Shadow
Strengths
“...We
find that by opening the door to the shadow realm a little, and
letting out various elements a few at a time, relating to them,
finding use for them, negotiating, we can reduce being surprised by
shadow sneak attacks and unexpected explosions.”
Clarissa
Pinkola Estes (Women Who Run With the Wolves: Myths and Stories of
the Wild Woman Archetype)
Carl Jung famously said,
“One does not become enlightened by imagining figures of light, but
by making the darkness conscious. The latter procedure, however, is
disagreeable and therefore not popular.” Since I've been
harping for what seems like weeks on recognizing our shadow, I
apologize for spending another day on it, but I must follow where
Spirit leads, or there are no words to write. As Jung implies,
recognizing our own darkness is dirty business, and we resist it for
as long as possible.
In Women Who Run With the
Wolves, Clarissa Estes compares the repression of our dark side to
putting air into a tire that has a bubble in the sidewall. We keep
pumping and driving while the heat builds up inside, and eventually,
the tire blows out in a resounding explosion. When that happens no
one is more surprised by it than we are! If we have viewed ourselves
as nice, rational people, and suddenly are transformed into angry
maniacs, we are shocked. Shocked, and then saddened, and then
depressed—it's a slippery slope.
Which is why it's in our
best interest to crack that door open a little at a time and take a
look at what darkness lies within. Don't be afraid—you've been
living with it all along; you just didn't recognize it as belonging
to you. And in many cases it has a legitimate purpose—protection.
When we don't recognize and integrate our own shadow material, what
we do is project it onto other people. We judge them for being
something/someone we don't like while not seeing it in ourselves.
The loss of the
projection is what we experience in relationships when we go from
being “in love” to questioning what got us into this relationship
in the first place. What we fell in love with, according to Jungian
Analyst, Robert Johnson, is the projection onto the other person of
our image of a love god or goddess. When that projection fades, we
become disenchanted. He writes in his book, Owning Your Own Shadow:
Understanding the Dark Side of the Psyche: “We would have
something better between us if you would look at me rather than at
your image of me.” The good news is that once the veil of
projection is removed, we have an opportunity to love the real
person—and to be a real person in the relationship.
Let me say that I
struggle every day with my own dark side. When I write this blog, it
may seem to you that I have it all sorted out, and stand squarely in
the light. I hate to disillusion you on that score. All my edges are
rough, and my journey is one of discovering what needs to be sanded
and smoothed. I expect that work to go on for the rest of my life.
Thought for today: My
shadow holds not only my dark instincts, but also my strength and my
sense of humor. I need not fear it. Instead, I will learn to
recognize and care for it.
In the Spirit,
Jane
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