Episode 55 - Identifying & Integrating the Personal Shadow
Release Date: 04/18/2019
This Jungian Life
When we betray ourselves, we abandon our values, needs, or truths to gain approval or avoid discomfort. This leaves us disconnected, fragmented, and unsure of who we really are. These patterns often start in childhood, where conditional love or invalidation teaches us to hide our authentic selves to stay safe or gain acceptance. We see this in our daily lives—staying in unbalanced relationships, ignoring our emotions, overworking, or making choices that don’t align with who we are. We justify it, suppress what we feel, or take on others’ beliefs without realizing how much it costs us....
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info_outlineThe personal shadow is created as a normal part of development, as we learn what behaviors, values and feelings are not acceptable in our family, school, or religious tradition. In order to be accepted by needed significant others, parts of ourselves have to be split off from consciousness and are therefore relegated to the unconscious as shadow. A major part of becoming more whole is discovering these exiled parts of ourselves and integrating the feelings they carry. Deb, Lisa and Joseph discuss some of the ways that shadow can be confronted and given a place at the table of consciousness.
The Dream:
I’m in my Dad’s wood shop, in the basement of the home where I grew up. I need to unscrew a panel on a metal box, and I’m finding the right screwdriver. The first one I pick up is too small, Mom hands me a better-sized one, a Phillips head with four fins. Somehow it is a very large size, and I notice the fins on the head are rusty. I sand away some of the rust on one of the fins, but when I come to the second, it is covered in masking tape. Instead of peeling off the tape, I try to sand away the masking tape, but the sandpaper continues to sand into the screwdriver fin itself, which is somehow made of corrugated cardboard. I am puzzled. I feel a pit in my stomach, like I’ve made a mistake. I find that only the first of the four fins is made of metal, the rest are cardboard. I “undo” (like you would on a computer) to get back to where I was after sanding the metal fin. The cardboard fins are intact again and I’m relieved. I then unscrew and open the panel of the box.