Keeping the Peace but at What Cost?

Many people get in relationships where they will do exactly what their partner wants all the time, thinking that this is how to keep the peace. It’s a false peace which will erupt sooner or later because the psyche is striving to be whole and complete. In Modern Man in Search of a Soul, Jung says,

“...nothing is more unbearable than a tepid harmony in personal relationships brought about by withholding emotions.”

In the Tavistock lectures, he explains,

“You see there is perfect harmony here; but do not make the mistake of thinking that this harmony is a paradise, for these people will kick against each other after awhile because they are just too harmonious.“

If we are in a long-term, committed relationship with a partner or a friend, they are going to notice things about us. We will bump up against each other’s humanity. It’s inevitable, as no one can go around for too long being totally wonderful every single minute of every day. As the saying goes, we all wake up on the wrong side of the bed sometimes. We all make dumb or childish mistakes. These are called faux pas.

If we are hurting ourselves by not knowing something about our own behavior, we hope our close friends will say something to us. When we cut them off from being honest with us, we are shooting ourselves in the foot, because we need friends who care enough about us to be honest with us. This is a true friend. Of course, it all greatly depends on how they say it. If that friend is being emotionally abusive by pointing out everything that they see is wrong with you and is harshly condemning and shaming you, then it’s likely also part of their own Shadow that they may be seeing in you. Remember that we are energy and like does attract like. In this case, it would be more like what Jung called “Shadowboxing.”

So, if there is someone we despise, that we loathe and we become highly charged in our description of them, it is of course that part of us we refuse to face. This is not easy to do as our emotionally toned defensiveness will be intense. To get serious about doing “Shadow Work,” we have to take responsibility for situations like this that come into our lives when we feel a huge surge of emotion taking over and possessing us. Notice the changes taking place in your body. Your blood will boil, your hair on your arms raises, your stomach turns. You can physically feel it in your body. You will feel completely REPULSED.

More Ways to See Our Shadow
Another way to see a shadow quality in us is in people we avoid. We walk around the room if we encounter them or we will ghost them. Ghosting them means that even if this person reaches out to us to initiate contact, they’re met with complete silence. Or when we start screaming at someone or someone starts shrieking at us, often this too is a shadow quality coming out. We will feel as if whoever they are is totally against our principles, moral values and ideals, so we’ll feel justified in our reaction.

We can also sound as if we are possessed when describing someone who is carrying our shadow for us. Our voice often changes pitch, and we tend to use highly charged adjectives to describe their behavior. If we catch ourselves going on and on about someone and we call this person and the next one and we can’t stop talking about it because we have a huge emotional charge. This is a real clue that another shadow trait is again making its way into the forefront, trying to get your attention. It’s a good idea to get to know this person as they are likely carrying (through projection) a part of your own psyche. To paraphrase Shakespeare, “Me thinks thou doth protest too much!”

We all have too much we feel guilty about, too much we don't want to remember or look at, weaknesses we would rather avoid. Consequently, we ignore these circumstances and pretend they don't exist. Until another individual synchronistically shows up in our everyday life, bringing into focus some of those characteristics we have tried to avoid seeing in ourselves. Because everything is energy. As they are part of our energy, we will continue to draw these individuals or circumstances to us. Astrologer, Author and Jungian analyst, Liz Greene says,

“When any individual becomes more conscious, he/she loses the luxury of blaming everyone else. It is extremely painful because there isn’t any convenient outer trip into which one can dump one’s psychic rubbish. Consciousness means internalizing projections, and that means containing apparently insoluble inner conflicts. The degree of suffering which this causes can be very great …”

When we blame others and see every problem as being only in them, then we are back to square one and then we have to start all over again because the unconscious is relentless in its ability to bring us the same situation over and over. This is painful because we will have to acknowledge our own capacity for whatever it is we find so reprehensible in them and that is exceedingly difficult for our ego. Think about it — you’re asking me to look at these difficult and challenging people as MIRRORS FOR ME? Yes. Despite this uncomfortable fact, take comfort in the understanding that we needed this particular mirror to achieve wholeness. The Self in us is orchestrating all of these events, situations and people whenever we are unwilling to see our own blind spots and create balance for ourselves. My teacher Rev. J. Pittman McGehee, D.D. once said, “How many times does something have to happen to you for something to occur to you?”

When you hear negative mind talk that shifts you into judgment, ask yourself; what am I judging here; what am I not willing to embrace; what is the opposite that could very well be in my unconscious? Take any personal characteristic. For example: You see others as selfish and greedy while mentally contrasting yourself as selfless and giving or you encourage others to become dependent on you only to end up resenting it. We do these things unconsciously to ourselves.

In Meeting the Shadow, which is a compilation of essays, Ken Wilber says,

“Does it Inform you about their behavior or does it affect you emotionally?”

If it affects you emotionally, it is about you as nothing comes into our energy field that is not our same energy. These people are brought to us as a gift if we look at them differently. We can’t change others, but we can change our own minds.

And doing Shadow work is not about getting rid of anything, it’s about including more. MORE OF YOU! I am this and I am that too. Embrace both sides for balance because the rejected qualities do not cease to exist simply because they have been denied direct expression. Instead, they live on within us and form this secondary personality that Carl Jung calls shadow.

“Seen from the one-sided view of the conscious attitude, the shadow is an inferior component of the personality and is frequently repressed through intensive resistance. But the repressed content must be made conscious so as to produce a tension of opposites, without which no forward movement is possible. The conscious mind is on top, the shadow underneath, and just as high always longs for low and hot for cold, so all consciousness, perhaps without being aware of it, seeks its unconscious opposite, lacking which it is doomed to stagnation, congestion, and ossification. Life is born only of the spark of opposites.”

— Carl G. Jung, Two Essays in Analytical Psychology, par 78

After many years of doing “Shadow Work,” I agree with Jung’s assessment that once we become conscious of a characteristic or trait we perceive as negative, it doesn’t permit us to act it out. Shadow work promotes more consciousness, which in turn provides additional choices, enabling us to stay in balance with ourselves. That’s the real goal. An example would be rage. I am going to get angry from time-to-time but rage is extreme.

There are many things we as human beings believe are immoral and they should be. We are civilized and accountable for a reason. We have stop signs or chaos would reign supreme. Are we to stand by while someone beats up a child? Are we to turn our back on excesses of corruption and greed? I don't think so. In owning our Shadow, our conscious position is to acknowledge our own greed, our own violence, our own capacity to be ruthless and still have the moral courage to not act out. It is only when we think we don’t have something we perceive in others as negative, that it splits off as a complex and now has a life of its own. As Jung explains, then “We don't have it. It has us!”

Rebeca Eigen, Astrologer, Marriage & Relationship FIXER and author of The Shadow Dance & Astrological 7th House Workbook is from Houston, Texas. Rebeca offers personalized 1:1 relationship CONSULTATIONS available for individuals, couples, parent/child, friends — any relationship that you are trying to understand. Knowing your Astrology is invaluable for self-awareness, self-acceptance and self-compassion. Visit shadowdance.com for more information.