![]() This repression of unwanted parts creates what psychologist Carl Jung called the personal shadow.Īs Jung writes in Psychology and Alchemy: We adjusted our behavior to gratify our needs and learned to adapt to the external world.Īll the unaccepted or discouraged parts of us in the first 20 years of our lives are bundled together, swept out of view (outside our conscious awareness).Īs poet Robert Bly says in A Little Book of the Human Shadow, the child puts all of these unwanted parts into an invisible bag and drags it behind him. Would the disapproval of our parents threaten our safety? Would the disapproval of our teachers and classmates jeopardize our need to belong? Whenever it happened-and it might have happened often-it threatened one of our basic needs. Our teacher shamed us for our lack of decorum in front of the class and told us to sit down. Or perhaps we acted boldly, playfully, spontaneously, or silly in our first-grade classroom. Our parents reprimanded the outburst and sent us to our room. These needs are biological and instinctual.Īs children, when we expressed certain parts of ourselves, we received negative cues from our environment. These needs include physiological needs, safety and security needs, and needs for belonging. Traits associated with “being good” are accepted, while others associated with “being bad” are rejected. These emotions are part of our shared humanity. How the Shadow is BornĮvery young child knows kindness, love, and generosity, but he also expresses anger, selfishness, and greed. For then, to be sure, it is standing right behind us. It stays with us as our dark brother or sister. Think of the unconscious as everything we are not conscious of. We repress them they are part of our unconscious. Although we deny them in our attempt to cast them out, we don’t get rid of them. These unexamined or disowned parts of our personality don’t go anywhere. This shadow self represents the parts of us we no longer claim to be our own, including inherent positive qualities. The personal shadow is the disowned self. I cover the “positive shadow” in a separate guide on psychological projection.)Īll we deny in ourselves-whatever we perceive as inferior, evil, or unacceptable-become part of the shadow.Īnything incompatible with our chosen conscious attitude about ourselves relegates to this dark side. (However, we cut ourselves off from many of our best qualities too. The shadow is the “dark side” of our personality because it consists chiefly of primitive, negative human emotions and impulses like rage, envy, greed, selfishness, desire, and the striving for power. ![]()
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