Wednesday, June 11, 2014

No Light without a shadow Or No shadow without a Light

Put some Light on your shadows!
The shadow, when it is realized, is the source of renewal; the new and productive impulse cannot come from established values of the ego. When there is an impasse, a sterile time in our lives – despite an adequate ego development – we must look to the dark – hirtherto unacceptable side which has not been at our conscious disposal. The shadow is the door to our individuality, in so far as the shadow renders us our first view of the unconscious part of our personality; it represents the first stage toward meeting the Self. There is, in fact, no access to our own reality but through the shadow. (Whitmont)
Wikipedia: In Jungian psychology, the shadow or "shadow aspect" may refer to (1) an unconscious aspect of the personality which the conscious ego does not identify in itself. Because one tends to reject or remain ignorant of the least desirable aspects of one's personality, the shadow is largely negative, or (2) the entirety of the unconscious, i.e., everything of which a person is not fully conscious. There are, however, positive aspects which may also remain hidden in one's shadow (especially in people with low self-esteem).[1] Contrary to a Freudian definition of shadow, therefore, the Jungian shadow can include everything outside the light of consciousness, and may be positive or negative. "Everyone carries a shadow," Jung wrote, "and the less it is embodied in the individual's conscious life, the blacker and denser it is."[2] It may be (in part) one's link to more primitive animal instincts,[3] which are superseded during early childhood by the conscious mind.


 

 
 
 

No comments: