What would be a practical approach to developing your shadow
Well that's a good one
Let's do a little review of Jungian Psychology.
The first thing is, if you want to know about this
The proper source is Carl Jung's collected works volume 9
And there's two parts to volume 9 A and B published as separate texts
And volume 9 is called "archetypes of the collective unconscious"
The other one is called Ion
In archetypes of the collective unconscious there's a good discussion of the persona and the shadow
The persona you could say is...
A good way of thinking about it You know, you watch all those romcoms
Where there's always some kind of a beta male guy who is being real friendly
And is always failing miserably with women because basically he's lying to himself and to them
He's a persona
And a persona is the face you show to the world when you're trying to pretend
To convince yourself and other's that, I'd say, harmless, but we could say a good person
But a good person isn't harmless, a good person is capable of
Well, maybe a good person is capable of anything
But is willing to hold that in abeyance
I read this interesting commentary a little while ago on a statement by christ in the new testament
The statement generally interpreted is that the meek shall inherit the earth
I was looking up the multiple translations of the word meek
Meek is actually derived from a Greek word of course
Because the bible, at least some of the original forms of the original bible were in Greek
And that word didn't exactly mean meek, it meant something like
Those who have weapons and the ability to use them but determine to keep them sheathed will inherit the world
And that means that people who are capable of force, let's say
But decide not to use it are in the proper moral position
Nietzsche commented a fair bit on that too
He thought of most morality as cowardes Not because morality itself was cowardes
But because most people who are cowards disguise their cowardes as morality
And they claim that their harmlessness, which is actually a consequence of their fear
And inability to be harmfull, say, or to be dangerous is actually a sign of their moral integrity
And that's a really bad idea
If you're an ex-murderer but you don't have an axe, that doesn't mean that you're moral
So that's the persona
And the persona is the mask that you wear, and that's what persona means
It's the mask that you wear to convince yourself and the world that you're not a terrible monster
So that when you look at yourself in the mirror you don't have to run away screaming
And you might think, well, that's a bit of an overstatement
But Jung was very interested in phenomena such as
The psychological phenomena that would characterise the actions of someone who might be
An Auschwitz camp guard for example
That's a pretty monstrous form of behaviour
The thing about Auschwitz camp guards is that there's no reason to assume
Really, that they were much different than normal people
Now there would have been exceptions obviously
And what that means is that, perhaps you too can be an Auschwitz camp guard
And perhaps you would even derive some enjoyment out of it
And you might think not, but you shouldn't think not so quickly
What that also implies is that if you could see what that meant
When you looked in the mirror and looked at yourself
You might run away screaming
Because you'd have a revelation of just exactly what a human being is capable of
And that's a very unpleasant revelation and also one of the things that stops people from being enlightened
Because that revelation of the evil of the self is part of the journey to enlightenment, and an early part
Now the shadow would be all the parts of the personality that the persona rejects
And that might be the aggressive elements
Certainly that's the case for people who are hyper agreeable
There's two pathways to the development of the shadow
And they're tightly allied with one another
The fundamental pathway is truth
And that's to face the bitter truth about yourself
To break that down more particularly you might think about that
As the capacity to observe your own resentment
You're going to be resentful and bitter in many situations
Because you don't get what you want
And if you watch that resentment and bitterness you'll see that
It produces fantasies that can be unbelievably dark
And that can be very frightning
You might not want to admit to yourself that you're actually capable of having fantasies like that
Or impulses like that or aggressive feelings like that
If those aggressive feelings and impulses and fantasies are integrated into your character
It's like you're opening up a dialogue with a part of yourself that can be very forceful and strong
And dangerous And it's really usefull to be dangerous
Because if you can be dangerous, you often don't have to be
And it's often weak people, for example it's weak men who generally rape
That's a very common occurrence
And it's a very violent act, but it's borne out of weakness not out of strength, that's for sure
You attend to your resentment honestly
And you observe yourself and what you're actually like
You gotta pay attention as if you don't know yourself
As if you might harbor hidden devils And then maybe they'll emerge
Jung also felt that sort of embedded inside the shadow were the contrasexual tendencies
And so for example
Sometimes you see people are well developed
Men, let's say, and we can also talk about women in this regard
Men who've integrated their shadow also often develop a kind of peculiar grace
That would be a consequence of not only allowing their aggressive side to step forward
But also their feminine and compassionate side
That they may have kept squelcht because of embarrassment about it
Or because they may have been harassed for being weak or any number of things
But the practical approach for developing your shadow, I would say
Is to contemplate and consider your resentment
And notice what it says
Because your resentment will also tell you what you have to say
So look at what happened at Google this weekend
Jame Damore wrote that memo and you can imagine he was pretty angry
And perhaps even some what resentful
at having to attend that diversity seminar
I am really just using it as an example
But, what he did was to decide that that man
he had something he had to say
Look at the consequences of that, man
It is absolutely unbelievable
And so you know if you are feeling oppressed at work or
You are oppressed in your life
Or you are oppressing yourself
Then you gonna notice that you are feeling oppressed
Then you have to notice that you are feeling resentful and angry
and bitter and maybe even like Cain
The story of Cain enable
Because Cain is the sort of archetypal bitter man
And you have to decide what is you need to do in order to remove from yourself that bitterness
And that usually means that there is something you have to say
And you have to say it
Because your soul depends on it
And it is not only your soul that depends on it
I would like to say the fate of the world depends on it
Because you might be wrong and then you should be straight out, or maybe you are just being wining,
You have to talk to somebody about that
Or maybe you are actually detecting something wrong
Some tearing is directed towards you and another people
And it is like your moral obligation to speak up about it
And so many world places become toxic used the terrible cliche
Because the people in them won't speak up for what they actually want
Or they speak up too late and then they are all twisted up about it
And you know they torturing other people
Because they are so unhappy and so forth and so on
So
Practical approach for developing shadow fundamentally is radical honesty
Jung said that genuine moral effort was a good substitute for psychotherapy.