The predicament we face today can in large part be traced to three major disconnections in the human sphere: disconnection from nature, disconnection from each other, and disconnection from self. These three disconnections are interlinked and mutually reinforcing.
This blogpiece will briefly explore one of the
mechanisms that results in our disconnection from each other. As alluded to
above, this mechanism has its own roots within the disconnection from our own
selves.
Many psychologists, following on from Carl Jung, have
explored the Shadow aspect of our selves. The Shadow in Jung’s
understanding is that part of our psyche that, although true of us, we do not
know exists. The Shadow is not part of us that we have denied or
consciously suppressed.
If we think of our psyche as a room, then our Shadow
would be behind a secret panel in the wall: a secret panel that we do not even
know is there.
It is tempting to think of our Shadow as being
the dark and nasty side of our unconsciousness. However, that would be a
mistake. Our Shadow may also include aspects of ourselves that could be
claimed to be our higher or more beautiful facets.
More often than not, however, our Shadow is
comprised of nasty or brutish facets, that if pointed out to us, we would
vehemently deny.
Yet, these facets within our Shadow make
themselves known by projecting onto others the nastiness and brutishness.
Projection is the process by which we readily label others as stupid, greedy,
nasty, or, in the extreme, evil. The ecopsychologist, Bill Plotkin (highly
influenced by Jung,) defines projection as the “unconscious transfer of our
own emotions, desires, or traits onto another person, or sometimes a whole
class of persons.”1
Such projections, especially if it is a projection of nastiness
or evil, results in the class of persons upon who those traits are projected
being labelled as entirely different from us, to the point where not only do we
become disconnected, but where we wish to remain, and enforce, that
disconnection.
The circle becomes a vicious one. We are disconnected
from a part of our own psyche. That disconnected part (our Shadow)
projects onto others, so that we become disconnected from them. Then, because
we label others as nasty, we can easily deny any nastiness in ourselves, thus
keeping our Shadow unknown to us.
To heal the rift between people, to help us reconnect,
we must also heal ourselves. We must find and reconnect with our Shadow.
How?
Carl Jung spent years delving into his (and other
people’s) Shadow. He discovered methods by which we might reconnect
ourselves with our Shadow and hence, with each other. Jung is reputed to
have said the following:
‘Everything that irritates us about others
can lead us to an understanding of ourselves. One does not become enlightened
by imagining figures of light, but by making the darkness conscious. Until you
make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life and you will call it
fate.’2
Healing does not appear to be easy, does it? To heal
the rift between people we must heal the disconnection within our own selves.
However, the encouraging side of this is that as we work to heal ourselves, so
we heal the rift with others, and vice versa. We cannot do one without the
other.
For any reader wishing to understand and/or work on
their Shadow the book by Bill Plotkin (see note 1) is highly
recommended. As too are any of the immersive experiences run by Animas
Valley Institute (founded by Bill Plotkin) or any of its offshoots located
in many parts of the world.
Notes:
1. Bill Plotkin, Wild Mind: A Field Guide to the Human
Psyche, New World Library, Novato, California, 2013
No comments:
Post a Comment
This blogsite is dedicated to positive dialoque and a respectful learning environment. Therefore, I retain the right to remove comments that are: profane, personal attacks, hateful, spam, offensive, irrelevant (off-topic) or detract in other ways from these principles.