In every story, there is a hero and a villain.
In your story, you are both.
All the bright aspects and all the dark aspects
of your self orchestrate the melody of your song.
A song that you need to hear first, before anyone else.
But in order to hear it, you have to learn to listen.
To listen not only to what you want but also to what you are afraid of.
Your fears and your darkness aren’t detached from you.
Do not eschew them.
Face them,
analyze them,
internalize them.
The shadow is always there and it will always be.
But the shadow can look big or it can look small,
depending on the angle from which the light caresses you.
What is the size of your shadow?
Carl Gustav Jung was one of the most important psychologists
of the previous century.
He is also one of my biggest influencers
since he is one of the few
that have attempted to bridge the notions of psychology and spirituality
in an effort to discover ways to transcend the human condition.
Jung has traveled a lot to India
and immersed himself in different spiritual practices.
His work was constantly evolving and it was this evolution
that produced comprehensive analyses of concepts
like the ego,
the shadow,
the archetypes,
and the anima and animus.
Especially the shadow has always been an intriguing topic among people
and with regards to it, Jung has stated:
“The shadow is a moral problem that challenges the whole ego-personality,
for no one can become conscious of the shadow
without considerable moral effort.
To become conscious of it involves
recognizing the dark aspects of the personality as present and real.
This act is the essential condition for any kind of self-knowledge.” — Carl Jung
The use of the word shadow wasn’t chosen unintentionally.
Jung was always good at portraying complex ideas
in a assimilable visual manner.
He used mental imagery in order to create anchors
with concepts already familiar to human cognition.
The shadow is dark and elusive.
It is impossible to catch,
its size can alter depending on your position in space
and it is ubiquitous whenever light is present.
Ergo, one can form a somewhat basic understanding of the concept
without the need to delve into arcane terms.
Another crucial thing to ponder is that the shadow itself,
due to the darkness that it forms
and due to the distance that it creates from the physical body of a person,
becomes something not so many people are eager to confront.
And this is one of the major ideas associated with the Jungian shadow.
Although we usually see the shadow as an integral part of our existence,
most of us are willfully blind to this existence.
Our dark side is concealed or camouflaged
in a painful attempt to protect an image
that fits the narrative we decide to espouse.
Through social conditioning,
we come to construct a façade that can keep the substrate
of our constructed identity stable so that we can keep feeling safe.
Safety, however, is ill-defined in that space we inhabit.
How can one feel safe when there is so much unknown territory out there
that can at any given point in time
convulse the foundations of our fragile constitution?
A person is as free as their mind allows
and if the mind creates barriers between the reality of the person
and the reality of the rest of the world,
delusion and neurosis could take over.
When you see people operate in a state of enforced ignorance
that attempts to preserve a certain status quo,
then the shadow can only grow bigger.
Enforced ignorance entitles the shadow to take over
since the individual is incapable of controlling it
because he or she is not even aware of its existence.
We can’t control what we don’t understand.
Every aspect of one’s unconscious identity
that cannot metamorphose into conscious judgment
will perpetually impede one's progress,
for it is creating a fantastic world
that cannot synchronize with the frequencies of the real world.
In such a landscape, the real world,
or at least whatever we can understand of it,
becomes an egotistical battleground that leads to collision and madness.
That is not how our perceptions should meet.
The world should be a forum for dialogue and constant experimentation
where we strive to refine the moral imperatives
that could alleviate our suffering.
Everything beyond that should be viewed with skepticism.
If that seems poignant to some people,
that is clearly because the shadow element
hasn’t been dealt with effectively.
This includes animalistic needs, primitive instincts, sexual desires,
traumatic experiences, and also positive aspects of one’s character
that may also remain hidden in one’s shadow.
Regardless of the idiosyncratic nature of one’s shadow,
the process of assimilation has always been universal
and it is represented by the following sequence:
Evidently, assimilation can’t occur if the stages of encounter
and merger don’t take place first.
That is certainly a heroic act,
for the angst entailed in this process is immense.
There is nothing scarier than facing the deepest realms of our self.
But there is also nothing more rewarding than that.
Assimilation is a lengthy process that demands mainly psychotherapy,
but also hours of introspection and constant reevaluation
and recalibration of personal behaviors and beliefs.
Our cerebral makeup is quite plastic,
but its plasticity is predicated upon our ability
to showcase discipline and tenacity.
We can’t just expect a divine force to rescue us from our suffering.
We are our only chance for redemption and catharsis.
The shadow has a challenging nature, therefore, the process of assimilation
requires one to ask oneself some challenging questions.
Most of you have heard of the story of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hide.
The infamous phrase is inspired by the book
“Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde”
written by the Scottish author Robert Louis Stevenson in 1886.
In it, he describes the life of a man who transforms between two personae:
Dr. Henry Jekyll and Mr. Edward Hyde.
The story was so powerful and it resonated with so many people
that it entered the vernacular
and whenever we encounter characters with an unpredictably dual nature,
we almost immediately recall the story of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hide.
Most of us can cite events from our lives
where our actions and our intent didn’t really align.
We behaved as if we were different people.
That’s a result of a plethora of factors that can affect our behavior
and can result in lack of congruency in what we think, feel and do.
Social conditioning, latent desires, mental fatigue,
and many more reasons can come to mind.
The truth, however, is that our ability to fight them is within our control.
There are times in my life where I feel that I will go crazy
due to over-analysis of certain happenstances in my paradigm.
I am not sure how to deal with specific scenarios
and, more often than not,
I tend to question the reality of those scenarios.
My perception might be prone to certain biases and prejudices
that cloud my judgment,
so I tend to question the basis of every claim that I make.
Despite how awkward this process might seem
it is a process that can yield tremendous benefits
in one’s journey to assimilate the shadow.
Your shadow, due to its dark nature,
is constantly forming a cloud over your judgment.
This cloud can never disappear,
but it can certainly abate through meticulous introspection
and cultivation of wisdom.
By some strange technological and philosophical osmosis,
we can create a universal moral framework
that can be accepted by every soul on this planet.
This might sound ambitious, but, trust me, it is not.
Humans have always found ways to co-exist and respect each other
because the notion of co-existence is central to our survival.
Our evolution has created countless iterations of our species,
but our bedrock is, more or less, the same.
What does not allow us to behave constantly
in a respectful and mutually beneficial way is the shadow.
When the shadow takes over,
any discussion for a universal moral framework cannot find fruitful ground.
We negotiate and debate and exchange verbal tantrums
in an attempt to defend our point of view
and our position in the dominance hierarchy of society.
Some people do that in a more ethical way and in order to defend goodness,
but most just keep perpetuating banal attitudes and approaches.
And it is the banality and triviality of existence that needs to be dealt with
in order to identify what is morally good.
Actually, it is the combination of that
and the ability to showcase common sense in the face of trivial matters.
With common sense, the discovery of a solution to most of our problems
could be accelerated dramatically.
Life might be an amalgamation of complex instances
but our cognitive apparatus is more than capable of making sense of them.
All it takes is to offer clarity
to our judgment and common sense is imperative in that respect.
Especially when it comes to orienting ourselves towards what is morally good.
Dr. Jordan Peterson likes to promulgate that life is struggle
and that unless you don’t voluntarily accept this as a fact,
struggle will keep manifesting itself in every facet of your existence.
I like this idea a lot because it reminds me how important clarity is
when it comes to the betterment of our living conditions.
In order to ameliorate something, you need to understand its mechanics.
Maybe something isn’t working well
because a part that comprises the whole is actually malfunctioning.
When we break down the whole in parts and fastidiously examine these parts,
we can discover details about systems that are usually obscure.
Then we can go back to the system itself
and look at how what we discovered
can improve the performance of the system as a whole.
A bottom-up approach is always more effective and usually more meritocratic,
thus empowering the parts to work synergistically for a common cause.
Clarity manifests itself in that way.
When you allow the part to discover all its nuances and all its capabilities,
you end up with a reinforced version of it that can offer more to the whole.
Humans operate like that
and the dawn of the Internet made that idea more vivid.
We experience a collective awakening
that can, perhaps, lead to a collective enlightenment.
Information becomes widely accessible
and we can improve our error correcting mechanisms
just by asking and gathering as many views as possible.
That right there is the essence of clarity.
And its only obstacle is the shadow.
A person who clings to outdated and ill-defined views
will only reinforce the shadow and stagnate in a swamp of confusion.
Incessant knowledge seeking is the name of the game.
A game we should all prepare to play.
I want to conclude this video essay with a passage from the Red Book,
probably Carl Jung’s most important work.
“Be silent and listen:
have you recognized your madness and do you admit it?
Have you noticed that all your foundations
are completely mired in madness?
Do you not want to recognize your madness
and welcome it in a friendly manner?
You wanted to accept everything. So accept madness too.
Let the light of your madness shine, and it will suddenly dawn on you.
Madness is not to be despised and not to be feared,
but instead you should give it life…
If you want to find paths, you should also not spurn madness,
since it makes up such a great part of your nature…
Be glad that you can recognize it,
for you will thus avoid becoming its victim.
Madness is a special form of the spirit
and clings to all teachings and philosophies,
but even more to daily life,
since life itself is full of craziness and at bottom utterly illogical.
Man strives toward reason only so that he can make rules for himself.
Life itself has no rules.
That is its mystery and its unknown law.
What you call knowledge
is an attempt to impose something comprehensible on life.”
There is not much to say after you read those words.
Only that there is so much madness in life.
But there is also so much truth in madness.
Hi everyone,
The creation of this video allowed me to express myself
in a way that illuminates the struggles of my inner world.
And I truly believe that most of you could resonate with my views.
Asking yourself questions like
“how often do I question the nature of my reality?”,
or “how do I orient myself towards what is morally good?”,
or “how do I offer clarity to every facet of my existence?”
is definitely a strenuous act, but also a rewarding one.
As a huge thank you for making it to the end of this video
and for supporting my work,
I would like to create my first giveaway.
I will send a copy of the Red Book, Jung’s most celebrated work,
to one of you.
All you need to do, is to follow me on Instagram,
subscribe to this channel, get notifications
and message me on Instagram, confirming that you did all that.
I will randomly pick the winner in a week from now
and I will contact you in your Instagram account, so stay tuned.
Again, thanks for watching. See you in the next video.