When our shadow remains unconscious, it wrecks havoc in our life. As all humans have a shadow, what differentiates us from others is the degree to which we are conscious of it. We put up psychological defenses to ensure they were not allowed expression, and thus these characteristics were repressed into the unconscious. Personality traits and impulses that elicited fear or anxiety in our parents or teachers, for example, caused them to punish or criticize us and so we reacted by repressing these characteristics. Some aspects of our shadow are the product of our upbringing. We contain, like all animals, instincts for sex and aggression that we tend to repress in order to adapt to the social mores of the day. Some aspects of our shadow are the product of our evolution. At all counts, it forms an unconscious snag, thwarting our most well-meant intentions.” (Carl Jung) Everyone carries a shadow, and the less it is embodied in the individual’s conscious life, the blacker and denser it is. “Unfortunately there can be no doubt that man is, on the whole, less good than he imagines himself or wants to be. To do this we often criticize and condemn others to ensure our focus does not fall on our own faults and destructive tendencies. We go through life with a false air of moral superiority and a belief that while others act immorally and destructively, we ourselves are wholly virtuous and always in the right. We hide our negative qualities, not only from others but from ourselves. Hyde, his shadow personality gains dominance over him and wrecks havoc on his life.Īlthough the shadow is an innate part of the human being, the vast majority of us are willfully blind regarding its existence. Jekyll represents the respectable part of one’s personality, but when he transforms into Mr. In 1886, before Jung made his mark, Robert Louis Stevenson created the now famous story of Dr. While Jung is known for bringing the concept of the shadow to public awareness in the modern day, this aspect of ourselves has long been recognized as a ubiquitous feature of human beings. When we come face-to-face with our darker side, we use metaphors to describe these shadow encounters: meeting our demons, wrestling with the devil, descent to the underworld, dark night of the soul, midlife crisis.” ( Connie Zweig, Meeting the Shadow) “The shadow goes by many familiar names: the disowned self, the lower self, the dark twin or brother in bible and myth, the double, repressed self, alter ego, id.
“That which we do not bring to consciousness appears in our lives as fate.” (Carl Jung)Ĭarl Jung is famous for formulating the concept of the shadow, the portion of our personality which, through the course of our life, is relegated to the darkness of the unconscious.
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