"Where love rules, there is no will to power, and where power predominates, love is lacking. The one is the shadow of the other." Carl Jung, On the Psychology of the Unconscious
The Shadow, is a psychological term introduced by the late Swiss psychiatrist, Dr. Carl G. Jung. It is everything in us that is unconscious, repressed, undeveloped and denied. These are dark rejected aspects of our being as well as light, so there is positive undeveloped potential in the Shadow that we don’t know about because anything that is unconscious, we don’t know about.
The Shadow is an archetype. An archetype means is that it is typical in consciousness for everyone, our racial and instinctual memories of our species. Everyone has a Shadow. We all have a Shadow and a confrontation with the Shadow is essential for self awareness. We cannot learn about ourselves if we do not learn about our Shadow so therefore we are going to attract it through the mirrors of other people.
The shadow is therefore all that is halved in the unconscious and not made whole. It is the source of all our misery and social disease. Whether it is the darkness of unquestioned individuality, selfishness, violence and hostility or the ever obsessive need to be a self sacrificing martyr to others, its danger lies in its unrealized "other half". It is by nature incomplete and therefore, always searching for its other side. In not finding its other, lost in unconscious unawareness, it projects itself outward unto others. When a person can not find his other in himelf first, he looks to others to have that unconscious need met. However, over and over again he finds only his shadow-half looking back at him. He then wonders why the world is such a dark place?
The Shadow Dream
Most often, when Shadows appear to us in dreams, they hold the key to our repressed memories, which enable us to uncover unwanted habits and allow us to heal. For example a shadow will come to us most often as someone of the same sex in dreams. He/She will be our old childhood friend or co-worker who is completely opposite from us; they are incompetent, loud, rude, obnoxious, sexual or docile. The traits they carry which we reject as bad or "other" (not of us) are actually traits which we fear or need within ourselves; they can also be traits which we show outwardly to our family and friends but are not aware of it. Traits which hurt our relationships and ourselves. This is an example of Projection : when we displace onto, or see in others what we deny as part of ourselves. For example, accusing your spouse/partner of not being more supportive when in fact it's you who needs to show more support. Or, wondering why he/she doesn't love you more when in fact you don't love yourself enough or give yourself more worth.
The first thing we have to do in order to begin to see our Shadowsides, is to take 100% responsibility for our lives. This is a very difficult thing to do and no one does this overnight so we have to be patient with ourselves.Being in the human experience, we have all had many painful, difficult experiences where it clearly looks like it is the other persons fault, or bad luck in life or whatever else we want to call it. So taking total responsibility for what appears to come to us is no easy task but it is well worth the effort because when we take responsibility for what happens to us, we can then learn and grow from our experiences and make new choices for ourselves. Changing our attitude from blame to responsibility will change what happens next in our world. Our destiny is of our own making and what goes on inside of us will be reflected outside of us all the time.
Shadow dreams do not imply that we are to become the image that we dream of, but more to look at what the image represents in our daily lives and how our shadow may be unconsciously wreaking havoc. For example, a shadowy corporate executive as murder in a dream may well represent how we abuse our power in daily life, abuse our financial responsibility etc. Each person may look to their own shadow dreams for personal meaning.
I am very fond of this ancient axiom given to us by the alchemists of long ago: “As above, so below, as within, so without, so that the miracle of the one can be established.” What it is saying is that what is within us, will also be oustide of us. Inner states of consciousness will be reflected in outer situations time and time again. If we are willing to look at the significance of these repeating patterns, we will see the syncronicity of events and situations and ultimately once integrated, the miracle of the whole is established as we become one with ourselves.
The Shadow, is a psychological term introduced by the late Swiss psychiatrist, Dr. Carl G. Jung. It is everything in us that is unconscious, repressed, undeveloped and denied. These are dark rejected aspects of our being as well as light, so there is positive undeveloped potential in the Shadow that we don’t know about because anything that is unconscious, we don’t know about.
The Shadow is an archetype. An archetype means is that it is typical in consciousness for everyone, our racial and instinctual memories of our species. Everyone has a Shadow. We all have a Shadow and a confrontation with the Shadow is essential for self awareness. We cannot learn about ourselves if we do not learn about our Shadow so therefore we are going to attract it through the mirrors of other people.
The shadow is therefore all that is halved in the unconscious and not made whole. It is the source of all our misery and social disease. Whether it is the darkness of unquestioned individuality, selfishness, violence and hostility or the ever obsessive need to be a self sacrificing martyr to others, its danger lies in its unrealized "other half". It is by nature incomplete and therefore, always searching for its other side. In not finding its other, lost in unconscious unawareness, it projects itself outward unto others. When a person can not find his other in himelf first, he looks to others to have that unconscious need met. However, over and over again he finds only his shadow-half looking back at him. He then wonders why the world is such a dark place?
The Shadow Dream
Most often, when Shadows appear to us in dreams, they hold the key to our repressed memories, which enable us to uncover unwanted habits and allow us to heal. For example a shadow will come to us most often as someone of the same sex in dreams. He/She will be our old childhood friend or co-worker who is completely opposite from us; they are incompetent, loud, rude, obnoxious, sexual or docile. The traits they carry which we reject as bad or "other" (not of us) are actually traits which we fear or need within ourselves; they can also be traits which we show outwardly to our family and friends but are not aware of it. Traits which hurt our relationships and ourselves. This is an example of Projection : when we displace onto, or see in others what we deny as part of ourselves. For example, accusing your spouse/partner of not being more supportive when in fact it's you who needs to show more support. Or, wondering why he/she doesn't love you more when in fact you don't love yourself enough or give yourself more worth.
The first thing we have to do in order to begin to see our Shadowsides, is to take 100% responsibility for our lives. This is a very difficult thing to do and no one does this overnight so we have to be patient with ourselves.Being in the human experience, we have all had many painful, difficult experiences where it clearly looks like it is the other persons fault, or bad luck in life or whatever else we want to call it. So taking total responsibility for what appears to come to us is no easy task but it is well worth the effort because when we take responsibility for what happens to us, we can then learn and grow from our experiences and make new choices for ourselves. Changing our attitude from blame to responsibility will change what happens next in our world. Our destiny is of our own making and what goes on inside of us will be reflected outside of us all the time.
Shadow dreams do not imply that we are to become the image that we dream of, but more to look at what the image represents in our daily lives and how our shadow may be unconsciously wreaking havoc. For example, a shadowy corporate executive as murder in a dream may well represent how we abuse our power in daily life, abuse our financial responsibility etc. Each person may look to their own shadow dreams for personal meaning.
I am very fond of this ancient axiom given to us by the alchemists of long ago: “As above, so below, as within, so without, so that the miracle of the one can be established.” What it is saying is that what is within us, will also be oustide of us. Inner states of consciousness will be reflected in outer situations time and time again. If we are willing to look at the significance of these repeating patterns, we will see the syncronicity of events and situations and ultimately once integrated, the miracle of the whole is established as we become one with ourselves.
Peace,
Colleen
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