Shadow
Material
“That
which we do not bring to consciousness appears in our lives as fate.”
Carl
Jung
I’ve
written many times about the part of human beings Jung called “the Shadow.” It’s
an archetype, and represents the parts of us, both individually and
collectively, that we have repressed—that we are in the dark about. Most of the
time we repress the traits we don’t like—such as pettiness, jealousy, sarcasm,
weakness—because we don’t want others to know they are a part of us and we don’t
want to see them ourselves. In the best of all worlds, we do this consciously
by squelching improper impulses. Unfortunately, we don’t always have that insight.
Instead, we say things and/or do ugly things and then feel terrible about them:
“I can’t believe I said that!” or we may think, “That’s just not me. I don’t do
things like that.” But clearly, we just did.
Here’s
a story about such a time: When I was 16, I was invited to a friend’s “Sweet 16
Party.” Her parents rented the Community Building and invited everyone in our
class to come and bring a date. I didn’t have a date, but I went anyway—white dress
and see-through sandals—I remember primping for a long time to get ready. When
I got there, a band was playing, and people were dancing, which I loved to do,
so I danced with several guys and from that point on, I don’t recall how the
evening went. Keep in mind that there was no drinking going on. No one slipped
booze into the punch, and we were oblivious to the harder substances. Even pot
had not made an appearance in our little mountain hamlet. Somehow or other, I
ended up leaving the party early with my friend’s date. I remember nothing
about that except that it happened. I did not know the boy, and I had no
conscious plan to seduce him away from the girl whose party it was. I honestly
do not even remember his name. But it was a cold and hateful thing to do to
anyone, much less a friend. When we returned to that Community Building for our
50th High School reunion, she was the first person I encountered.
Her words to me were, “Do you remember what happened the last time we were
here?” Fifty years later, she was still
carrying the wound left by my behavior.
I could
go into all the possible reasons I might have done that, but it doesn’t matter.
It’s a good example of how the shadow works to throw blinders on us—to convince
us to do things just because we can, just because we want to, and whispers in
our ear, “don’t worry about it—it’s no big deal.” The Shadow is part of us that
we do not recognize as belonging to us—what Connie Zweig, in Meeting the
Shadow, referred to as “the disowned self, the lower self, the dark twin or
dark brother/sister, the double or alter ego.” Dark, in this case, refers to
unconsciousness. We speak of the Shadow when we reference “meeting our demons” or
“wrestling with the devil.” We speak metaphorically about it when we describe a
dark night of the soul or a mid-life crisis. Mythology calls it a descent into
the underworld. Carl Jung said, “Unfortunately, there can be no doubt that
man is, on the whole, less good than he imagines himself or wants to be.”
It’s
important to understand both the personal Shadow and the collective Shadow. Our
country—like every other country—has a dark side. We have taken great care to
avoid bringing that awareness to the light of day in our textbooks. American History
and historical literature tell little about such things as the brutality of slavery,
aggression, the plight of marginalized citizens, or the foibles and outright
indiscretions of our leaders. We try to avoid spreading knowledge about how we
treated our native populations, and the fact that we have steadily stolen their
land, as well as subsumed them, their language and culture. We rejected their
religion and have never once respected a treaty.
The
reason we must acknowledge this now is clear. We are in a constant state of
crisis. We are under enormous pressure to the point that everyone feels it.
When our Shadow remains unconscious, it wreaks havoc with our lives, and our
unconsciousness causes us to project it onto others—for example, onto black and
brown people, LGBQT+ people, anyone who is different. It’s destructive, and
harmful and painful. Our dark side—individually and collectively—has the power
to undermine us, and to up-end our democracy. Remember that archetypal energy
is at work here, and it doesn’t respect boundaries or consider the laws of
civility. And it’s more powerful than we can imagine. We have a choice: remain
unconscious or evolve—it’s totally up to us.
In
the Spirit,
Jane
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