H Is For... Hypocrisy

Shadow Self

Want To Know What "The Shadow" Is All About? Here's An Easy Place To Start

If we want to get to know - and make peace with - the rejected and darker sides of our nature, we need to face up to our hypocrisy

When  we talk to the uninitiated about Shadow Psychology: our repressed states, the idea about "integrating" our darker, unacknowledged traits in order to be fully realised "whole" human beings - we can forgive people if they look back at us blankly,  unashamedly uninterested.

But mutter the word "hypocrite" in anyone's direction and we will get a decidedly different response.

We are ultimately talking about the same thing. But for anyone who isn't a self-help junkie, who hasn't studied the work of Carl Jung, been independently curious about psychological jargon, or spent time in therapy doing "shadow work", there is no reason why anyone else would even give this idea the time of day.

Hypocrisy, however, is a loaded - and very well understood - term.  And it's powerful. It rocks people to their core and shakes their egos when branded in this way (if they actually listen).

There are, arguably, fewer powerful insults we can throw at someone than this one - particularly the more moral and ethical the target considers themselves to be.

It is a gift, in a sense, when we bump into it, as it is perhaps the ideal introduction into the world of Shadow Psychology, which in itself is also perhaps the most important widely ignored discipline that is so vital to our lives and well-being.


Do As I Say, Not As I Do

In psychological terms we could call it a kind of Cognitive Dissonance - the basic idea that we say one thing but believe something else or act in a way contrary to what we actually think.

It is the priest proselytizing on purity and abstinence while battling a drink problem or abusing the vulnerable; it is the avidly homophobic politician-in-public who is engaging in a homosexual relationship in private.

In essence, it is  when we criticize and condemn people for acting in a way that we in fact are also acting ourselves (frequently unbeknownst to others) - and it can also be us hating on people for things we are not doing but wish we were.

As Jung once famously said:

“Everything that irritates us about others can lead us to an understanding of ourselves.”

Psychology and philosophy vlogger Einzelgänger gives a layman's introduction, below, and as he explains, it is not the fact that we are hypocrites in the first place that is the problem.

It is that we fail to recognize it.

We miss the opportunity to "integrate" these hidden aspects into our conscious selves so we are no longer dominated by misunderstood, unrecognized unconscious forces.

What We Resist...

Our darker urges exist because we resist looking at them.

And our hatred of other people's behaviour stems from the failure - or refusal - to recognize that the things we are villainising lie inside of us too.

Only when we bring these traits to the surface, then, facing them in the cold light of day and admit that we are, also, like that too, can they ever cease to hold power over us.

So how do we do this?


"The Work"

There are many different ways (you can find various techniques here).

One is via "The Work", by Byron Katie. 

Katie has a simple "Judge Your Neighbor" exercise (with an explanatory video, below).

The basic idea behind it is also a fundamental lesson in hypocrisy - that whatever it is that is driving us nuts about XXX is generally the very thing we need to own up to ourselves.

And it goes without saying that it's easier to do in some cases than it is in others.

But it is always worth doing.

Why?

Take Byron Katie's
"Judge Your Neighbour"
Exercise Here

We can't hope to function very well in this world at the very least - or flourish at best - if we are walking around like zombified automatons, unaware of what we think, what drives us, what hatred we secretly harbour, remaining ignorant of how objectionable we might actually be.

It stands to reason.

At the very least, as Jung says, if we learn to recognize the hypocrisy in ourselves, it might not only make us whole but it might just make us connect with people a little bit better:

"A little less hypocrisy and a little more self-knowledge can only have good results in respect for our neighbor; for we are all too prone to transfer to our fellows the injustice and violence we inflict upon our own natures.”

And any of us who say we couldn't care less how other people feel, or how other people feel about us are either raging psychopaths, or just haven't looked squarely at ourselves in the mirror for quite some time.

Perhaps it's time we did.

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