How clearly do you see your shadow?
The truth is…. ‘there is no light without shadow, and no psychic wholeness without imperfection”. Carl Jung.
The dark side of our personality, the negative emotions and impulses that we judge as being unacceptable – perhaps our rage, our greed, meanness, selfishness, striving for control – our shadow, stands behind us so it can be tricky to see.
The thing is, when we resist seeing our shadow, it harms our relationships. The gift of our relationships is that they offer us a mirror. So, if we’re irritated by someone’s rudeness, arrogance, aggression, impatience, whatever…the chances are those qualities are within us.
Understanding who we are requires us to see ALL of who we are. As we see our self more clearly, we become closer to our authentic self and feel more whole. What happens then is that we see others with more understanding and compassion.
How to do this work? We need to be honest with our self, and make friends with those parts we’ve denied. The only way to do that is to connect with your heart, the home of our love and compassion.
Of course, not only do we cut ourselves off from those parts that didn’t get approval as a child, we also can separate from the best parts of our self. In this case, we project those qualities onto those who we admire, often putting them on a pedestal. What if we too have these qualities? We would then need to be responsible for our greatness!
Most of us are unaware of our hidden potential – our inner gold – our Higher self, the essence of who we are. When we accept all of who we are, when we discover our inner gold and live from our Essence, we become more of our best self – and so much more than we might imagine.