Shadow Work and Self Improvement How to glimpse what does not want to be seen

We live in a time when the ability to meet by chance is quite difficult.  In the days of smaller communities, people who might have had a falling out had an opportunity to encounter each other in a town square or at a needed resource like a river or a well.   They would be given many opportunities to repair the rift that may have come between them.  Today, because we have become so successful at engineering efficiency and comfort, it is more challenging to meet on common ground to repair conflict in an innocent and natural way.  We have to now put a conscious effort into social engagement.  Ghosting someone has become a painful but compulsive life strategy that leaves us alone and haunted by the memories of love lost.  

When we do decide to summon the courage to get out into the world and join a social activity, oftentimes, unfortunately, even those activities are somewhat solitary events where we all focus on a single spectacle or activity without interaction, like watching a movie or sitting on our yoga mat in a yoga class.

Because online interaction is becoming more streamlined and much more convenient, we, as a society, risk building up what traditional psychology calls a big Shadow aspect.  The concept of the Shadow is coupled with the concept of the Persona.  A Shadow aspect is a quality within us that we do not approve of or may even fear.  A Shadow aspect, (like an actual shadow) is something we do not see or sense.  When we turn around to look for it, it has slipped away behind us again.

A Persona, on the other hand, is the collection of traits and qualities we do approve of.  Our persona is who we want the world to believe we really are.  We present and convince each other of our good qualities, and that is certainly a noble and important effort to always cultivate and encourage in ourselves and others.  It isn’t that the Persona is a lie, it just isn’t the whole story.  We cannot in good conscience believe indefinitely that we are a good person doing no harm if we do not open ourselves up from time to time to peer review.  

The only reason we should even care about what is in our Shadow is because when it grows too large it can wreak havoc in our lives, like a violent storm out of seeming nowhere.  Constellations work discovered the phenomenon of Tribal Innocence, where a person can experience total peace and a sense of righteousness even while committing acts of atrocities.  The reason this is possible is due to the intoxicating effect that belonging to a person or a group causes in our hearts and minds.  Our need to belong (to attach in this world) is in constant dialogue with our need to approve of our individual moral compass.  Going against our family or our tribal code of conduct can feel so terrifying that we will push the whole matter behind us into the shadow.  When the shadow gets too big, our life suffers from a lack of light and we need help from others to open the curtains.

What is needed is a balancing act.  The dance between belonging to a group and being true to one’s own sense of right and wrong is a lifelong journey.  It takes a lifetime to grow up. And we will always need to put a determined effort into staying connected.