Though it is uncomfortable to consider, we carry a shadow
with us wherever we go.
In Jungian theory, the Shadow is “composed of all those aspects of ourselves that have a tendency to make us uncomfortable with ourselves” (9). Our ego is not as monolithic as we suppose. It integrates various aspects of who we are. Our ego is threatened by the many shards of splintered experience that form and shape it. Some aspects are so difficult to integrate that they are denied and rejected. They make us uncomfortable. However, this does not mean they disappear. They accompany us as our Shadow.
For this reason, we often seem alien to ourselves – radically other, and thus, threatening. In order to protect our ego we resist admitting our shortcomings. We refuse to admit that we may have hidden agendas and ulterior motives. We seek to alleviate the threat through good works, but forget that good works can exist side by side with a tortured inner life. Thus, “Our task is not in the end goodness—for the good we do may just as often arise from complexes or Shadow or have unintended consequences—but rather wholeness” (22-23).
There is “a tragic sense of life” that is exposed by acknowledging the “yawning gap between intention and outcome” (27). It is painful to reflect upon our shortcomings, hidden agendas, and ulterior motives. We seek “security but not growth” (95) and thus fail to experience the pain of encountering our Shadow.
There are a number of ways we seek to eliminate the stress that accompanies our Shadow. Grasping for more and more control through will-power alone is one way, but it does not eliminate the problem. “If this ego reification really worked, we would not see so many televangelists falling from grace, or so many clerical scandals, nor would we see the genuine turmoil of so many souls trivialized by simple moralizing and gratuitous public posturing” (35).
The most innocuous way to maintain control and manage our anxiety is through routine. The predictability gives us a sense of control, but blinds us to all we may miss through the rigidity of our established way of doing things.
Addiction – “a reflexive, conditioned, and often progressively compelling behavior whose enactment momentarily lowers stress” – is another way (67). Addictions are “efforts to avoid feeling what we already feel” (68). “The Shadow issue comes into play when we ask ourselves what part of our life we are avoiding. As natural as it is for a sentient being to avoid pain, sometimes going through the pain is the only way to lift the pain, to grow and develop, or quite simply to reject the powers of pain to govern our entire life. The only way to break the stranglehold of an addiction is to feel the pain that it is a defense against, the pain that we are already feeling” (68).
Whether we like it or not, the Shadow accompanies us at all times. It is a hidden component in our relationship with ourselves and others. Hollis highlights three principles that are present in all relationships at all times:
I. We have a natural tendency to project onto the Other what we do not know about ourselves (the unconscious), or what we do not want to know about ourselves (the Shadow), or our reluctance to grow up and assume fill responsibility for ourselves (our resistant immaturity).
II. Since the other will not, cannot, and should not take on the responsibility for what we have deferred—our unconsciousness, our Shadow, our immaturity—or our hidden agenda is frustrated, and the relationship tends to devolve into the problem of power, with its invitation to control or manipulate the other, or to blame, with its familiar dyad of victim and villain.
III. The relationship is thereby left with the choices of dissolution. Blaming, sustained anger and depression, or growing up. The only way in which we can grow up, and the relationship evolve into a realistic experience worthy of our continuing investment, is to withdraw the projections and transference over time, own them as our Shadow stuff, and take responsibility for our emotional well-being and spiritual growth, even as we choose to support our partner’s efforts to do the same. (104)
Hollis puts his finger on the problem that pervades our relationships and causes so much strife: “How much easier it is to demonize our neighbor than to see the darkness within ourselves” (155). “Our most primitive defense is to look outside ourselves for the cause of the problem. Acknowledging that we are the only constant in every relationship requires taking on the problem of our Shadow” (98).
The Shadow dilemma is: “can I live with myself as I really am?” (101) The challenge is to assume responsibility for all that I am, including my Shadow, and not simply what makes me comfortable. “What I do not wish to face in myself, what I do not wish to assume responsibility for, is my Shadow, not yours. The best I can ask of you is that you try to take your Shadow work seriously, as I seek to do mine” (104).
Quotes excerpted from Why Good People Do Bad Things: Understanding Our Darker Selves by James Hollis, Ph.D.
© Richard J. Vincent, 2007
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