The shadow is a wonderful, interesting and mysterious phenomenon. Painters have scrutinized the subtile colours of the shadow, for centuries. So have astronomers when they have been observing the shadow of the earth on the moon, during eclipse.
6th century BC the Greek philosopher Thales used the shadow to measure the height of the pyramids. He did at the same time when his own shadow was as long as himself.
In this small article it is the symbolic and metaphorical aspects of the shadow that have interest. In our Psychological Universe the “shadow aspects” refer to the unconscious aspects of the personality which the conscious self or ego does not identify in tself.
The shadow tends to be rejected by the self or been left in ignorance, because it is conceived as the least desirable aspects of one’s personality. In other words mainly negative qualities of ourselves.
But Psychoanalyst C.G. Jung contrary to S. Freud also filled the concept of the shadow, with positive qualities. That is, he meant that all parts of our psyche that we are unaware of, or not conscious of, belong to our shadow. This also means all the positive qualities we are in posession of, without knowing it!
Qualities that our parents or caretakers have forgotten or denied to acknowledge in us. Or properties that we have suppressed because we have had low self-esteem, or extreme modesty.
Psychopaths or sosiopaths, usually have extremely dark shadows, that are projected on to others. It’s the other, or you that are deceitful and cheating, unfaithful in marriage, even bad and evil. You are the persecutor , you are the one sick in your head, you are the hateful person.
Listen to a psychopaths negative description of yourself or others, and remember that the one he is really describing is himself!
How can we relate to our shadow
That’s a big problem. I think the best way to do it is to start with the positive aspects of ourselves, that perhaps are denied or unconscious. When we have listet up this single item(joke), and try to affirm and recognize that this too, is us, is me, we can start with the negative qualities.
Remebering that in a meta perspective, in a broader “one-level-up aspect”, gaining knowledge of ones’s drawbacks and negative sides, is a even a stronger positive quality than several single positive ones.
This is so as long as we try to be thorougly honest about it, and also affirm, understand and accept the negative qualities in our psychological universe. There is a great difference between acknowleding negative traits, than acting them out. on others!
The true difference between a psychopath with an aggressive personality disorder and a normal human being, is the acceptance of being a whole person. A whole person has all kinds of emotions and tendencies, but all in all accepts his or her less formidable traits. Therefore she or he can contain themselves, without needing to split their selves in two. One conscious very perfect, idealized, super edition og themselves, and the other shadow variant, the hateful vindictive, aggressive and violent, denied edition.
As I tried to underscore in the aricle “How brainwashed are you”, even Hitler must have been a very beautiful and positive infant. All narcissist and so called psychopaths, have in my experience been emotionally or physically tyrannized, in some way during their childhood. They have been driven out of infant bliss and paradise. In some way or another they have later started to identify with the aggressor.
After being victim for many years, they have managed, more or less unconsciously to switch the role in other relations. Now they display the non-victim, the person in control. Unfortunately the power they have to possess in order to feel safe and at the top, victimize others.
From a more narrow viewpoint, this strategi of survival is ingenious, when together with brutal enemies. With other people, – ordinary and relatively nice boys and girs, men and women, it can by fatal, and contraproductive also for the tyrant! In a relatively normal relation between a couple or by colleges, your shadow can be “enlightened”, by the other and vice versa.
That is not so with the shadow of these split persons. Here there are so much hidden tears, pain, rage and anxiety, that could collapse his sense of self and inflated selfworth.
Even if that is really so, I invite him and her, with more or less psycho- or sosiopathic traits, to join us in exploring our shadow every day. And we must start listening to other people’s reactions, when they are together with us, – and reflect upon it asking ourselves: “Can it be some truth in what they are telling me, or is this just some of there own flaws projected on us”?
Having a heavy and dark shadow, is first of all a sign of a tragic childhood, and a Method of survival in this predicament! If you accept that your shadow is closely related to your strategy of survival, it’s easier to accept it and try to reduce the umbra or darkness that it casts on your surroundings.
