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    Owning Your Own Shadow: Understanding the Dark Side of the Psyche
    Owning Your Own Shadow: Understanding the Dark Side of the Psyche
    Owning Your Own Shadow: Understanding the Dark Side of the Psyche
    Ebook103 pages1 hour

    Owning Your Own Shadow: Understanding the Dark Side of the Psyche

    By Robert A. Johnson

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    About this ebook

    Understand the dark side of your psyche—a Jungian approach to transformative self-acceptance.

    We all have shadows—the unlit part of our ego that is hidden and never goes away, but merely—and often painfully—turns up in unexpected places. This powerful work from the acclaimed Jungian analyst and bestselling author of Inner Work and We explores our need to “own” our own shadow: learn what it is, how it originates, and how it impacts our daily lives. It is only when we accept and honor the shadow within us that we can channel its energy in a positive way and find balance.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherHarperCollins
    Release dateFeb 26, 2013
    ISBN9780061957680
    Owning Your Own Shadow: Understanding the Dark Side of the Psyche
    Author

    Robert A. Johnson

    Robert A. Johnson, a noted lecturer and Jungian analyst, is also the author of He, She, We, Inner Work, Ecstasy, Transformation, and Owning Your Own Shadow.

    Read more from Robert A. Johnson

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    Reviews for Owning Your Own Shadow

    4/5

    151 ratings14 reviews

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    • 5/5
      The understanding you gain about parts of yourself you don’t realize exist.
    • 5/5
      I found this book amazing and really interesting. Would definitely read it again
    • 4/5
      This is an interesting development of Jung's shadow theory. Perhaps somewhat archaically inseparable from religion, although this was also Jung's nature.
    • 5/5
      Easy read with any interesting information.
      Would highly recommend it to anyone wants to know about shadow and the importance of integrating it to one’s life
    • 4/5
      A great book to get you to start asking questions and to get curious about the parts of you that you have kept hidden in the shadows and the impact it is having on your life. I did however feel that the author drove the same point home over and over again instead of delving deeper into the shadow with potential exercises that could help us reveal it and achieve the Mandorla which he speaks to at length.
    • 5/5
      If you want to gain further understanding of life and aspects of society, read this.
    • 5/5
      It was a short, but concise book about shadows: the idea, the implications in our lives along with jungian analysis of persona and much more. I liked the clear writing style of Mr Johnson, and will definitely read his other books.
    • 5/5
      Some concepts were difficult to grasp but overall a good read.
    • 4/5
      Found it interesting, gets straight to the point! Left me wanting to read more about the subject, to find more tools on incorporating my shadow :D
    • 5/5
      Ever since I became a Thelemite I have come to be taught that the whole world is one big contradiction after another, I was told that only I can resolve these contradictions within myself, yet I was never told how to do this. This has led me to make a difference of above and below, instead of seeing them both as interconnected and necessary I would find that I had to choose contradiction in seeking unity, or in seeking the many divided from unity. This had led me to develop religious guilt and further contradictions. The author of this work speaks of resolving this abyss of self dilemmna, through accepting the dignity of both apparent contradictions by acceptance of the paradox rather than duality of everything.
    • 5/5
      What a liberating experience! Thank you so much, Robert A Johnson Sir for your contribution to humanity. I am now going to read all the books written by him. Also, very happy with Scribd for making these titles available.

      1 person found this helpful

    • 5/5
      Opened my eyes to a secret of the mind that I would’ve never realized was something in common with everyone. Helped me to understand myself on a much deeper level. Would definitely recommend

      1 person found this helpful

    • 5/5
      An easy-to-read introduction to shadow work with three sections: The Shadow (what the shadow is), Romantic Love as Shadow (how we project our shadow onto others) and The Mandorla (finding the balance between our shadow and our light). Despite the simple style there were some deeply profound insights throughout the book:Pg 21: "The high creativity of our modern society can be maintained only if we recognise the shadow that accompanies it and pay out that shadow in an intelligent way ... it is possible to live one's ideals, do one's best, be courteous, do well at work, and live a decent civilised life if we ritually acknowledge this other dimension of reality. The unconscious cannot tell the difference between a 'real' act and a symbolic one." Johnson takes this idea further on Pg 52 when he says, "a symbolic or ceremonial experience is real and affects one as much as an actual event." And on Pg 117, Johnson emphasises the importance of our individual journey into the underworld of our shadow when he says, “…to balance out our cultural indoctrination, we need to do our shadow work on a daily basis…we contribute less to the general darkness of the world and do not add to the collective strife … we prepare the way for … that high vision of beauty and wholeness that is the great prize of human consciousness.”In overcoming cultural indoctrination (highlighted by modern movements such as #MeToo and #BlackLivesMatter) Johnson points out on Pg 36/37 that "…to refuse another's shadow, you don't fight back, but like a good matador you just let the bull go by...you can refuse a shadow projection and stop the endless cycle of revenge if you have your own shadow under conscious control. To be in the presence of another's shadow and not reply is nothing short of genius. No one has the right to dump his shadow on you, and you have the right to self-protection."Particularly appropriate for the age of celebrity worship was this quote on Pg 42-45: "Our hero-worshipping capacity is pure shadow ... puzzling capacity of projecting our best qualities ... people are as frightened of their capacity for nobility as of their darkest sides."An important theme throughout [book:Owning Your Own Shadow: Understanding the Dark Side of the Psyche|18923731] is embracing the opposites withing our psyche, that is, the light and the shadow, the dualities within ourselves to find an inner unity or balance which allows us to easily live with the paradoxes that life presents:Pg 55 "Our fate can truly be altered if we have the courage to embrace the opposites."Pg 86-93 "To transform an opposition into paradox is to allow both sides of an issue, both pairs of opposites, to exits in equal dignity or worth...this is not a compromise, but a depth of understanding that puts life into perspective...heroism today could be redefined for our time as the ability to stand paradox...the ego can do no more; it must wait for that which is greater than itself."I knew of mandalas, but Johnson introduced me to the mandorla, a beautiful concept from medieval Christianity:Pg 98-104 “…signifies nothing less than the overlap of opposites …the mandorla instructs us how to engage in reconciliation … the mandorla is the place of poetry. It is the duty of the true poet to take the fragmented world that we find ourselves in and to make unity of it … we feel there is safety and sureness in our fractured world, and the poet has given us the gift of synthesis.” When my husband died, my world was indeed fractured and I tried to make sense of his senseless death through my poetry in DROP BY DROP(poems of loss) [Aztar Press, 2020].Finally, Johnson talks of finding the Divine through an exploration of our inner shadow:Pg 107-118 “…whenever you have a clash of opposites in your being and neither will give way to the other, you can be certain that God is present … the conflict-without-resolution is a direct experience of God …our own healing proceeds from that overlap of what we call good and evil, light and dark. It is not that the light element alone does the healing; the lace where light and dark begin to touch (the mandorla) is where miracles arise.Although this book is short, it’s a powerful read for anyone wanting to find peace in our time. Johnson says, "People often asked Dr. Jung, 'Will we make it?' referring to the cataclysm of our time. He always replied, 'If enough people will do their inner work.'"[Pg 113]Reading this book has encouraged me to continue on my sometimes terrifying, sometimes exhilarating quest through the underworld of my own psyche.

      1 person found this helpful

    • 4/5
      My first reaction to this book was that it oversimplified. But perhaps its purpose really is to make a very complicated concept accessable to a large number of people. Johnson is no doubt Christian- and Western-centric, and he lets that slip in a few places, which undermines his message. That being said, there are quite a few true gems of insight here, and it's well worth the read.

      3 people found this helpful

    Book preview

    Owning Your Own Shadow - Robert A. Johnson

    Introduction

    It was said that Dr. Jung’s favorite story went something like this: The water of life, wishing to make itself known on the face of the earth, bubbled up in an artesian well and flowed without effort or limit. People came to drink of the magic water and were nourished by it, since it was so clean and pure and invigorating. But humankind was not content to leave things in this Edenic state. Gradually they began to fence the well, charge admission, claim ownership of the property around it, make elaborate laws as to who could come to the well, put locks on the gates. Soon the well was the property of the powerful and the elite. The water was angry and offended; it stopped flowing and began to bubble up in another place. The people who owned the property around the first well were so engrossed in their power systems and ownership that they did not notice that the water had vanished. They continued selling the nonexistent water, and few people noticed that the true power was gone. But some dissatisfied people searched with great courage and found the new artesian well. Soon that well was under the control of the property owners, and the same fate overtook it. The spring took itself to yet another place—and this has been going on throughout recorded history.

    This is a very sad story, and Jung was particularly touched by it, since he saw how a basic truth can be misused and subverted into an egocentric plaything. Science, art, and particularly psychology have suffered from this dark process. But the wonder of the story is that the water is always flowing somewhere and is available to any intelligent person who has the courage to search out the living water in its current form.

    Water has often been used as a symbol for the deepest spiritual nourishment of humanity. It is flowing in our time in history, as always, for the well is faithful to its mission; but it flows in some odd places. It has often ceased to flow in the accustomed sites and turned up in some most surprising locations. But, thank God, the water is still there.

    In this book we will examine some of the odd places in which the water of life is flowing these days. As always, it is free, and it is fresh, as much the living water as ever before. The main difficulty is that it is to be found where one least expects it. This is the meaning of the biblical phrase What good could come out of Nazareth? Nazareth is now holy to us, the birthplace of the Savior; but in biblical times it was the wrong side of the tracks and the least likely place to find an epiphany of the spirit. Many people fail to find their God-given living water because they are not prepared to search in unusual places. It is likely to turn up in Nazareth again—and be as ignored as before.

    One such unexpected source is our own shadow, that dumping ground for all those characteristics of our personality that we disown. As we will see later, these disowned parts are extremely valuable and cannot be disregarded. As promised of the living water, our shadow costs nothing and is immediately—and embarrassingly—ever present. To honor and accept one’s own shadow is a profound spiritual discipline. It is whole-making and thus holy and the most important experience of a lifetime.

    1

    The Shadow

    The shadow: What is this curious dark element that follows us like a saurian tail and pursues us so relentlessly in our psychological world? What role does it occupy in the modern psyche?

    The persona is what we would like to be and how we wish to be seen by the world. It is our psychological clothing and it mediates between our true selves and our environment just as our physical clothing presents an image to those we meet. The ego is what we are and know about consciously. The shadow is that part of us we fail to see or know.*

    How the Shadow Originates

    We all are born whole and, let us hope, will die whole. But somewhere early on our way, we eat one of the wonderful fruits of the tree of knowledge, things separate into good and evil, and we begin the shadow-making process; we divide our lives. In the cultural process we sort out our God-given characteristics into those that are acceptable to our society and those that have to be put away. This is wonderful and necessary, and there would be no civilized behavior without this sorting out of good and evil. But the refused and unacceptable characteristics do not go away; they only collect in the dark corners of our personality. When they have been hidden long enough, they take on a life of their own—the shadow life. The shadow is that which has not entered adequately into consciousness. It is the despised quarter of our being. It often has an energy potential nearly as great as that of our ego. If it accumulates more energy than our ego, it erupts as an overpowering rage or some indiscretion that slips past us; or we have a depression or an accident that seems to have its own purpose. The shadow gone autonomous is a terrible monster in our psychic house.

    The civilizing process, which is the brightest achievement of humankind, consists of culling out those characteristics that are dangerous to the smooth functioning of our ideals. Anyone who does not go through this process remains a primitive and can have no place in a cultivated society. We all are born whole but somehow the culture demands that we live out only part of our nature and refuse other parts of our inheritance. We divide the self into an ego and a shadow because our culture insists that we behave in a particular manner. This is our legacy from having eaten of the fruit of the tree of knowledge in the Garden of Eden. Culture takes away the simple human in us, but gives us more complex and sophisticated power. One can make a forceful argument that children should not be subjected to this division too soon or they will be robbed of childhood; they should be allowed to remain in the Garden of Eden until they are strong enough to stand the cultural process without being broken by it. This strength comes at different ages for different individuals and it requires a keen eye to know when children are ready to adapt to the collective life of a society.

    It is interesting to travel about the world and see which characteristics various cultures affix

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