Conscious of our Shadow, we can control, channel, and integrate it. Aware of what we have lost, we can reconnect to that part of ourselves that has sunk into the Shadow.
The following are four clear and practical steps for achieving this.
See the Shadow: (...) take note of any particular one-sided, emphatic traits in yourself. Assume that the opposite trait lies buried deep within, and from there try to see more signs of this trait in your behavior. Look at your own emotional outbursts and moments of extreme touchiness. Somebody or something has struck a chord. Your sensitivity to a remark or imputation indicates a Shadow quality that is stirring, in the form of a deep insecurity. Bring it into the light. (...)
Look deeply at your tendencies to project emotions and bad qualities onto people you know, or even entire groups. (...) We are particularly sensitive to traits and weaknesses in others that we are repressing in ourselves. (...)
Finally, look at your dreams as the most direct and clear view of your Shadow. Only there will you find the kinds of behavior you have carefully avoided in conscious life. (...)
Embrace the Shadow: Your natural reaction in uncovering and facing up to your dark side is to feel uncomfortable and maintain only a surface awareness of it. Your goal here must be the opposite—not only complete acceptance of the Shadow but the desire to integrate it into your present personality. (...)
Explore the Shadow: Consider the Shadow as having depths that contain great creative energy. You want to explore these depths, which include more primitive forms of thinking and the darkest impulses that come out of our animal nature. (...)
Show the Shadow: Most of the time we secretly suffer from the endless social codes we have to adhere to. We have to seem so nice and agreeable, always going along with the group. We better not show too much confidence or ambition. Seem humble and similar to everyone else; that’s how the game is played. In following this path we gain comfort by fitting in, but we also become defensive and secretly resentful. Being so nice becomes a habit, which easily turns into timidity, lack of confidence, and indecision. At the same time, our Shadow will show itself, but unconsciously, in explosive fits and starts, and often to our detriment. (....)
You pay a greater price for being so nice and deferential than for consciously showing your Shadow. First, to follow the latter path you must begin by respecting your own opinions more and those of others less, particularly when it comes to your areas of expertise, to the field you have immersed yourself in. Trust your native genius and the ideas you have come up with. Second, get in the habit in your daily life of asserting yourself more and compromising less. Do this under control and at opportune moments. Third, start caring less what people think of you. You will feel a tremendous sense of liberation. Fourth, realize that at times you must offend and even hurt people who block your path, who have ugly values, who unjustly criticize you. Use such moments of clear injustice to bring out your Shadow and show it proudly. Fifth, feel free to play the impudent, willful child who mocks the stupidity and hypocrisy of others. Finally, flout the very conventions that others follow so scrupulously. (...)
In general, consider this a form of exorcism. Once you show these desires and impulses, they no longer lie hidden in corners of your personality, twisting and operating in secret ways. You have released your demons and enhanced your presence as an authentic human. In this way, the Shadow becomes your ally.
Unfortunately there is no doubt about the fact that man is, as a whole, less good than he imagines himself or wants to be. Everyone carries a shadow, and the less it is embodied in the individual’s conscious life, the blacker and denser it is.
—Carl Jung
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