ME AND MY SHADOW
You might be too young to remember the song “Me and my Shadow”. It was written in the 1920’s and became famous again in the early 60’s as a duet by Frank Sinatra and Sammy Davis, Jr. With catchy, rhythmical lyrics, it portrays the shadow as our faithful and constant companion.
On a deeper, psychological level, the shadow is our dark side, and everybody carries one. This was the message given to us by the renowned Swiss psychiatrist Carl Jung.
Jung stated that the human psyche is “by nature religious” and is to be explored in depth. Unlike Freud, he thought spiritual experience was essential to our well-being. Jung was considered to have had an indirect role in establishing Alcoholics Anonymous by recommending that a person experience an entire psychic-change (soul/mind) in order to recover from alcoholism.
The shadow may be hidden, suppressed aspects of ourselves that we don’t want to acknowledge. When we do allow it to surface for healing purposes, transformation can take place. To quote a sacred text: “Be transformed by the renewing of your mind”.
I encountered my shadow through a process of self-exploration. My emotional, mental and physical health depended on this process; otherwise, I probably would not have attempted it. Though my exploration of self was painful at times, the “aha” moments came. I never knew exactly when to expect them or how they would affect me, but the moments eventually did appear in the form of clarity, release, and a sense of peace.
“Wholeness is beyond the shadow”, writes Deepak Chopra, in The Shadow Effect, a new book co-authored with Debbie Ford and Marianne Williamson. My spiritual mentor, who is a man of the cloth, says that the further we delve into our humanity, the closer we are able to touch the Divine. As in the Scriptures: “Nothing can separate us from the love of God.”
Sometimes we look in a mirror and receive a wake-up call, or the call goes right over our heads. A harsh judgment of someone or some thing out there may be a cue to look inside as to what needs to be healed in ourselves.
We can see the shadow aspect everywhere. On the world stage, we are shown the shadows of celebrities, politicians and sports figures. Former President Bill Clinton, Tiger Woods, and Michael Vick (to name a few) had their dark sides exposed in front of God and everybody.
Recently, I saw an interview on the NFL Network with Michael Vick and his former Atlanta Falcons coach, Jim Mora. Vick was imprisoned at Leavenworth in Kansas for his role in a dog-fighting operation in which these precious animals were maimed and tortured, and some were destroyed. He had been involved in dog-fighting since his early youth.
Vick told Mora that his whole life had been a lie, and he came to work with a mask on. Vick said that the best thing that ever happened to him was being shipped off to Kansas. There he prayed for a healing.
Before the interview, Vick had been asked how long this road to redemption would last. Vick said that it would not end.
We have a choice when we observe these famous people falling off their pedestals. We can maintain a position of judgment and disdain, or without condoning their actions, we can move on to forgiveness and further on to self-examination. Forgiveness is not a pardon or condoning wrongful acts. It is our path to freedom, and all roads lead to it.
If there is a collective consciousness as Jung and others expound, the shadowy aspect that we perceive in another can serve as a catalyst for our own healing and restoration.
Jung believed that the journey of transformation was to meet the self and at the same time to meet the Divine. The shadow may be the key to unlocking our creativity. Years ago, I would have said that I don’t have a creative bone in my body. While exploring the self, I became a writer. My experience has taught me that transformation is an inside job.
Gandhi challenges us to be the change we want to see in the world, and my response is to continue practicing a non-judgmental attitude while examining self. As with Michael Vick, my road to redemption is ongoing with a living amends to those I have harmed, including myself.
Mo,
ReplyDeleteAnother wonderful writing from the heart and soul. Glad to see you have your own blog now and do not have to rely on others to post.
Looking forward to seeing your recent writings and some new ones up here soon.
You are the light..... Of my life
Kevin
Maureen, I like your post and fully agree that we can and must learn and grow from exploring the shadow side of our and others’ characters. … When I first encountered C.G. Jung’s ideas I liked them because they contradicted Freud’s concerning the importance of spirituality to human well-being. The only writings of Jung’s I’m familiar with are those contained in Memories, Dreams and Reflections (1989), which I first read in the 1990s. I took another look at this book this evening. My questions were: What was Jung’s religious affiliation? What did he mean by “nature,” “religion” and “spirituality?” MDR gives me the impression Jung was a Christian despite most, but not all, of the on-line posts I queried claiming he was not. In fact, those who dispute his Christianity also declare him to be a threat to Christians’ well-being when they follow his teachings about psychotherapy. Though I could find nowhere in MDR his clear declaration of his religiosity, the views he expresses on God and Christianity, and the benefits of a belief in the former and an adherence to the latter, make me feel fairly certain that he was. [His lack of an outright declaration of his faith could have been an attempt to maintain his “scientific” psychiatric bona fides, a good career move during the early and mid 20th Century when there was little room for Jungian and other self-actualization approaches in a psychology that was most eager to prove its scientific credibility.] What do you think? My point is that if Jung was a Christian, it should be no surprise that he believed that mankind is naturally a religious being whose best hope for happiness and fulfillment would be cultivating a relationship with and reverence toward God, and living a spiritual life. For me the “nature” of humankind is of two types – that which is encoded in our genetic makeup and that which we learn. So far, it has not been irrefutably proven that there are “religious” or “spiritual” genes in the human genome. (See my blog post on the God Gene.) If it had been so proven it would have been on the front page of every newspaper in the world, and quickly become part of the body of basic scientific knowledge. If Jung thought spirituality was genetic his was a hunch, not a proven fact. So, Jung must have thought that our spiritual “nature” is something we develop through learning and experience. Also, his and others’ clinical studies, make a strong case for the crucial need for a spiritual dimension to realize a wholesome human life. With this I fully agree. The atheist Freud, in The Question of God: C.S. Lewis and Sigmund Freud Debate God, Love, Sex and the Meaning of Life by Armand Nicholi, came off clearly less happy and content with his life than the “converted” Lewis. [This raises other matters such as objective truth can never be a consistently happy worldview whereas the truth of a devout believer is a more satisfying default happiness. Was Freud sadly honest and Lewis happily deluded? How does one choose which view to take?] I guess the question that Jung did not address is can a person live a happy satisfying life without a belief in a creator, personalized Christian-type God? I think one can. Incidentally, when I read Jung writing about “God” and think of Spinoza’s not Abraham’s God, it works much better for me. As for Deepak Chopra, I’ve never been an enthusiast of his writing and beliefs – too much undefined talk about “energy”, “spirit,” etc. – “All creativity is based on quantum leaps and uncertainty.” – that the “universe” is a benevolent, friendly place where all religions and philosophies can exist together in peace - but I certainly agree with his view that health, love and happiness are possible. As Dawkins and Shermer say, he’s a bit too “woo woo” for me. Maybe it is just my inner practical primate insisting that the path is not out there but here on Earth, within all of us, in Nature. Jim
ReplyDelete