Written by: Lana Popovic, Executive Contributor
Executive Contributors at Brainz Magazine are handpicked and invited to contribute because of their knowledge and valuable insight within their area of expertise.
Manual on Spotting the Intruder
What is “The Shadow”?
“The Shadow”, a term coined by C. G. Jung in the domain of psychotherapy, refers to the unconscious parts of our psyche characterized by hidden desires, childhood traumas, personal taboos, unfulfilled needs, etc. Anything that the conscious mind deems unacceptable, inappropriate, unpresentable, or too painful or shameful, becomes a building block of the Shadow. Such things are swept under the rug of our unconscious mind, so that we don’t have to look at them. However, this doesn’t make them go away. On the contrary, they continue to operate and even govern our life outside of our awareness. And those aspects of the Shadow that are still operating in consciousness, we skillfully hide from others.
However, The Shadow is also a reservoir of our greatest unfulfilled potential. As Jung states in his book, The Practice of Psychotherapy: “The unconscious is not just evil by nature, it is also the source of the highest good: not only dark but also light, not only bestial, semihuman, and demonic but superhuman, spiritual, and, in the classical sense of the word, ‘divine.’”
The work of reconciling The Shadow and integrating it into our conscious awareness, or turning unconscious into conscious, is what Jung referred to as the process of Individuation. Some synonyms for this are Enlightenment, Alchemy, spiritual evolution. These terms all refer to realizing the highest human potential. This has been a goal of both spiritual and philosophical traditions from around the world since time immemorial.
In this article we shall discuss modus operandi of the Shadow and methods to spot it, and thus begin the process of integration.
When you point a finger at someone, there are three fingers pointing back at you.
Jung writes in his Memories, Dreams, Reflections (1963): ”Everything that irritates us about others can lead us to an understanding of ourselves.” When we are emotionally triggered by the behavior of someone else, it almost always points to a characteristic within ourselves. We witness the person exhibiting some behavior (or tendency) which we embody ourselves, but which we disapprove of and dislike – perhaps even despise. Thus, we find ourselves engaging in “projection”. We do not want to face the undesired aspect of ourselves, so we turn the metaphorical “blind eye” to its presence. We can be very good at tricking ourselves, conveniently ignoring such tendencies in ourselves. However, those things become obvious and apparent when we notice them in another. This causes us to become emotionally stirred, agitated, or outright angry with the offending person – even when such behavior does not affect us personally. It is not always obvious how our own tendencies are mirrored in another, and it can take some effort and deeper reflection to find the correlation.
It might also be the case that the person’s behavior is a more extreme version of that which we embody ourselves. Naturally when we compare our own internal failing to the external model, it appears as if the behavior of the other person is completely unlike our own. However, what we need to find is the tendency itself – and not the level at which it is expressed – in order to identify the projection.
Projecting from the Wound
Another type of projection happens when we interpret the words, actions and motivations of others from the place of our “Wound”. What does this mean? If we experienced some painful event in our past, and it’s something we didn’t manage to overcome, we might relate occurrences in our interpersonal relationships back to that painful event. For instance, if we feel our parents didn’t give us enough love and support, we might have grown up believing we are somehow not “good enough” or “lovable enough”. This negative belief may be carried well into adulthood, so if we encounter a circumstance where a friend or a loved one is in a situation where they can’t be fully present for us - even if the reason is valid - we might automatically interpret that to mean they don’t see us as valuable and worthwhile. In this example, it is clear the hurtful conclusion springs from our own inner beliefs, and is not an objective and realistic reflection of the thoughts and motivations of others. This is an example of a traumatic Wound hijacking our mind, and projecting our innermost fears into events in our life.
Self-Fulfilling Prophecy
A painful pattern from our past might also cause us to anticipate that same painful pattern happening again and again, but with different participants. This expectation can become the prelude to a “self-fulfilling prophecy”, wherein the outcome we fear is actually manifested by our own agency.
The anticipation of a feared occurrence can trap us in a stress-response, causing us to behave in a manner that sets us up for disappointment. For instance, if we suffer from the fear of abandonment, we might inadvertently start to behave in a needy and controlling manner in our relationships. Such behavior may cause our partner to feel suffocated and overwhelmed, which in turn would drive them to seek some space to create balance for themselves. The partner’s need for space immediately gets registered by our wounded mind, bringing up the sense we are being abandoned. This feeling of abandonment can throw us into a panic, and lead us to further act out by engaging in emotional drama, guilting, blaming, etc. It’s not hard to predict that such a relationship will eventually end in a breakup. We will then be left with a confirmation of our fearful belief that “I always get abandoned by those I love”. It may appear that the Universe is somehow conspiring against us, when in fact, we are simply co-creating our reality based on our unconscious and limiting beliefs.
Our Wound can also cause us to attract harmful people into our lives. We might unconsciously attempt to recreate painful relationship dynamics from our childhood, with unconscious intent to fix them, or find some sort of resolution. For instance, if we had an abusive parent, in adulthood we may attract abusive partners. In fact, without us being consciously aware of this, we might inadvertently gravitate toward such people and find them attractive – even irresistible. The abusive partner will not exhibit their true colors right away, so we might find ourselves running excitedly, and recklessly, into the relationship. By the time our predicament is revealed to us, we are already attached to and tangled up with the problematic person, making it more challenging to get away.
Note that just because we are stuck in a projection, it doesn’t mean there is no external problem. If someone else is behaving in a manner that is harmful, it is our duty to remove ourselves from that harm. We can always analyze our projections from a safe distance. In the same way, just because we find that the other person is objectively a problem, it doesn’t mean we are off the hook from investigating our own contribution to the situation.
We must learn to discern the difference between our projections and actual objectively problematic situation or person.
We are projecting all the time, but this does not always occur from our Shadow aspect, and not all projections are problematic. Just as we engage in projections that provoke negative emotions, we also engage in projections that elicit positive feelings. Both can in fact be harmful. When we project our own ideals, hopes, and fears onto people and situations we are not rooted in reality, but are rather tangled in our unconscious narrative. The real aim is to live as close to reality as possible. One way of doing that is to practice assessing situations through varied perspectives and worldviews.
How to know when we are engaging in Projection:
We are stuck in an obvious pattern that repeats from friendship to friendship, and from relationship to relationship – the very same scenario, but involving different players. It is unlikely that every single person we run into is problematic. If the same issues persist in countless situations, we can deduce that we are the common thread in all such scenarios.
We find ourselves deriving enjoyment from criticizing others, and most especially when we feel dissatisfied with our own life. Fixating on how others go about their own life (particularly if it doesn’t affect us personally), and indulging in such fixation, is a definitive sign we are focusing on shortcomings of others to avoid looking at ourselves. This is the very modus operandi of the Shadow!
We are taking everything too personally. Even if the improper behavior is directed our way, if we feel highly triggered there is a good chance we are adding to the problem with our own projections. Even when we are objectively justified in getting mad, it doesn’t mean we are in the clear. Perhaps the person is having a bad day, or is somehow confused. But if we hold on to our anger for an excessively long time, it is probable that we are inserting our own narrative into the mix as a strategy to avoid looking at our own stuff.
We feel very defensive when confronted. When we feel like we have to defend ourselves, it means we have something to defend. By default, virtues never have to be defended – only vices and imperfections. So if we feel driven to defend some aspect of ourselves, it means we have not yet developed compassion for it. The lack of compassion for a part of ourselves indicates that we have not accepted it yet – and all such characteristics that we deem unacceptable are by extension in the domain of the Shadow.
Chipping at our Shadow is a life-long process and it’s not easy, but the sooner we start, the faster we can begin to enjoy a more liberated existence, endowed with greater self-awareness and self-compassion. For extra guidance and support sign up for my Shadow Integration course coming up February 2022 by sending an email to lana@psalchemy.com.
Lana Popovic, Executive Contributor Brainz Magazine
Lana is a passionate advocate for human evolution, and an avid lover of the ancient alchemical teachings. She promotes psycho-spiritual methods integrating scientific and spiritual technologies with both Eastern and Western wisdom traditions, for the purpose of helping people reach their potential.
In 2006 Lana undertook the long process of formal initiation into both the Tibetan Buddhist and Western Hermetic traditions, transforming her lifelong interest into a serious, full-time study and practice.
Formerly an interior and industrial designer, she left that path in 2014 to dedicate herself fully to a career in coaching.
Along the way she earned certifications in several therapeutic modalities and programs, some of which combine research in neuro-science with Eastern mindfulness-based methods.
Lana creates content, courses and coaching programs implementing her psycho-spiritual training, along with proven transformational techniques in the realm of shadow working and holistic self-improvement.
