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 ego is what we are and know about consciously. The shadow is that part of us we fail to see or know.*

The shadow is that which has not entered adequately into consciousness. It is the despised quarter of our being. It often has an energy potential nearly as great as that of our ego. If it accumulates more energy than our ego, it erupts as an overpowering rage or some indiscretion that slips past us; or we have a depression or an accident that seems to have its own purpose. The shadow gone autonomous is a terrible monster in our psychic house.

Some of the pure gold of our personality is relegated to the shadow because it can find no place in that great leveling process that is culture.

It is more disrupting to find that you have a profound nobility of character than to find out you are a bum. Of course you are both; but one does not discover these two elements at the same time.

Wherever we start and whatever culture we spring from, we will arrive at adulthood with a clearly defined ego and shadow, a system of right and wrong, a teeter-totter with two sides.* The religious process consists of restoring the wholeness of the personality. The word religion means to re-relate, to put back together again, to heal the wounds of separation.

I had a dream which both frightened and encouraged me. It was night in some unknown place, and I was making slow and painful headway against a mighty wind. Dense fog was flying along everywhere. I had my hands cupped around a tiny light which threatened to go out at any moment. Everything depended on my keeping this little light alive. Suddenly I had the feeling that something was coming up behind me. I looked back, and saw a gigantic black figure following me. But at the same moment I was conscious in spite of my terror, that I must keep my little light going through night and wind, regardless of all dangers. When I awoke I realized at once that the figure was my own shadow on the swirling mists, brought into being by the little light I was carrying. I knew too that this little light was my consciousness, the only light I have. Though infinitely small and fragile in comparison with the powers of darkness, it is still a light, my only light.*

Researchers estimate that in an average family household, twenty-eight servants would be needed to accomplish only one part of the work that is taken care of by our mechanical aids. What a wonderful

catholic (meaning whole or complete).

To refuse the dark side of one’s nature is to store up or accumulate the darkness; this is later expressed as a black mood, psychosomatic illness, or unconsciously inspired accidents.

for it is as heavy a burden to make someone play hero for us.

No one can do anything with a part of one’s nature one does not know anything about.

The psyche is unaware of the difference between an outer act and an interior one.

Culture can only function if we live out the unwanted elements symbolically.

remember that this discussion is about falling in love, not the act of loving.

To fall in love is to project the most noble and infinitely valuable part of one’s being onto another human being,

the experience of seeing our own image of divinity in another human being.

the divinity we see in others is truly there, but we don’t have the right to see it until we have taken away our own projections. How difficult! How can one say that the projection is not true but that the divinity of one’s beloved is?

To fall in love is to project that particularly golden part of one’s shadow, the image of God—whether masculine or feminine—onto another person.

One does a curious kind of insult to another by falling in love with him, for we are really looking at our own projection of God, not at the other person.

“We would have something better between us if you would look at me rather than at your image of me.”

The shadow is very important in marriage, and we can make or break a relationship depending on how conscious we are of this. We forget that in falling in love, we must also come to terms with what we find annoying and distasteful—even downright intolerable—in the other and also in ourselves. Yet it is precisely this confrontation that leads to our greatest growth.

I recently heard about a couple who had the good sense to call upon the shadow in a prewedding ceremony. The night before their marriage, they held a ritual where they made their “shadow vows.” The groom said, “I will give you an identity and make the world see you as an extension of myself.” The bride replied, “I will be compliant and sweet, but underneath I will have the real control. If anything goes wrong, I will take your money and your house.” They then drank champagne and laughed heartily at their foibles, knowing that in the course of the marriage, these shadow figures would inevitably come out. They were ahead of the game because they had recognized the shadow and unmasked it.

Yet our culture prescribes this 10,000-volt experience as the basis for every marriage. When marriages survive, it is because both partners have moved down to the 110-volt human level and learned the art of loving.

If we accept these opposing elements and endure the collision of them in full consciousness,

Is 'endurng the collision' and accepting the paradox dome through acceptong both relities despite their contradictions ?

I had to observe that my Indian friends live in relative peace while my American friends, so devoted to decision making, are a tense and anxious people.

Truths always come in pairs and one has to endure this to accord with reality.

The religious faculty is the art of taking the opposites and binding them back together again, surmounting the split that has been causing so much suffering.

It helps us move from contradiction—that painful condition where things oppose each other—to the realm of paradox, where we are able to entertain simultaneously two contradictory notions and give them equal dignity.

To transform opposition into paradox is to allow both sides of an issue, both pairs of opposites, to exist in equal dignity and worth.

Example: I should be working at my project this morning but I don’t feel like it and want to do something else. These two opposing wishes will cancel each other if I let them remain in opposition. But if I sit with them awhile they will fashion a solution that is agreeable to both; or even better, a situation that is superior to either one. Sometimes a compromise may present itself that is better than opposition but is still not a good solution. I may take the dog for a walk and then settle down to some work, trying to accommodate both my need for industry and my need for play. But this is not true paradox. If I can stay with my conflicting impulses long enough, the two opposing forces will teach each other something and produce an insight that serves them both. This is not compromise but a depth of understanding that puts my life in perspective and allows me to know with certainty what I should do. That certainty is one of the most precious qualities known to humankind.

and have the courage to sacrifice a point of view for the sake of the relationship.

Someone once said that Shakespeare could take the roof off any house and find an immortal drama. Take the roof off any human life and one will find the paradoxes

In good English style my friend bravely laid out the complexity of her life. She burst into tears and cried out that she could stand it no longer. “Ja, gut,” replied Dr. Meyer. “Now something will happen.” This is stark medicine but it is correct for one who has the strength to bear it.

“Find out what a person fears most and that is where he will develop next.”

A mandala is a holy circle or bounded place that is a representation of wholeness.

A mandorla is that almond-shaped segment that is made when two circles partly overlap. It is not by chance that mandorla is also the Italian word for almond. This symbol signifies nothing less than the overlap of the opposites that we have been investigating.

“Robert, why is it that you are so much more intelligent on tape than in conversation? Don’t answer; I know. On the tape I don’t interrupt!” Talking to him by tape had engaged my feeling function and given me the freedom to process my own thoughts.

You can give another person a precious gift if you will allow him to talk without contaminating his speech with your own material.

We like to think that a story is based on the triumph of good over evil; but the deeper truth is that good and evil are superseded and the two become one. Since our capacity for synthesis is limited, many stories can only hint at this unity. But any unity, even a hint, is healing.

In your own poetic struggles you may make only the tiniest sliver of a mandorla that will vanish a few minutes later. Where is the inspiration of yesterday that was so thrilling? But if you repeat this often enough it will become the permanent base of your functioning.

I Ching, in hexagram #61, says, “If a wise man abides in his room his thoughts are heard for more than a thousand miles.”

Encouraged by Christian practice, most Westerners invest the energy that might go into a mandorla in useless guilt. Guilt is a total waste of time and energy.

If one has a statement to make, it is good to invite another statement—generally one coming from the shadow—and thus make a mandorla that is greater than either point of view alone.

I think I have won (or superseded) some very serious spiritual debates in my inner life by giving credence to both sides, until a superior point of view could be achieved.

If we have a powerful mandorla experience (and what a joy it is!), we can be sure it will be brief. We must then return to the world of dualities, of time and space, to continue our ordinary life.

The mandorla is not the place of neutrality or compromise; it is the place of the peacock’s tail and rainbows.