Shadow: Dark Side of the Ego

I’m a bit of a narcissist.

I craft my words to be seen smart. I shape my behavior to be seen kind. I make it so you don’t see me arrogant.

It is barely noticeable and I only catch myself doing so after the fact.

But it underlies my actions. Not so much, I think, or maybe even I have deluded myself.

I’m malicious at times.

That I purposely put other people down so I feel better. Not overtly so, no, it is rather subtle.

I wonder how much of my actions are because I feel insecure and I guise it as being truthful. So I bury it under much more acceptable reasons and call it good intentions.

I deny that part of me.

I silence, suppress and suffocate it. Get it out of my sight so I forget about it. Get it out of me so I come out clean.

But it festers.

It lies in wait while it builds. Then it explodes like anger and self-destruction. It comes at me at unexpected times, in unlikely places.

Then I wonder how it came to this.

The Shadow

Carl Jung coined the term ‘shadow’ to describe aspects of our personality that we reject and repress. It is the dark, unlit part of our ego that we are not conscious of or don’t want to acknowledge. There are many reasons we relegate this part of our identity, such as it being unacceptable or deemed wrong by society or unlikable by us . We learned to identify and reject it since childhood, from parents who taught us right or wrong and from cues we receive from other people when we want to belong.

What we reject, we project. These qualities we hide, are qualities we often see and can’t stand in other people. We condemn other people the way we unconsciously condemn ourselves. We are quick to see flaws in them that we also possess. A lot of our inexplicable behaviors stemmed from not wanting to look at our shadow directly. But according to Jung, to be able to be truly whole, we must bring the shadow into consciousness. That means owning it and balancing it with the persona that we show to the world. We can only address what is truly undesirable if we face it head on.

“Until you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life and you will call it fate.” — Carl Jung

A great book on this topic is Owning Your Own Shadow: Understanding the Dark Side of the Psyche by Robert A. Johnson. This was actually my first introduction to Jungian psychology and to the concept of the shadow. Understanding oneself will always be a relevant topic and a necessary work one has to do in their lifetime. Jung’s works are rather too academic, so it helps to have a Jungian analyst like Johnson to break these concepts down for beginners to gain insight into their own psyche.

Accepting and giving expression to the shadow is a transformative process. To uncover our hidden selves is freeing and empowering. Personally, I used to be so angry and resentful due to some things I have not dealt with in the past. These feelings come out of nowhere and permeates relations. And even the anger and resentment, I refused to acknowledge. So the cycle never ends, the pressing dark never gives. Only when I looked at my own shadow, without censure and judgment, did I feel light somehow.