God forbade...must reading!

Shadow



                  "It's not so much a problem with you, as for your shadow."



  In Jungian psychology, the shadow is from the unconscious mind, repressed weaknesses, shortcomings and instincts. Jung wrote,


       "Everyone carries a shadow, the less acknowledged in your conscious life, the blacker and denser it is."



  Jung says the shadow is instinctive and irrational, prone to projection, turning a personal inferiority into a perceived moral deficiency in someone else. These projections insulate and cripple by forming an ever thicker fog of illusion between the ego and the real world.



  Jung believed the shadow, not only a reservoir of darkness, but, in some, could be the seat of creativity. Their shadow represents the 'true spirit of life against the arid scholar'.



   He says the shadow can personify everything someone refuses to acknowledge about himself.

  It is a 'tight passage', a narrow door, no one spared the painful constriction. On becoming aware of the shadow, comes shame of qualities and impulses denied in himself, but plainly seen in others, such as egotism, mental laziness and sloppiness, unreal fantasies, schemes, plots, carelessness and cowardice, an inordinate love of money and possessions, the unending and painful life's work of self-education.



 The dissolution of the persona and launch of the individuation process brings with it the danger of falling victim to the shadow.



  Jung says the shadow can overwhelm, the conscious mind is shocked, confused or paralyzed by indecision. Someone possessed by his shadow is always standing in his own light and falling into his own traps, living below his level. In terms of the Dr. Jeckyll and Mr. Hyde story, it's the Jeckyll, or conscious personality, who must integrate the shadow, and not vice versa. Otherwise the conscious becomes the slave of the autonomous shadow. Deindividuation raises the possibility.



  In the process, the ego and shadow come together, in an admittedly precarious unity. Jung says first is a dead balance, a standstill in moral decisiveness with ineffective convictions. Genuine courage and strength are required with no assurances. He says no one should deny the danger of descent, its followed by an ascent, the shadow at hand, rather than in control.



  Jung says this happens when an extreme, one-sided tendency dominates conscious life, a counterposition builds. Initially, conscious performance is inhibited, but conscious control predominates. Understanding acts like a lifesaver. The shadow's assimulation gives body, so to speak, provides a launching pad for further individuation.



Jungians warn work on the shadow is a life process, the grim task of

       'washing your own dirty laundry, in private'.





Wikipedia