How to Confront and Integrate the Shadow by Shifan Hu-Couble

by Shifan Hu-Couble
Counsellor / Parenting Coach / Psychotherapist

How to Confront and Integrate the Shadow

I was on my way to work. On the bus, a boy kneeling on a seat a couple of rows in front of me, pointed at the tree outside the window and exclaimed, “Look Daddy, the leaves have turned yellow!” On his right side, his father was so absorbed in his mobile device that he didn’t even lift his head while mumbling, “I see.” I cringed at the father’s indifference: “What an insensitive parent!”

The school holiday just started. Between my calls, I walked to the kitchen to fetch some water and saw my daughter lying on the sofa and doing nothing. “What a waste of time.” I sensed an urge to judge and lecture her.

Why am I so judgmental? I wonder.

Earl Nightingale answered wisely: “When you judge others, you do not define them, you define yourself” I judge as I project some of my shadow onto others. Sigmund Freud believed projection to be a defense mechanism used to avoid the anxiety which is provoked when one is forced to confront their flaws.  What we project onto others is what we do not accept of ourselves. I will break these two incidents down for illustration. I have a fundamental belief that I am not good enough. This is a painful self-belief to live with as I am always looking for ways to prove my worth and adequacy. Every day I strive for better and more in denial of my human flaws. I position myself on a high moral ground and refuse to accept that I am a fallible human being who is susceptible to biases, prejudices, and mistakes. Therefore, when I observe “not-good-enough” parenting behaviour, I project my denied and flawed self onto the father, hence my harsh judgment of him. When I observe my daughter’s “unproductive” way of spending time, I project my laziness on her.

We project to shield ourselves from our shadow. None of us are as good as we regard ourselves. We possess animalistic drives for sex and power. We have the potential for cruelty and aggression that can do great harm to others as history repeatedly demonstrates, and we tend to deny our flaws and weaknesses to repress difficult emotions such as shame, fear, and guilt. But what we deny does not disappear, it sinks into the unconscious and congregates in what Carl Jung called the shadow. The most common way the shadow manifests itself is through projection, wherein we perceive in other individuals, groups, nations, races, or political parties, the weaknesses, faults, and evils, that reside within ourselves.

When we are stressed and overwhelmed; when our usual coping mechanisms fail to work, the shadow reveals itself, and often with damaging consequences: road rage, out-of-character behaviors, reckless decisions, outbursts of anger, mid-life crisis, and so on.

Projection is a gateway to discovering our shadow. Carl Jung stressed that projection was both an inevitable and necessary component in our psychological development as it is one of the primary means by which we can gain an awareness of elements residing in our unconscious. 

Rather than building layers of defense against our shadow, we are far better off by confronting and integrating our shadow. Confrontation of our shadow is a process of self-examination, evaluation, reflection, and introspection. This process takes tremendous courage and humility.

The task is twofold: firstly, unearth our shadow and secondly, integrate it.

Here are some tactics to shine some light on our shadow:

1.     Moments of judgment.

As mentioned earlier in this article, when we judge others, the judgement reveals more of ourselves than the people we judge. We are likely projecting our denied selves onto others.

2.     Moments of strong emotions.

A strong emotional reaction to an event, a personality trait, a behavior and a belief signals a trigger within us. I will tell the story of my client Susan (not her real name) to illustrate my point. Susan could not stand it when she saw her colleagues’ posts on social media showcasing their completion of a project. “They are just doing their job. What is there to show for it? They are so shameless and thick-skinned. Disgusting.” As we worked through her strong emotions towards the posts, we confronted a part of her young self who was deprived of any validation from her parents growing up as her parents believed that validation bred complacency and laziness. Susan grew up deprived of recognition, acknowledgement and validation, hence her strong negative emotions when observing others’ validation.

In the shadow, not only we can find our primitive drives, but also the strengths of our characters such as creativity, spontaneity, resoluteness or defiance. As Carl Jung noted in Aion: “The shadow does not consist only of morally reprehensible tendencies, but also displays a number of good qualities, such as normal instincts, appropriate reactions, realistic insights, creative impulses, etc. . . the shadow is on one side regrettable and reprehensible weakness, on the other side healthy instinctivity and the prerequisite for higher consciousness.”

The more we integrate our shadow into our conscious sense of self, the more wholesome we become. We withdraw our projection and judgement, we step down from the high moral ground, we remove grandiosity, we take off our façade and we can relate to others and the world with renewed compassion and empathy because we have finally recognized our potential not only for both good but also for evil.

Book an appointment with me today, to learn how to integrate your shadow into your conscience!