Owning Your Own Shadow: A Jungian Approach to Transformative Self-Acceptance, Exploring the Unlit Part of the Ego and Finding Balance Through Spiritual Self-Discovery

by Robert A. Johnson

The persona is what we would like to be and how we wish to be seen by the world. It is our psychological clothing and it mediates between our true selves and our environment just as our physical clothing presents an image to those we meet.

The tendency to see one’s shadow “out there” in one’s neighbor or in another race or culture is the most dangerous aspect of the modern psyche.

Projection is always easier than assimilation.

Two things go wrong if we project our shadow: First, we do damage to another by burdening him with our darkness—or light, for it is as heavy a burden to make someone play hero for us.

To fall in love is to project the most noble and infinitely valuable part of one’s being onto another human being, though sometimes under rare circumstances it may be projected onto something other than a human.