🌒 shadow
There is a Hindu proverb: “Anyone who thinks he is enlightened certainly is not!”
Robert A. Johnson • Owning Your Own Shadow
The nature of working with the shadow can be incredibly destabilizing in one’s life. Opening the gates to the unconscious is much like peering beyond the veil into the great unknown, it opens a portal of sorts, and what comes out can be as frightening as it can be healing. Many times, the fear comes before the cure. These previously unknown parts... See more
Alyssa Polizzi • The Alchemy of Shadow Work
However, its formulaic approach does not account for the power of the unconscious. And at times it becomes so oversimplified that its proponents risk reductionism and the peril of reification—the danger of believing that to name something is to fully understand it (“Oh, you were abused as a child, or you come from an alcoholic family. That explains
... See moreSteven Wolf • Romancing the Shadow
Poet Robert Bly has also explored a version of this pattern, which he calls the “naïve male” and identifies by several traits: The man assumes that others are sincere and fair, without seeing their shadows. With this kind of blindness, he has special, prized relationships only with certain people. In addition, he may be passive in relationships,
... See moreSteven Wolf • Romancing the Shadow
Archetypal psychologist James Hillman points out that betrayal can be seen as a necessary turning point that permits an individual to move out of a childlike state of naĂŻve trust and innocence into an awareness of the complexity of every human being, including the dark side.
Steven Wolf • Romancing the Shadow
In order to pursue her dream of a committed relationship, Bonnie needed to find a place at the table for the assassin, the protector of her vulnerability and independence. She needed a way of relating to this character so that it would not push away the very men she might truly desire. Eventually, she found the gold in her dark side when she
... See moreSteven Wolf • Romancing the Shadow
Jung believed that God, the living God, could be found only where we least want to look, the place we have the most resistance to exploring. This living God is entwined with our own darkness and shadow, woven in our wounds and complexes, laced with pathologies. On the other hand, the God of Belief, the God removed from creation and from everyday
... See moreConnie Zweig • Meeting the Shadow
Of course we are going to have a shadow! St. 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 keeping the opposites together. No
... See moreRobert A. Johnson • Owning Your Own Shadow
When these kinds of defenses break down and anxiety-provoking feelings begin to break through the surface, we feel flooded with fear. At those times, we may adopt the behavior of an earlier stage of life (regression) in an effort to ward off the anxiety. In regression, we time-travel into the past, longing to be adored or cared for by another, free
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