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

That is why a true religious ceremony has to contain as much darkness as light.

The creative act acknowledges the whole of reality. It is not a partial response. Our penchant for the light blinds us to the greater reality and keeps us from this larger vision.

Reality

not found in any single view of life, no matter how attractive that view may be, but in the whol...

Who knows how many outwardly destructive things might be averted if we gave voice to the shadow in a ceremonial way?

Our fate can truly be altered if we have the courage to embrace the opposites.

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

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.

Instantly, that person is the carrier of everything sublime and holy.

in-loveness obliterates the humanity of the beloved.

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.

The shadow is very important in marriage, and we can make or break a relationship depending on how conscious we are of this.

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.

When we consciously approach the shadow, we examine a very powerful aspect of our personality that is almost universally shunned and avoided. And in this way, we enter the realm of paradox.

Paradox is that artesian well of meaning we need so badly in our modern world.

Contradiction brings the crushing burden of meaninglessness. One can endure any suffering if it has meaning; but meaninglessness is unbearable.

Contradiction is barren and destructive, yet paradox is creative.

Every human experience can be expressed in terms of paradox.

The electric plug in the wall has two prongs, access to a positive and negative electrical charge. From this opposition comes the usefulness of the electric current.

Personal suffering begins when we are crucified between these opposites.

If we try to embrace one without paying tribute to the other, we degrade paradox into contradiction.

To suffer one’s confusion is the first st...

Then the pain of contradiction is transformed into the m...

The capacity for paradox is the measure of spiritual strength and the surest sign of maturity.

It is a valuable exercise to list the oppositions that we face, then try to restore them to the realm of paradox.

This requires nothing less than taking our two lists of virtues and instead of entering a neurotic struggle that pits one against the other, allowing them the noble status of paradox.

To view the elements of our life in this paradoxical manner is to open up a whole new series of possibilities.

Let us not say that the opposites are antithetical but that they make up a divine reality that is accessible to us in our human condition.

Probably the most troublesome pair of opposites to reconcile is love and power.

Fanaticism is always a sign that one has adopted one of a pair of opposites at the expense of the other.

The high energy of fanaticism is a frantic effort to keep one half of the truth at bay while the other half takes control.

This always yields a brittle and unrentab...

To own one’s own shadow is to prepare the ground for spiritual experience.

Take the roof off any human life and one will find the paradoxes that are the preparation for a religious life, a vision of that which is greater than the personal.

Who has not fallen in love with someone where he or she shouldn’t? To keep faith with this and with one’s ethical and moral sense at the same time is to set the stage for the Self, something greater than one’s self.

Who does not spend much of his time debating whether to do the disciplined task or to goof off a bit longer and stay in dreamy “nowhere”? Neither is holy; but exactly in the paradox between them lies the holy place.

They want resolution but would have something even greater if they could ask for the consciousness to bear the paradox.

Jung once said,

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

next.” The ego is fashioned like the metal between the ha...

Heroism could be redefined for our time as the ability to stand paradox.

Jung has said that to be in a situation where there is no way out, or to be in a conflict where there is no solution, is the classical beginning of the process of individuation.

the unconscious wants the hopeless conflict in order to put ego-consciousness up against the wall, so that the man has to realize that whatever he does is wrong, whichever way he decides will be wrong. This is meant to knock out the superiority of the ego, which always acts from the illusion that it has the responsibility of decision.

But if he is ethical enough to suffer to the core of his personality, then generally…the Self manifests.

the anima arranges with great skill in a man’s life, is meant to drive him into a condition in which he is capable of experiencing the

Self.

To consent to paradox is to consent to suffering that which is greater than the ego.

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

Mandalas are devices that remind us of our unity with God and with all living things.

Mandalas turn up in dreams when the personality is especially fragmented and the dreamer needs this calming symbol. During a particularly taxing time in his life, Dr. Jung drew a mandala every morning to keep his sense of balance and proportion.