Reflection, Restarted: Shadow Work, an Initial Agenda

Shadow by Rook Floro (2012) https://www.saatchiart.com/art/Sculpture-Shadow/301256/1335939/view

I'm back on the path of reflection, recovering from a complicatedly broken heart and seeking a new wholeness.

Love, and the failure of love, forces us to recognize what was in our power to do better (but we did not), what was in our power to do better (but we could not, because we have our own internal struggles to grapple with that keep us from being present), and what was not in our power to do better (because, after all, a relationship is composed of two people). 

What is amazing to me, as I read this, even, today, is my comfort with the use of the word "power" above.  I have spent forty-seven years uncomfortable with "power."  (Some of that discomfort is explained here.). I'm long unaccustomed to the notion that I exert power, that I can use force.  When I have done so in the past, it is almost entirely in defense of others.

But I'm 47, I've had a banner year.  I was promoted to professor.  I won an advising award.  I won an NEH grant.  I'm a person who has and who can exert power.  I need to own that, in my professional life as well as my personal life.

At the same time, I think of myself as a "gentle" man.  What brings me here, over the next few weeks, has been a recognition that "the things I think I like about myself" as a person, a professional, a (feminist) man, have a flip side, a dark side, a shadow side.  To be "gentle" is to set up, for example, a complex of limits on my abilities, at the same time I experience the strength I feel in being gentle, already.  Maybe?  It's day one, I'm a few YouTube videos in.

I want to understand those shadow sides.  If you are interested in following me through some reflection that is only sidewise professionally pertinent (e.g. there won't be much talk about rhetoric here, but there will be talk about being a professor), join in.

...

What is the Shadow?

My starting point for thinking about the "shadow sides" of my self is a Jungian vocabulary.  And the quickest, most digestible summaries of this vocabulary are available on YouTube and Wikipedia.  I'll quote from Wikipedia below.

The Shadow is (1) an unconscious aspect of the personality which the conscious ego does not identify in itself. In short, the shadow is the unknown side.

So right off the back, I'm going to be looking for the parts of myself that I cannot see, that aren't fitting into the picture of myself that I have grown to embrace.  I reflect a lot, I look at myself and my world a lot, and yet there are things I cannot see.  This is scary and yet worthwhile, yeah?

Because one tends to reject or remain ignorant of the least desirable aspects of one's personality, the shadow is largely negative. There are, however, positive aspects that may also remain hidden in one's shadow (especially in people with low self-esteem, anxieties, and false beliefs).

Oh Christ, I am hopeful that this is oversimplified for the Wikipedia audience.  I'm not interested in a positive/negative valence or evaluation of my shadow.  

What are the Consequences of an Unaddressed Shadow?
There are two reasons I feel a need to work this through, today.  One is that the the Shadow disrupts my ability to achieve all that I could.

According to Jung, the shadow sometimes overwhelms a person's actions; for example, when the conscious mind is shocked, confused, or paralyzed by indecision. "A man who is possessed by his shadow is always standing in his own light and falling into his own traps ... living below his own level."^[21] 

I have felt this.  I mean, I have a Catholic impulse to blame myself for everything, at least initially, so I am poised to see my shadow as a flaw, the reason I fall into my own traps.  

Jung describes its effectiveness in disrupting the self in terms of Enantiodromia:

Enantiodromia. Literally, "running counter to," referring to the emergence of the unconscious opposite in the course of time. This characteristic phenomenon practically always occurs when an extreme, one-sided tendency dominates conscious life; in time an equally powerful counterposition is built up, which first inhibits the conscious performance and subsequently breaks through the conscious control. ("Definitions," ibid., par. 709)

So I feel like I am "in control" of my decisions, but I want to explore whether Enantiodromia may have had a place in undermining my ability to achieve my desires.

What are the Consequences of the Shadow in Relationships with Others?

This next bit is interesting.  It helps me see how some interpersonal interactions can be explained by the Shadow Self.  

According to Jung, the shadow, in being instinctive and irrational, is prone to psychological projection, in which a perceived personal inferiority is recognized as a perceived moral deficiency in someone else. Jung writes that if these projections remain hidden, "the projection-making factor (the Shadow archetype) then has a free hand and can realize its object—if it has one—or bring about some other situation characteristic of its power".^[5] These projections insulate and harm individuals by acting as a constantly thickening veil of illusion between the ego and the real world.

Too often, when I think about "projection," it settles down into a more complicated understanding of "I know you are, but what am I?"  That is, someone asserts something uncomfortable about me, about someone else, and I respond defensively by saying "sounds like you are projecting."

This take is more nuanced.  I like the observation that, when projection is engaged, "perceived personal inferiority is recognized as a perceived moral deficiency in someone else" -- It's not about whether a short man declares another man short -- it's about whether a man, uncomfortable in being short, tells another man that their height is a moral failing, a flaw.

I'm still struggling with how projections "insulate and harm individuals by acting as a constantly thickening veil of illusion between the ego and the real world" -- But I will hope to learn.

Finally, the unnerving part. 
Finally, the unnerving part.  This process does not end.

Jungians warn that "acknowledgement of the shadow must be a continuous process throughout one's life" and "the later stages of shadow integration" will continue to take place—the grim "process of washing one's dirty linen in private",^[36] of accepting one's shadow.

 This blog constitutes the public, not private, but I am hopeful to wash my laundry in a way useful to me as well as others.

What I want to explore first...
The first thing I want to explore are my self-image as someone who is "gentle."  That is who I am, who I have always believed myself to be.  What dimensions of exist within the shadow of that gentleness?  (The discussion of "power" above, and my fascination with Simone Weil's discussion of "force," fits in here.)