“‘The Shadow’, a term coined by C. G. Jung in the domain of psychotherapy, refers to the unconscious parts of our psyche characterized by hidden desires, childhood traumas, personal taboos, unfulfilled needs, etc. Anything that the conscious mind deems unacceptable, inappropriate, unpresentable, or too painful or shameful, becomes a building block of the Shadow. Such things are swept under the rug of our unconscious mind, so that we don’t have to look at them. However, this doesn’t make them go away. On the contrary, they continue to operate and even govern our life outside of our awareness.”
“If we were a big floating iceberg in the North Pole, Ego would be the visible bit. Shadow would be the heavy, massive foundation hidden below the ocean’s surface, in the depths of the waters of the unconscious. It is concealed from view, yet it makes up the vast majority of the iceberg. At the first sight, someone sitting on the shore can only behold our shiny top floating with pride, standing tall and gloriously reflecting the sunlight.”
“And while there is an epic battle between “good and evil” taking place in the depths of our being, we go on with our daily lives: going to work, doing laundry, chopping vegetables and the like. It would all be swell if only we, and others around us, did not end up as unsuspecting casualties of our inner conflict, which manifests in the outer world as explosive arguments, rivalry, self-sabotage, angst, depression, disconnect from reality and sometimes outright destruction.”
“However, The Shadow is also a reservoir of our greatest unfulfilled potential. As Jung states in his book, The Practice of Psychotherapy: “The unconscious is not just evil by nature, it is also the source of the highest good: not only dark but also light, not only bestial, semihuman, and demonic but superhuman, spiritual, and, in the classical sense of the word, ‘divine.’”
“When we are emotionally triggered by the behavior of someone else, it almost always points to a characteristic within ourselves. We witness the person exhibiting some behavior (or tendency) which we embody ourselves, but which we disapprove of and dislike – perhaps even despise. Thus, we find ourselves engaging in “projection”.”
“Everything that irritates us about others can lead us to an understanding of ourselves.”