At Some Point the Shadow Must Be Addressed

For [Swiss psychoanalyst Carl] Jung, to be human is to have a Shadow. One of the factors that separates us from the animal world is that animals behave in what appears to be an uncontrived and immediate way. They seem to have no fabricated identity, as we experience it, that gives rise to the need to split off unacceptable behavior and impulses. Jung saw the Shadow as that aspect of the psyche that has been repressed and denied because we have wanted to hide it from the world. He implies that as we grow, we learn what is acceptable and what is not, according to the prevailing attitudes around us. We learn to repress feelings and behavior rather than risk disapproval and being judged as bad or unacceptable. An infant, rather like an animal, has little or no discrimination of what is not acceptable; its responses are raw, natural, and uninhibited. Inhibition grows as the ego forms more fully in consciousness and learns to separate that which serves to maintain approval from that which does not . . .

The Shadow is perhaps the most important aspect of our lives that must at some point be addressed. To assume we have no Shadow is both to become blind to ourselves and also potentially inflated. To be human is to have a Shadow, and those who are genuinely without Shadow are rare, and indeed beyond being human. The Buddha and Christ could perhaps be seen as the rare beings who finally purified the Shadow. Unfortunately, the Shadow, being by nature a blind spot, is not easy to recognize in ourselves, although others may see it . . .

The Wisdom of Imperfection; The Challenge of Individuation in Buddhist Life
Rob Preece