning).

Best,
Cagla Meydan

Cagla wrote: "Hello everyone,

I’m hoping to get some perspectives from this group on a topic I’ve been exploring. It’s actually the theme thatsparked the entire journey of my recently published book, Journey to..."

Hi Cagla :)

Thank you for starting this interesting conversation, and introducing your new book- Journey to Red Dawn.

It seems to me that it might be more important to explore our darker corners in relation to others, not so much to ourselves.

Most of us understand and love ourselves just as we are- both light and dark. But in the relationships with others, "our shadows" or "monsters", are impossible to ignore, for they cause pain and even destruction- to them, and our relationships with them.

Jasmine

Dr. wrote: "Cagla wrote: "Hello everyone,

I’m hoping to get some perspectives from this group on a topic I’ve been exploring. It’s actually the theme thatsparked the entire journey of my recently published bo..."

Hi Jasmine :)

Thank you so much for this thoughtful response. I really like how you brought the focus to relationships.

I think you’re right. Sometimes we can live with our own shadows without even noticing them. But when another person enters our life, those hidden parts start to show themselves — in our reactions, fears, expectations, attachments, and even in the way we love.

I believe relationships are one of the clearest mirrors we have. They show us not only who we think we are, but also what we have not yet understood or healed.

And perhaps the problems we face in relationships, or the challenges life brings us, are often the first step in seeing our shadow sides. If life never holds a mirror to us, how can we see what is wounded or unresolved within us? And if we cannot see it, how can we know what needs to change?

It also makes me wonder about people who live far away from others, in peace and solitude. Can they truly see their shadows in that calmness? Or do we first need to experience something outside ourselves — love, conflict, disappointment, pain — before we dare to enter our own inner cave?

Maybe the outer world shows us the door, and then the inner journey begins.

I’d love to hear what others think about this. Do our shadows reveal themselves more in solitude, or through the people and challenges life brings to us?

@ Cagla - funny you should address that specific topic. As it happens, I have thought about just that topic in some depth. To declare myself - I wrote a book that analyses how it might be possible for an individual to shape the best life for themselves - given who they are. I am just mentioning this book now because I include a chapter that analyses precisely your question. In fact, I develop a theoretical model how it might be possible to address this problem. I call it EHT, for “ethical hypothesis testing” and if you are interested, you might wish to take a look. The book is called “Happiness Rules” and available as an e-book on amazon, i-books, and kobo.

So far the shameless plug. Now for some substance. My entire life philosophy is based on one central thought: Self-knowledge is the key to a meaningful life. Or, more specifically, to a life perceived as meaningful by the individual. There are many types of meaning, and there are many roads to each of them. There may not be only one ‘meaningful life’ per person, but equally there may well be, there may be several ways to achieve it, or there may be only a few, or even one. But to know what type of life is “right”, and to know how to get there once you know it - well. That can ONLY be achieved through self-knowledge.

Two examples. I know of myself that I am an urban person. I cannot exist in the countryside in a meaningful way. I know this is my nature, not nurture, because I was exposed from an early age to life on the working farm of my grandparents, and everything I encountered there felt deeply wrong to me. I was like a fish out of water. So for me, it would be a poor life choice to live in the countryside. I would perhaps not be mortally unhappy, but I would never feel free, feel as if I can be myself, and over time I’d experience ‘emotional drift’ and become permanently grumpy, spreading “negative energy” into my surroundings and detracting from overall happiness in my circle of friends, my relationship, my work environment.

The second example is a phenomenon that has recently received much focus in the public debate. Let us say there is a bloke. Over time, especially after puberty, the bloke is starting to feel uncomfortable. Things society expects him to do are not making emotional sense to him. It is becoming clear that he would rather live in accordance with behavioural patterns that he perceives are typical of women. So he transitions - societies are beginning to be advanced enough to permit this, albeit with lots of expected ‘teething problems’. Such a person is a textbook example of self-knowledge. Only by knowing yourself, and trusting the judgement about yourself - often against opposing advice of how to behave from well-meaning parties - can a chap who is more comfortable as a girl begin to sculpt a meaningful life.

And so there we have it. Self-knowledge is key. Fine. But how to attain it? My book goes through several methods. Along the journey to self-discovery, one will encounter many personality traits, some positive, some negative. No prizes for guessing, we are all very good at listing the positive ones and embracing them. Next up: the negative ones. And now it is getting interesting. My first thought is this: the human condition is complex, it combines many traits, many of them contradictory. And yet, the shade is only possible when there is also light. Surely, it is sensible to accept, indeed embrace, the negative traits and understand that they are part of the holistic self, part of what makes me strong and confident as a person, a yin to a yang?

Yes. That IS sensible. But here it comes. How do I know which negative traits are indeed a yang to a yin, and which ones are genuinely ‘nasty’, genuinely ethically irresponsible. It is those that I cannot simply embrace as a yang. Those I need to change. It is tempting to use the idea that light and shade in a personality combine as an excuse to live an ethically questionable life. “Yea I know I should be kinder to people but hey - I am passionate. Just who I am innit”. Well maybe not. Maybe what I think is passion others think is aggression. But maybe others are wrong to think so? What’s going on? It’s like quicksand. Where is firm ground? How can I decide?

I genuinely think these decisions are the most difficult ones to make on the journey to a fulfilled life. They require a deep understanding of one’s personality, and the discipline to change traits that show up as something that needs to be changed. I develop an analytical system that I call EHT (ethical hypothesis testing) to find out. Basically, it works like this: First, I formulate the hypothesis. “It is ethical to eat animals” might be one, formulated by a person who grapples with the issue that they are not vegetarian, but secretly worries that they are doing something they do not like about themselves. Then we need to ask a series of increasingly taxing questions, designed to box ourselves in. Is my activity causing harm? Harm to whom? And so on - these are just the first two. And at some level of the ethics sieve an action will get stuck. At that level, the individual knows that the action does no longer pass the test. That is where the individual decides that the action is no longer defensible. And it is at that stage that one needs to ask the final, the most important, question: Is this level ethical enough FOR ME? This is key. Ethics is essentially subjective. The best we can do is probe the fibre of our actions and decide whether we are happy with them, whether we continue to “like” ourselves when we perform them. If the answer to that question is ‘no’, we know the answer. Then the action is NOT a yang to a yin, not healthy shadow to the light. Then, and only then, have we identified something that we need to change in order to achieve true meaningfulness, in order to lead a ‘good’ life, in order to get to a stage where we LIKE ourselves.

I know that was another long blurb. But your question is genuinely deep, indeed it is the deepest of questions. Did any of that make any sense? Would be interested to hear what you think. Kindest - Mark.

Mark wrote: "@ Cagla - funny you should address that specific topic. As it happens, I have thought about just that topic in some depth. To declare myself - I wrote a book that analyses how it might be possible ..."

Hi Mark,

Thank you for such a thoughtful and generous response. I really appreciate the depth you brought to the question. Your EHT idea sounds genuinely interesting, especially because it tries to bring some structure to one of the most difficult inner questions: how do we know which parts of ourselves should be accepted, and which ones need to be transformed?

I also agree with your central point that self-knowledge is essential to a meaningful life. Your examples made me think about another layer of self-knowledge. Of course, knowing ourselves includes understanding our nature, our tendencies, and the kind of life that allows us to feel truly alive. But I wonder if there is also a deeper layer: not only knowing who we are, but understanding what the forces within us are meant to serve.

This is where the idea of the shadow becomes very important to me. We do not only contain the qualities we easily call “good.” We also carry harder, darker, more uncomfortable energies. But perhaps the question is not simply whether those traits should be accepted or changed. Maybe some of them need to be understood, refined, disciplined, and directed.

A person may carry sharpness, intensity, a destructive impulse, or a strong capacity to cut through things. Lived unconsciously, that can become harmful. But placed in the right field, and held with the right awareness, the same force might become surgery, protection, crisis-solving, standing against injustice, or separating truth from illusion.

So perhaps the question is not only, “Is this part of me ethical enough, or must it be changed?” Another question may be: “Why does this force exist in me, and what should it serve?”

That is also something I found myself exploring through Altan’s journey in 'Journey to Red Dawn' — not as a theory, but through a character who is forced to face what he has avoided and discover whether the very thing that wounds him might also become part of his transformation.

I agree with you that using “this is just who I am” as an excuse can be dangerous. But I also think rejecting everything uncomfortable within us can become another kind of avoidance. Sometimes what looks dark may only be dark because it has not yet been brought into consciousness, given form, or directed toward something meaningful.

So for me, the inner shadow is not only an ethical question, but also a question of transformation. Seeing the shadow does not mean romanticizing it. But denying it does not make us whole either.

And maybe this is where life itself plays a role. Can we reach this kind of self-knowledge purely through reflection and ethical testing? Or do relationships, pain, conflict, and life’s difficulties first have to hold up a mirror to us?

Maybe knowing ourselves begins not only with the question, “Who am I?” but also with, “What should this force within me serve?”

I’d be very interested to hear what others think about this too.

Cagla - lots of very interesting points in your response to explore. Let me just go through two of them, I think your thoughts deserve deeper contemplation.

Last one first: does life first have to hold up a mirror to us before we can achieve insights into the nature of our ‘self’? I would say yes, but it is a subtle ‘yes’. If we do not have life experiences, we do not have any evidence through which we have revealed our nature. I have to have had a bad relationship to analyse why it went bad, which of my actions may have led to the break-up, which of my partner’s. Then I will need to analyse WHY I acted in the way I did, and what reactions were initiated by my actions, and vice versa. If I analyse all of this faithfully, I may gain valuable insights into my nature. But if I do not have anything to think about, I will not learn very much about myself - this is a genuine issue as you will need to have experienced some of life’s ups and downs before you can gainfully achieve insights into your personality.

The second point I want to pick out is one that I found highly insightful and indeed a valuable extension of my concept of ‘change’. You speak of channelling negative traits of personality rather than changing them. I concur. Indeed, I would like to offer the perhaps provocative view that there is no ‘good’ or ‘bad’, that the two qualities cannot exist as absolutes, but are two sides of a neutral quality that manifests as ‘good’ or ‘bad’ depending on context. Another anecdote from my life: When I was young, I applied to the Foreign Office for a career as a diplomat. We did an assessment centre, I passed some tests, and I did generally quite well and progressed to the final stage. But I was turned down! I was heartbroken. That was my dream, and it had been shattered. I called them up and after a while, the person said that they do not give feedback normally, but she could see that I passed the cognitive tests comfortably and so she was going to make an exception. She said I was turned down because I was “not very diplomatic”.

Oh dear. Well, this insight did not help me at the time, but she is completely correct. I hope that I am thoughtful, and I try to think deeply about things, but when I have a point to make, I will make it. I do not care whether I ruffle feathers, I am not politically correct, I do not hide and I cannot be cowed. I am polite of course and courteous, but I am firm and I genuinely do not mind too much what others may think of me.

Roll on 10 years after my interview. I am in a different interview with an investment bank. My job as a research analyst would entail formulating informed opinions and convincing clients that my commercial ideas were sensible and potentially profitable to them. I was accepted and had a 20 years long wonderful, fulfilled and meaningful career on the trading floors of this world. And in that world - MY world - my natural tendency NOT to be diplomatic was productive, desirable, indeed necessary. So a trait of character that may be neutral in itself showed up as a hindrance in the Foreign Office, and as an asset in investment banking.

This anecdote is to your point. A trait that shows up as ‘negative’ in one context may well be ‘positive’ in another. It is our job to first understand who we are and then find, or create, the environments in which our natural traits show up as strengths, and avoid those in which they would show up as ‘weaknesses’. It is this skill that I would describe as the key life skill to learn.

The way I would therefore answer your final question, the one where you suggest we ought to understand what a force within us that we are able to isolate should “serve” is this: In my non-spiritual world, I would formulate this question as WHY do I have the traits that I discovered? Up to the non-informative answer “it’s in my DNA” this question will potentially uncover deeper layers of a person’s self, and lead to better and more stable insights.

But this is also as far as a person with my specific personality will be able to go in an attempt to answer your tricky question. Your question suggests a mode of existence that has a purpose, that ‘serves’ something external to itself. In my personality, there is no such external world. Everything starts and ends with the individual. A person’s actions, if suitably motivated, ethically probed, and consciously enabled, will serve the utility of that person. It is the maximisation of a person’s utility, not the perceived utility of others, that motivates every action, but by extension serves the public weal in an indirect, secondary manner. Because it cannot be otherwise, every individual has a responsibility to society to understand who they are as well as they possibly can.

Or so I think, anyway. Thanks for presenting your thoughts, Cagla. I am finding these discussions insightful and productive. Take care - Mark

Hi guys, thank you for sharing so many beautiful and deep thoughts :)

We all seem to agree that personality /nature qualities are subjective; what seems great applied to one profession/within one relationship etc, is a disaster within another setting.

Philosophical discussions on this matter could take forever.. pls allow me simple and practical angle:

marriage at its best is a life long relationship where dark and light, and all the qualities in between become "polished" in relation to your spouse; this is a deep relationship where we have nowhere to hide

work/friendships etc, we can take it easy! and most of us do.. we choose professions/friendships that dont demand too much from us, for they are aligned with our strengths/what comes easy

for instance, its very easy for me to be a doctor ( hmm after decades of training that is!) but still- as its entirely within my nature to be kind and caring and forgiving and loving etc

I would struggle terribly to be a lawyer or a policewoman for that would not align with my nature at all

So successful human life then might be viewed as a balance of both: in some areas, we need to take it easy, and just go with our nature

in other areas, we cant take it easy, for we are meant to be " transformed into our best selves"- marriage is a perfect vehicle, in mine (and all the religions (!)) opinions :))

Jasmine

Mark wrote: "Cagla - lots of very interesting points in your response to explore. Let me just go through two of them, I think your thoughts deserve deeper contemplation.

Last one first: does life first have t..."

Mark, thank you for your response. Once again, you gave a thoughtful, clear, and very productive answer. I especially liked the examples you shared from your own life; they showed very well how a trait can be a hindrance in one context and a strength in another.

I also agree with what you said about life holding up a mirror to us. Without experience, it is very hard to know ourselves. We do not usually discover our nature through abstract thoughts, but through what we actually live. A relationship, a loss, a failure, a disappointment, or an unexpected change of direction can show us far more about ourselves than theory ever can.

I also found your question, “Why do I have the traits that I discovered?” very important. I think people often focus more on the question of “how” than “why.” When we ask, “How did this form?” we can stay with answers like DNA, environment, childhood, habits, and so on. Of course, these matter. But sometimes they remain closer to the surface. The question “why?” takes us closer to the root of what exists. It does not only ask how a trait came into being, but what it may be trying to reveal in us.

I also noticed that you have now used the phrase “in my non-spiritual world” twice. :) I imagine there is a much wider worldview behind that. But for me, what matters here is not so much the name we give to this search, but whether a person is truly trying to know themselves. When it is done sincerely, whatever language we use for it, it brings us closer to ourselves in some way. There is an old saying that comes to mind: “Truth was one; people multiplied it.”

I fully agree with your thought that “everything starts and ends with the individual.” But I would also like to open one more window onto that idea. Yes, the journey is, in one sense, a journey from the self to the self. A person cannot offer much real benefit outwardly before knowing themselves and cleaning the space in front of their own door.

But at the same time, it seems to me that every part fulfils its function when it serves both itself and the whole. We can think of the human body. The heart cannot really say, “I exist only for myself.” By doing its own work well, it serves the whole organism. But at the same time, if the whole organism is not healthy, the heart cannot remain healthy either. The same is true for the liver, the lungs, or even a single cell. A part that no longer serves itself or loses its function eventually begins to harm the whole. But a part completely cut off from the whole also loses its meaning.

I think something similar may be true for human beings, and perhaps for all existence. We may first believe that we are serving only ourselves; seeking our own meaning, our own nature, our own benefit. And perhaps that is how it should begin. It is one stage of the process. But if we truly learn to live consciously and in alignment with our nature, then knowingly or unknowingly, we may also be serving a greater whole.

Of course, I do not mean that the outer world is more important than the inner one. I think that would be wrong. The inner and outer are not separate. Maybe the real question is not which one is more important, but which one comes into play at which stage of the process. If we try to serve the outside world before knowing our inner world, it can easily become empty idealism. But if we remain only within ourselves and never see the whole, another kind of incompleteness may appear.

The heart beats in its own rhythm, but that rhythm gains meaning when it gives life to the whole body. Perhaps something similar happens in human life. When we pass through life and discover something about ourselves, we often feel a need to share it; because what is completed within us becomes a kind of service, and gains a wider meaning, when it touches someone else.

Maybe the desire to share is not always a conscious choice, but a natural need placed inside human beings. When someone goes deeply enough into a subject (any subject) and finds meaning there, or even feels that they have found meaning, they often want to pass it on to others. Perhaps discovery is not fully completed when it remains only inside the person, but when it touches another life.

I am really finding this discussion very productive. Of course, by its nature, this is not the kind of subject that can easily be finished. Each answer seems to open another door. I did not intend to make you read such a long response, but it flowed this way.
Thank you again.

Cagla

Dr. wrote: "Hi guys, thank you for sharing so many beautiful and deep thoughts :)

We all seem to agree that personality /nature qualities are subjective; what seems great applied to one profession/within one ..."


Jasmine, thank you for adding this distinction. I think you touched on a very practical and important point. :)

Yes, when it comes to choosing a profession, the environment we live in, or even our daily habits and routines, if we have truly discovered our own nature, we can make choices that fit who we are — rather than choices based only on outside factors like money, power, prestige, or other people’s expectations. But I think very few people in the world actually reach that point and make decisions from a real understanding of their own nature.

Most of the time, we do not know ourselves first and then choose. Sometimes it happens the other way around: we make a choice, we live inside that choice, and only then do we realize what does not really belong to us.

That is also what happened in my own life. When I was only 23, I left Turkey and came to America alone. I spent years in New York working toward becoming a CPA. At that time, it was my biggest goal, and I believed that once I reached it, all my dreams would come true. I worked toward that dream until I was 31. And then, shortly after finally achieving it, I began to realize that this profession and industry were not truly aligned with my nature at all. My nature is more creative, more intuitive, more spontaneous. I was not someone who could remain happy for long in a routine where the same things had to be repeated mechanically every day.

So I did not first know my nature and then make my choice. I lived my choice, and through that choice I discovered what I did not want, and what was not really mine. Maybe that is where my real journey began. At 31, I left the profession and stepped onto a path of self-discovery. In that process, I did not only come to know my nature more deeply; slowly, I also began to discover abilities, skills, and inner parts of myself that I had never known before.

But as you said, human relationships stand in a different place. With profession or environment, we can choose to some extent, avoid certain paths, or change direction. But relationships often feel like one of the strongest mirrors life holds up to us. The awareness a person needs to experience inwardly is often offered through outward events and relationships.

Of course, whether we notice this, accept it, reflect on it, or reject it is still up to us. We may see many things as “I chose this” or “this was my decision,” but sometimes I feel that the encounters life brings us are there to make us face ourselves. This also connects to what we discussed earlier about free will. Maybe the real matter is not only what we choose, but whether we can see what our choices and encounters reveal within us.

Cagla wrote: "Dr. wrote: "Hi guys, thank you for sharing so many beautiful and deep thoughts :)

We all seem to agree that personality /nature qualities are subjective; what seems great applied to one profession..."

Hi Cagla, you are brave! such a major change to your career and you life, but a good one, it seems :)

And you are absolutely right, life gives mirrors to all of us, but so many people simply refuse to look into them- hence they never change/grow, and consequences are often nothing short of disastrous for both them, and their loved ones..

Jasmine

Dr. wrote: "Cagla wrote: "Dr. wrote: "Hi guys, thank you for sharing so many beautiful and deep thoughts :)

We all seem to agree that personality /nature qualities are subjective; what seems great applied to ..."

I completely agree with you, Jasmine. Life does hold them up to us, but seeing them is still a choice. Sometimes the mirror is there for years, but we keep looking away until the consequences become too painful to ignore.

Maybe growth begins at the moment we finally dare to look.