Dr. James Hollis

We disown the shadow by projecting on some, you know, those people across the border there, you know, they're the carrier.

They're what's wrong with this world, you see.

I disown the shadow in myself by seeing it in everybody else around me.

Jung actually said what often we find troubling in another person is because they're expressing something within our own unconscious.

You know, as a certain itinerant rabbi said two millennia ago, I can see the speck in your eye, but miss the log in my own.

That's a perfect illustration of what the shadow is.

Thirdly, one can get caught up in it.

That's at times what rock concerts are, mass events, people are caught up in a mob mentality, where you lose your sense of individual ego identity and become subsumed into a collective mood.

And, you know, that could be a hanging mob, for example, as has happened in history too many times.

And it could be a force for good or a force for evil.

But again, the larger the group, the lower the level of consciousness of the individuals in that group.

And then fourthly, we recognize it in ourselves.

In a speech at Yale University in 1937, Jung said, a person who could look at their own shadow and own it

He said now has a large problem because they're no longer to blame others for what goes wrong in their life.

They have to acknowledge that within themselves.

And he said further, it's the single best thing you can do for your society.

This is not navel-gazing.

This is how you lift your unfinished business off of your partner, your children.

Take it back yourself, which is a loving thing to do and a civic-minded thing to do if you look at it collectively here.

Well, again, if you're married, ask your partner.