BLOG |
|
A IS FOR... |
Shadow Self Want To Know What "The Shadow" Is All About? Here's An Easy Place To StartIf 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 |
Archives
May 2020
Categories
All
|
RSS Feed