Developing a Worldview by Embracing Our Soul

When something occurs in the outer world as an ill-fated event, do we stop to understand the meaning or do we continue to believe we are victims, letting life go on as usual?

A popular cliché says, “He or she is stuck in a rut.” We’ve all been there at one time or another. Repetitive experiences that come into our lives that are painful or devastating are ultimately set in motion to change the course of our path for better or worse. If for worse, there is something deeply unconscious and lop-sided in us that seeks its redemption. That something is our shadow self.

We may hang in there in a job or a relationship for years, even when we know that parts of it are unacceptable having elements of disrespect, neglect, even emotional abuse or cruelty. Our ego will continue to adamantly defend its position using justifications or rationalizations, forgiving repeatedly what is clearly not in our best interest. Regardless of what others tell us they can see from the periphery looking at us and our behavior or situation, we stay in denial making excuses. We refuse to see clearly and accept the truth that is right in front of us because a part of us knows that if we do, our life will change. Most of us avoid change, so we don’t until we are forced to do so. Suffering seems to be the way we create soul depth and substance, but we cannot judge ourselves or others as that experience may be exactly what that person needs to get to the next stage of their evolution. 

Carl Jung brought us the awareness that our unconscious (synonymous with what he called the imago dei, our God Image, God within) is autonomous and has a superior-knowledge and wisdom with its own agenda. For our benefit, our unconscious will develop a crisis in the outer world. We make mistakes, experience failures, create illness, divorces, various unwelcome circumstances and even accidents to release us from bondage to unconscious shadow complexes and inappropriate patterns that keep us from becoming our authentic selves. In all of these vicissitudes of life we are being guided by this invisible transpersonal ‘other’ inside us and even in the most difficult times we can look back and realize it was all happening for us, not to us.

If we are striving to become conscious and open to learning more about our own shadow, we will know that life happened exactly the way it needed to happen. Creating a teleological worldview or philosophy of life helps us be more at peace. Embracing this understanding, we will know experiences are leading to wholeness. Without this kind of healthy outlook, we can be torn apart emotionally by anxiety, depression, panic and a sense of alienation and grief. When we recreate the same situation ad nausem, we wonder why? Suffering may be an inevitable necessity for our developing consciousness, but like the ancient Alchemists, with reflection and insight, we can turn our lead into Gold.

To move forward we must acknowledge and face ourselves clearly which takes work. That’s why the prerequisite for doing shadow work is a strong ego that has developed self-esteem, self-worth and self-compassion. Not a big ego which is inflated, but a strong ego that has a connection to our center/the Self. Every one of us needs to develop more self-compassion because at times like this, we will need it. I don’t care how long you have worked on yourself, there is always more shadow and unconscious material to integrate. Knowing ourselves is a sacred task that will last a lifetime but with practice, applying these concepts daily, it does get easier and will bring us untold joy.

Our Body Knows

Because shadow is everything about other people that drives us crazy, the hair will rise on our arms, and we will feel highly uncomfortable when we are around anyone carrying a part of our shadow. Often there is a distinct physical aversion. We find ourselves making highly charged statements like, “I can’t stand so and so.” Or “I can’t stomach this person.” This kind of intensity can confirm that it’s definitely a shadow projection. Jung says the more our projections are thrust out into the environment, the more difficult it is to withdraw them. Shadow projections can even somatize in our bodies if we are not willing to see through ourselves.

There was a time in my own life when for over a year I had a rash from head to toe, and it would break out only periodically. My brother, who is a doctor, told me it was probably psychosomatic, as it would just come and go randomly. I have always journaled so I could also see and reflect on what was happening in the days before it would come on. By starting a dialogue with my unconscious, I was also asking for help. One day, having a conversation with one of my sisters, she told me something significant about myself. Suddenly, a man I was angry with and had not spoken to in a year flashed before my mind’s eyes. On the spot, it occurred to me just “who was under my skin.” What she said about me made me realize I was just like him. My unconscious gave me the image. The forgiveness I felt for him was immediate. I felt it in my body. I never had that rash again, so a shadow characteristic that we are projecting can even manifest in our bodies. In my studies, I had been told that the shadow was projected only onto members of my own sex, but this experience told me our shadow can be projected onto either sex.

Notice events and relationships that repeat and recognize their importance in the minutest detail. Events that repeat can be similar to dreams that bring us messages in symbolic form. Our dreams too will sometimes repeat which means our unconscious is doubling up on the urgency of what we need to know about ourselves.

Like is constantly attracting like, or as some would say, vibrating at the same frequency. Your shadow dance is destined to play itself out whether you are with that person or the next. Like it or not, that is the only way the unconscious can get us to become conscious. Consciousness will be the result of reflecting on these experiences instead of just reacting to them.

It takes all the courage we can muster to change, which for most of us is painfully slow, but it can and does occur. I was once asked, “Do you really think we change?,” then he postulated, “I don’t believe we do. We just keep repeating things over and over.” I replied, “I think we become more aware, but change is a very slow process. I don’t want to live in a world where there is no change, because then all of our striving is for naught. I believe we do grow and as painful as the process can be at times, we do learn and this evokes change.”

It’s almost an irreverence and disrespect to ignore the feedback that our inner Self is giving us as to how we are doing. As the Taoists say, “When one lacks a sense of awe, there will be disaster.” This is exceedingly difficult because these characteristics we disown are not pleasant. When we are projecting our shadow, they are for the most part unwanted, objectionable, inferior and suppressed aspects of our being that we do not see in ourselves. I assure you this is deep work and you will be changed completely if you really learn to own your own shadow.

“To confront a person with his shadow is to show him his own light. Once one has experienced a few times what it is like to stand judgingly between the opposites, one begins to understand what is meant by the Self. Anyone who perceives his shadow and his light simultaneously sees himself from two sides and thus gets in the middle.” — Carl Jung, CW 10: Civilization in Transition: paragraph 872

I have another very interesting example that I want to share with you and these are her exact words:

It’s been amazing what I’ve discovered about myself over years of this type of self-exploration. An excellent example is that in my first marriage, my husband would occasionally hit me. I mean not all the time, but occasionally he would beat the crap out of me and it would be very severe when he would do it. He would be enraged and he just couldn’t stop himself. I eventually left him and as time went on, I married a second time and divorced again.

I began doing all kinds of inner work. I became an Astrologer, studied Jungian psychology and broadened my horizons considerably. I moved to Ashland, Oregon, to live alone and explore my relationship patterns. Even though I was going through all this growth, I still could never forgive my first husband. Try as I might! During meditation, I’d put him into a bubble and release him, going through all the motions of sending him up into the ethers, cutting off all the strings, etc., only to come out of meditation, saying to myself, “That son-of-a-bitch!” I just could not forgive him.

All the years I lived in the Pacific Northwest, I focused on personal growth; I was celibate and wasn’t interested in creating another relationship. My intention was to focus on myself, using psychology, and astrology to better understand my destructive patterns.

After a while, I decided that I missed not having a partner and needed one. I was aware that there were some stuck places in me that I couldn’t quite grasp. I wanted to bring someone in who could reflect this back. I thought there were just some little bitty pieces that I absolutely couldn’t see or get my mind around — my internal “story” was too fixed. So, I married again. Well, I wasn’t with him very long when I realized I still had a lot of work to do.

He was OCD and a perfectionist so when I did something that he disapproved of he would just bitch and bitch, and bitch at me, until I found my entire being filled with rage. As my insides raged, it occurred to me that I was insanely livid. If I had been big enough and strong enough to beat up a 6’2” man (to my 5’,) I would have ripped his face off and beaten him into a bloody pulp.

Finally, it connected in my mind! Oh my God! That’s exactly what I had done to my first husband! The poor man did not do things as I wanted them done, so I was determined to change him. I bitched, and bitched, and bitched, pushing every button in the poor man until he was filled with this insane rage (Moon in Aries): I was experiencing what I had been doing to him. That connection brought the necessary release and the longed-for forgiveness.

It became pretty obvious that it was my pattern because even though my second marriage wasn’t physically violent (Moon in Gemini), he too, was not the man I wanted him to be, so I bitched at him until he deserted me, first emotionally, then physically. I began to see how I set up circumstances so that I could be a victim.

I couldn’t see myself, until I actually experienced what my first husband had felt, as well. When I saw my own behavior and felt my own feelings toward that behavior, I was able to connect the dots and forgive him and myself.

This is a very moving story because she entered into this crucible consciously. She went into a relationship knowing full well she had some stuck places and needed a relationship’s reflection to see herself. That to me is so powerful. Most of us caught in this kind of situation cannot take back the projections. As in my own story of my skin rash, her emotional body helped her to process. Once you can feel something in your body, you got it. She said, “I not only embraced the bitch in me, but my whole being forgave him as I recognized the violence in me!”

When situations like this are repeating in your life, it is difficult because you have to admit to yourself, “this is something about me. Something that I myself do or would secretly like to do.”

She then said, “I was able to call him up while he was still alive and say, “Gosh I am really sorry.” She told him the truth about her two subsequent marriages and said to him, “Please forgive me. I am very, very sorry.” She was able to go through this process and complete it because she could feel it. When you feel the forgiveness in your body, you have integrated a part of your own shadow.

“If the projected conflict is to be healed, it must return into the psyche of the individual, where it had its unconscious beginnings. He must celebrate a Last Supper with himself, and eat his own flesh and drink his own blood; which means that he must recognize and accept the other in himself. But if he persists in his one-sidedness, the two lions will tear each other to pieces. Is this perhaps the meaning of Christ’s teaching, that each must bear his own cross? For if you have to endure yourself, how will you be able to rend others also?” —  Carl Jung, CW: 14, Mysterium Conuinctionis, paragraph 512 

Life goes on in its evolutionary spiral of relationships, situations and events. Reflecting on those who push our buttons or repulse us and continuously going inside ourselves to ask for help from our inner Self is how we do Shadow Work. It can become our way of being in the world as we become accustomed to knowing that we are evolving, albeit slowly.

I have always been intrigued by Jung’s view of the soul. He didn’t use the term in the usual way that we hear of our soul in religious terms such as in theology. He described our soul as a part of us that becomes our individual personality from the experiences of having a dialogue between our conscious and unconscious.

A real gem of the miraculous enters the picture of our day-to-day journey when we get a glimpse of the divine working in all of our life’s twists and turns. As it says in the Bible, “God meant it all for good.”