“Curiously, people resist the noble aspects of their shadow more strenuously than they hide the dark sides. To draw the skeletons out of the closet is relatively easy but to own the gold in the shadow is terrifying. It is more disrupting to find out that you have a profound nobility of character than to find out that you are a bum.” Robert A. Johnson, Owning Your Own Shadow, page 7,8.
Two doorways into discovering “the gold” and “the skeletons” in the shadow:
- Exaggerated adoration or exaggerated judgement of self and others.
Notice where you adore or judge someone in your life and how that covers up or compensates something with-in yourself. For example, if I am naive about certain personal or social relationships, I might adore or criticize someone who is skilled in ways that are difficult for me. Or, I might have difficulty accepting similar strengths with-in myself. Let’s say someone in a group of friends dominates the conversation all the time. It may make you angry, rightfully so, but it might also indicate that you do not trust your own ability to express yourself. Also, you may be covering-up an unworthy feeling of taking up space and other’s attention. The most common judgement is rejecting a characteristic in another, that we reject in ourselves.
Consider all aspects of a dream as parts of your whole self. Then begin to consider the various personalities with whom you participate in dreams; such as, a wise person, a homeless person, a lost child, a divine child, a teenager, a negative parent, an attacker, a snake in the grass and so on. These images show us all of our traits. We all have multiple personalities.
We can then notice how these different personalities operate in our daily lives. For example, let’s say we have a dream of a lost child. I can begin to find that naive and vulnerable feeling I have inside, the vulnerability that I rejected. This is usually a part of myself that was rejected a long time ago. I might have been too busy trying to fit-in and I had no time for child-like feelings, feelings that seemed to get in the way of survival in the family and this confusing culture.
The Art of Suffering Emotional Pain
Now as an adult, I can bring this life back by feeling this vulnerability, holding it like you would a baby, and even talking to it, “of course you are naive and vulnerable, you are just a baby and I will be with you now and guide you and care for you”. Dreams lead us to these rejected or lost parts of the soul, then we can do the work of retrieving them, by holding them, listening to what they need, guiding them, and sometimes even saying “no you can’t have everything you want”.
In general, the tendency is to accept one part of the personality and reject parts that seem weak, lazy, selfish, not spiritual and so on. These are just undeveloped parts that are mis-understood and long to return. To have awareness of these qualities is enough to begin with. You will begin to notice that the resistance and rejection of the soul is a way to keep a sense of control, but it is not very effective. Relaxing the resistance and watching the comings and goings of the mind and body gives us a better perspective of what we can and cannot control. It gives us a sense of balance and proportion.
