Today has been an eyeopener, honestly. Last night I had trouble sleeping because I was falling into a panic and I think I was project that fear into the energy around me. At one point it felt like something was trying to 'kill me'. But I calmed down yet the dreams I had were far from pleasant.
When I woke up this morning I was still feeling uneasy and I couldn't put it into words. Tight stomach and a weight on my chest. With that being said my perspective was in a darker place and a part of me felt like I was losing control of myself. It was really freaking me out.
That's when the concept was shown to me. In Jungian psychology there is said to be an archetype called a persons 'shadow'. Which is part of the unconscious mind that is repressed weaknesses, instincts and shortcomings. It's said that this archetype is usually projected onto other people instead of actually facing that it is within us. And that the less we embody it in our conscious life the denser and blacker it is.
At some point after birth we began to split ourselves in archetypes it is believed and the shadow self is the darker element of ourselves.
"The shadow personifies everything that the subject refuses to acknowledge about himself" and represents "a tight passage, a narrow door, whose painful constriction no one is spared who goes down to the deep well".[16] If and when 'an individual makes an attempt to see his shadow, he becomes aware of (and often ashamed of) those qualities and impulses he denies in himself but can plainly see in others — such things as egotism, mental laziness, and sloppiness; unreal fantasies, schemes, and plots; carelessness and cowardice; inordinate love of money and possessions — ...[a] painful and lengthy work of self-education"
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'[19]: hence, in terms of the story of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, 'it must be Jekyll, the conscious personality, who integrates the shadow ... and not vice versa. Otherwise the conscious becomes the slave of the autonomous shadow'.
Individuation inevitably raises that very possibility. As the process continues, and 'the libido leaves the bright upper world ... sinks back into its own depths...below, in the shadows of the unconscious',[21] so too what comes to the forefront is 'what was hidden under the mask of conventional adaptation: the shadow', with the result that 'ego and shadow are no longer divided but are brought together in an — admittedly precarious — unity'.[22]
The impact of such 'confrontation with the shadow produces at first a dead balance, a standstill that hampers moral decisions and makes convictions ineffective...tenebrositas, chaos, melancholia'.[23] Consequently (as Jung knew from personal experience) 'in this time of descent — one, three, seven years, more or less — genuine courage and strength are required',[24] with no certainty of emergence. Nevertheless Jung remained of the opinion that while 'no one should deny the danger of the descent ... every descent is followed by an ascent ...enantiodromia';[25] and assimilation of — rather than possession by — the shadow becomes at last a real possibility.
It is my goal to reintegrate myself completely to the point that this vicious cycle of duality can end. I would like to one with myself and I believe that is what I am working toward now. Because it is only then that I will be able to truly see with a pair of eyes that has a set destination. I am following love because it speaks to me in every aspect of who I am. I cannot say following the light always speaks to every aspect of who I am so that is why I am choosing currently to place my faith and determination in love. Love for myself and others, love for the one as a whole.
It's a work in progress. Every day, sitting down at the chair or being patient with those you love. It's a work in progress and not I or anyone can expect for the progress to just materialize over night. "I'm so tired of trying and trying and nothing happening. I'm so tired of trying and my efforts never being enough."
I've heard a lot of really important people say that to me recently and used to it would have scared me so bad to hear that. Because I always wanted to believe that if a person put their best foot forward, well, they'd be rewarded. That's what we were taught right? Somehow, life isn't 'fair' on those terms and I think it's okay to say that sometimes I just don't understand life or why it does what it does. But all I know is what is laid out before me, right here, right now.
What do I do now? Do I give up or do I live? The past is already gone and the future doesn't yet exist, it's just this moment. What will I choose to do with this moment? What if this is the last moment I ever have left on this planet? What will I do? What will I choose? And so I see that it no longer matters what the ultimate truth is but what I have chosen to believe. Because what I've chosen is all I have in this moment.
I have control of what I choose to do.
I will fail sometimes, I will succeed. I will cry and I will smile. But I've got a choice, I am free~
- Free
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