To honor and accept one's own shadow is a profound spiritual discipline. It is integral and, therefore, sacred, and the most important experience of a whole lifetime. Robert A. Johnson was an American author and a Jungian analyst (follower of Carl Jung's analytical psychology). At the age of 11, he had a near-death experience in a car accident and was urgently taken to the hospital. He found that the nothingness, the blackness, was also the ecstatic world; he saw the golden world in visions. When his life was saved and the visions ceased, he could not bear to live. In therapy, he was convinced to live because without the human faculty, he could not see the things he treasured so much. Robert had a great difficulty with the external world. At one point, he was known as Parsifal, an innocent fool. He experienced many thin threads between life and death during his lifetime. Exploring the inner world greatly helped him. His encounter with Jung was decisive; he wrote: Dr. Jung told me to spend most of my time alone, to have a separate room in the house to be used only for inner work, to never join any organization or collectivity... Dr. Jung told me that the unconscious would protect me, give me everything I needed for my life, and that my only duty was to do my inner work. Everything else would follow from this. He said it was of no importance if I achieved anything externally in this life

At the age of 54 and feeling lost in his life, Robert visited India alone. After a long and exhausting journey, having lost his luggage, he went to his hotel and wanted nothing more than to sleep all day. He looked out the window and was impressed by the beauty of the view. He experienced the golden world for the second time, after many decades. He was given a second chance. If you trust the inner world, it will take care of you. The golden world is there all the time; it is a mistake to think that we produce it or earn it. It is not another place or time, but a state of consciousness, an experience open to anyone, at any time, and anywhere. The Kingdom of Heaven is within. Robert has published books such as: He: Understanding Male Psychology, She: Understanding Female Psychology, and Accepting the Shadow of your Unconscious, among others. We will focus on the third one. In our times, the water of life is not in the external world but within. Exploring our inner world is the most important task of our life. To do this, one must go beyond the ego (what we are and consciously know) and delve into the shadow. Robert refers to Jung's early use of the term, the part of us that we do not see or know (anything that is part of the unconscious). There are many misconceptions regarding the concept of the shadow. It is commonly seen as evil,

The shadow is not a separate thing that is not part of oneself, or the embodiment of the devil. It is a part of you. It cannot, and should not, be avoided because you would be going against yourself. We all have a shadow walking behind us (both literally and metaphorically). It is the mirror image of ourselves that we cannot see. It represents those aspects that we lack. It plays a compensatory role that seeks to restore our personality's wholeness. For example, the shadow of a criminal would not have murderous impulses, but quite the opposite, sincerity, affinity, tenderness, etc. The shadow of a shy person would be assertiveness, commitment, responsibility, etc. By showing only the pleasant and outstanding parts of oneself, and by denying one's own internal emotions and feelings, because one wants, for example, to be likable or avoid conflict, one will build up resentment that will go directly to the shadow and will be projected onto others unconsciously. We must acknowledge that we are capable of both good and evil. That is the only reality. Denying the darkness is denying half of oneself. With this in mind, most of us strive for a life of goodness, tranquility, and happiness. The shadow should not be seen as our enemy, but as our friend. It contains pure gold waiting to be integrated into our personality. The shadow only becomes hostile when it is ignored or misunderstood, that is when it takes control of us because we are

She, what leads to neurotic behavior. It is not the good that sanctifies, it is the union of good and evil that leads to the transcendent. So, how does the shadow originate? Our rejected and unacceptable characteristics do not disappear; they only accumulate in the dark corners of our personality. When they have been hidden long enough, they take on a life of their own: the life of the shadow. If it accumulates more energy than our ego, it bursts out as overwhelming anger. Someone once asked Jung, How do you find your shadow? He replied: How do you find the dragon that has swallowed you? By definition, the shadow is a part of you that you do not know. You do not speak of your own shadow. If you can talk about it, it is already conscious and is no longer a shadow. As such, it is more likely that other people will see your shadow first, a shameful reality. We are all born whole, but somehow culture demands that we only live one part of our nature and reject other parts of ourselves. We divide the self into an ego and a shadow because our culture insists that we behave in a particular way. This is our legacy of having eaten from the tree of knowledge in the Garden of Eden, gaining awareness of good and evil. The shadow can also be seen as sin and the self as the figure of Christ. Culture is the great leveling process, putting everyone on the same level. This means that even

Robert writes: Interestingly, people resist the noble aspects of their shadow more energetically than they hide the dark sides. Bringing the skeleton out of the closet is relatively easy, but owning the gold in the shadow is terrifying. It is more disturbing to discover that you have a deep nobility of character than to discover that you are a vagabond. Ignoring the shadow is ignoring the inner gold. Many only discover their gold when they suffer a serious or potentially fatal illness. This intense experience shows us that an important part of us is asleep. The archetype of the wounded healer is one who has learned to heal himself and finds the gold in his experience. This is typically the role of the shaman who often falls ill only to gain the necessary vision to heal himself and bring wisdom to his people, the elixir of life. When we reach adulthood, we have a clearly defined ego and shadow, a system of good and evil. The religious task is to restore the wholeness of personality. Religion means reuniting things, connecting what is fractured. This is the work of religious life. We, modern people, are broken inside. The truth is hard to bear, and we do not want to hear that there is something in the world more important than our ego. Something needs to die, not our bodies, but the ego. Robert writes: Generally, the first half of life is dedicated to the cultural process: acquiring one's own skills, raising a family,

In a hundred different ways; the second half of life is dedicated to restoring wholeness (sanctifying) life. Robert uses the image of the seesaw to illustrate our personality. On the right side, we have our acceptable qualities (the right side), and on the left side, we have those qualities that are unacceptable (the forbidden side). No quality can be discarded, only moved between these two sides of the seesaw. There is a law that most of us choose to completely ignore. The seesaw must be balanced if one wants to remain in psychic equilibrium. If one indulges in the characteristics of the right side, they must be balanced with an equal weight on the left side. The opposite is equally true. This instability is what causes mood swings or suddenly acting like a completely different person. On the other hand, if the seesaw is too heavily loaded, it can also break at the central point. This is psychosis or a breakdown. While we take for granted the balance of, let's say, the temperature of our body, we rarely acknowledge that the psyche also has its way of maintaining balance. This idea is illustrated in a medieval manuscript of the tree of knowledge produced from Adam's navel. On the left, the Virgin Mary dressed as a nun, picking fruits from the tree and distributing them to a long line of penitents for their salvation. Eve, naked, stands on the right, picking fruit from the same tree and giving it to a

Line of people for their condemnation. This single tree yields a dual product. Every time we pluck from the fruit of creativity, our other hand plucks the fruit of destruction. We would love to have creativity without destruction, but that is not possible. Our resistance to this revelation is very high. The predominant attitude of goodness or holiness is to live as much as possible on the right hand, the good side, of the seesaw. But such a condition would be unstable. The holy place is the central point. While we must conceal our dark side from society, we should never hide it from ourselves. Robert writes: Of course, we will have a shadow! Saint Augustine, in The City of God, thundered: 'To act is to sin.' To create is to destroy at the same moment. We cannot make light without a corresponding darkness. India balances Brahma, the god of creation, with Shiva, the god of destruction, and Vishnu sits in the middle holding the opposites together. No one can escape the dark side of life, but we can deal with that dark side intelligently... The balance between light and darkness is ultimately possible and bearable. This is one of Jung's great insights: that the ego and the shadow come from the same source and balance each other exactly. Shedding light is casting a shadow; one cannot exist without the other. Accepting one's shadow is reaching a sacred place, an inner center, that cannot be

To fail at this is to fail at one's own sanctity and lose the purpose of life. It's not perfection we should strive for, but wholeness; this is how the joy of living is created. Embracing our own humanity, our strengths and weaknesses, not a one-sided goodness lacking vitality or life. Robert writes: I remember a weekend when I endured very difficult guests who stayed days beyond their invitation. I exercised Herculean patience and courtesy and sighed with great relief when they left. I thought I had gained something nice through my virtue, so I went to the nursery to buy something beautiful for my garden. Before I knew what was happening, I got into an argument with the nursery caretaker and made a miserable spectacle of myself. Since I didn't consciously pick up my shadow, I landed it on this poor stranger. Balance was served, but in a clumsy and foolish way. One must honor their shadow because it is an integral part of oneself, but one must not push it onto another person. The shadow will claim its share in some way, smart or foolish. Projection is always easier than assimilation. It is only possible to do one's best and live a decent civilized life if we recognize this other dimension of reality. We all have the potential for evil; that is what unites us all. Those who deny this are often the ones who fall prey to their own shadow.

To reject the dark side of one's own nature is to store or accumulate darkness; this later manifests as a black mood, a psychosomatic illness, or unconsciously inspired accidents. Currently, we are dealing with the accumulation of an entire society that has worshipped its bright side and rejected the dark one, and this residue appears as war, economic chaos, strikes, racial intolerance. The cover of any newspaper throws the collective shadow at us. We must be whole, whether we like it or not; the only choice is whether we will consciously incorporate the shadow with some dignity or whether we will do it through some neurotic behavior. The tendency to see one's own shadow out there in a specific person or group of people is the most dangerous aspect of the modern psyche. It not only negatively affects others but also oneself. It is only by taking the shadow back to oneself that one can assimilate it. It must return to where it first originated and where it is required for your own integrity. It is common for the shadows of two people to face each other. This rarely leads anywhere, as both are completely at the mercy of the unconscious. To be in the presence of another's shadow and not react is nothing short of genius. Goethe's Faust is a great example in literature of the encounter between the ego and the shadow. Faust is a scholar who finds life meaningless and contemplates suicide; his pendulum has reached its limit.

At that moment, he encounters his shadow, Mephistopheles. Through his perseverance, Faust is saved from his lack of life and becomes capable of passion, and Mephistopheles discovers his capacity to love. Love is the only word in our Western tradition suitable to describe this synthesis of ego and shadow. One of the most difficult things to understand is that we often refuse to accept our noble traits and instead seek a substitute in the shadow for them. People are as afraid of their capacity for nobility as they are of their darker sides. If you find gold in someone, they will resist it with every ounce of their strength. That's why we so often devote ourselves to hero worship. All our energy resides in our shadow, and ignoring it makes us feel lifeless, drained, and lazy. Confronting our own shadow fills us with energy and vigor, which we can use for our daily tasks and work. Robert writes: A wise woman once showed me how to get more energy when I complained of being exhausted before giving a lecture. She instructed me to go to a private room just before the talk, take a towel, wet it so it was very heavy, then throw the towel, balled up, to the floor as hard as I could and scream. I felt infinitely silly doing this because it's not my style. But when I stepped onto the lecture platform after such an exercise, there was fire in my eyes. I had energy, endurance,

I gave a polite and well-structured lecture. The shadow supported me but did not overwhelm me. Parrots learn blasphemies more easily than common phrases, as we pronounce our curses with great vigor. The parrot does not know the meaning of these words, but it hears the energy invested in them. Even animals can pick up on the power we have hidden in the shadow! In middle age, one becomes tired of the involuntary back-and-forth journeys between the two extremes of the seesaw. To our surprise, that middle ground is not the gray compromise we feared, but the place of ecstasy and joy. If we learn to take the energy from the shadow and use it correctly, it can set the stage for a new phase of life. In a shadow ritual, one must find one of the contents of the left hand and express it in a way that does not harm the personality of the right hand. One can offer a sacrifice in multiple ways, such as writing the shadow material and then burning the paper. A symbolic or ceremonial ritual affects you as much as any event, as long as it means something to you. Every healthy society has a rich ceremonial life to symbolically pay its shadow, through fasting, sacrifice, sexual abstinence, etc. We must recognize the entire reality, destruction and creation, evil and redemption. Our fondness for light blinds us to the greater reality and distances us from this broader vision of wholeness. Paradox is the life-giving water that

All the great myths give instructions on this subject and remind us that the treasure will be found in one of the least likely places. Strangely, the best may come from the most neglected sector. We will do everything possible to avoid this painful paradox, but in that rejection, we only confine ourselves to the useless experience of contradiction. Contradiction brings the crushing burden of meaninglessness. One can endure any suffering if it makes sense; but the lack of sense is unbearable. Contradiction is sterile and destructive, but paradox is creative. It is a powerful acceptance of reality. Every human experience can be expressed in terms of paradox. Day is understandable only in contrast to night. Masculinity is relevant only in contrast to femininity. Activity makes sense only in relation to rest. Up is only possible in the presence of down. Where would I be without you? Where is joy not limited by sobriety? Moving from opposition (always a dispute) to paradox (always sacred) is a leap of consciousness. That leap takes us through the chaos of middle age and provides us with a perspective that illuminates the remaining years of life. Winning and losing, eating and fasting, gaining and giving are not opposites, but they are all necessary for the human condition. Each of us lives in this contradiction. So, what do we do with this seemingly unbearable contradiction? That is essentially the question at the core of all neurotic dissociation and of

Every psychological problem. If we approach the question incorrectly, we are tied to a neurotic paralysis in which we cannot do anything. We cannot act or be still. This is where many people find themselves, and their suffering is intense. The Danish philosopher Kierkegaard expresses this as an example of the life of the aesthete, who pursues pleasure but is affected by despair. He writes: I cannot be bothered. I cannot be bothered to mount, the movement is too violent; I cannot be bothered to walk, it is exhausting; I cannot be bothered to lie down, because either I would have to stay lying down and that bothers me, or I would have to get up again, and that would also bother me... In short: I simply cannot be bothered. Kierkegaard also believes that paradox is the solution to despair, which can only be found by taking a leap of faith towards God. Thinking that one way of acting is profane and another sacred is a terrible misuse of language. This is a glaring and blatant error and is the root of most neurotic suffering in humanity. Religion unites or heals, restores, and reconciles the opposition that has been tormenting each of us. It helps us move from contradiction, that painful condition in which things oppose each other, to the realm of paradox, where we can simultaneously consider two contradictory notions and give them equal dignity. The English poet William Blake also spoke about the need to reconcile.

Light and dark parts of the self. He said we should go to heaven for form and to hell for energy, and marry the two. Most people spend all their vital energy supporting the war of opposites within themselves. This only brings despair. In the miracle of paradox, it is good to win; it is also good to lose. It is good to have; it is also good not to have. Each one represents a reality, a truth. Remaining loyal to the paradox earns one the right to wholeness. Fanaticism is always a sign that one has adopted one of a pair of opposites at the expense of the other. The high energy of fanaticism is a frantic effort to keep half of the truth at bay while the other half takes control. This always produces a brittle personality of always being right. But, what does paradox have to do with the shadow? It has everything to do with the shadow because there can be no paradox, that sublime place of reconciliation, until one has taken ownership of their own shadow and elevated it to a place of dignity and value. Accepting one's shadow is preparing the ground for the spiritual experience. Conflict to paradox to revelation; that is the divine progression. Who doesn't spend a great deal of their time debating whether to do disciplined work or to slack off a bit more and stay in a dreamy place? Neither is sacred; but exactly in the paradox between them lies the sacred place. Being in a situation where there is

There is a solution, it is the classic beginning of individuation or self-realization. In this state, the unconscious desires desperate conflict to push the ego's consciousness against the wall, so that one has to realize that whatever one does is wrong. This is an act of humility that invites us to see beyond the ego, to that which is greater than ourselves. We know that the mandala is the sacred circle that represents wholeness, the Self. Mandalas are devices that remind us of our unity with God and all living beings. In Tibet, a teacher often draws a mandala for their student and lets them meditate on this symbol for many years before moving on to the next stage of instruction. The mandorla, however, is an idea that is seldom discussed. The mandorla also has a healing effect, but its shape is somewhat different. It is an almond-shaped segment created when two circles partially overlap. This symbol signifies nothing less than the overlapping of the opposites we have been exploring. It instructs us on how to engage in reconciliation. Often, we can see Christ or the Virgin Mary at its center. By definition, Christ himself is the intersection of the divine and the human. He is the prototype for the reconciliation of opposites and our guide out of the realm of conflict and duality. When one is tired or disheartened by a life they can no longer bear to live, the mandorla shows what one can do. When the most

In life, we all need the mandorla. Our own healing comes from the overlap of what we call good and evil, light and darkness. It is not just the element of light that brings healing; the place where light and darkness begin to touch is the deepest religious experience we can have in life. We like to think that a story is based on the triumph of good over evil; but the deeper truth is that good and evil are transcended and both become one. When one is truly a citizen of both heaven and earth, they finally realize that there was only one circle all along. This is the fulfillment of the Christian goal. The two circles were just the optical illusion of our ability and need to see things duplicated. If one creates a mandorla in the intimacy of their inner life, it can be heard for more than a thousand miles. People often asked Jung, Will we make it? referring to the cataclysm of our time. He always replied: If enough people do their inner work. Recognizing one's own shadow diminishes the projection of the shadow and helps to contribute less to the general darkness of the world by not adding to the collective shadow that fuels war, division, and struggle. But we also pave the way for the mandorla, that ultimate place of fullness in one's inner life, the great prize of human consciousness. In the Four Quartets, T.S. Eliot writes:

'The fire and the rose are one.' By superimposing the two elements of fire and flower, it creates an almond shape. It pleases us to the very depths of our soul to be told that the fire of transformation and the flower of rebirth are one and the same.

Owning Your Own Shadow: The Dark Side of the Psyche

In Pursuit of Meaning.

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