This video is sponsored by masterworks.
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and for now let's get on with how to own yourself from the philosophy of Carl Jung.
Carl Jung is one of the most influential psychiatrists of all time,
along with Sigmund Freud and Alfred Adler. He was one of the founders of psychoanalysis
and in spite of being highly praised by Freud, Jung departed from his teachings,
eventually founding his own school of psychology called ‘analytical psychology’.
He has published multiple books like the ‘Psychology of the Unconscious,’ ‘Man and
His Symbols,’ ‘The Archetypes and The Collective Unconscious,’ ‘Modern Man In Search of a Soul,’
‘The Psychology of the Transference,’ ‘Memories, Dreams, and Thoughts,’ and ‘The Relations Between
the Ego and the Unconscious.’ His philosophy is often referred to as ‘Jungian Philosophy.’
Within the field of psychology, Jung is famously known for introducing the terms ‘introvert’ and
‘extravert,’ introducing archetypes of the psyche and classifying the boundary between
the unconscious and conscious. Our consciousness includes everything that we know about ourselves;
the unconsciousness entails everything that is part of us but that we are not aware of.
Jung introduced ‘the ego’ and ‘the persona’ as our consciousness, and ‘the shadow’ and
‘the animus and anima’ as the parts that make up our unconsciousness. The shadow is one of
the toughest, most intimidating parts to handle: it exists out of everything
about ourselves that we dislike, which is why we often refuse to acknowledge it as a part of us.
However, what many people don’t know is that not facing the shadow can be an even more intense
blow on your self-esteem. But facing it is actually the only way to gain true control
over yourself and who you are. Which is why in this video, we will teach you how you can truly
own yourself by doing so-called shadow work in 3 easy steps, from the philosophy of Carl Jung.
Step 1 - Meet Your Shadow
Jung says “One does not become enlightened by imagining figures of light, but by making the
darkness conscious. The latter procedure, however, is disagreeable and therefore not popular”.
The first step to getting to know, trust and love yourself more, is meeting with the shadow. This
is the stage in which you ask yourself: ‘Why do I behave the way I do?’ The shadow is the most
intense and problematic part of our unconscious. It houses all the negative traits you don’t want
to identify with, the parts of yourself that you reject, the characteristics you think are bad,
etc. These shadow-parts may include anger, vanity, impulses, dark thoughts,
shameful tendencies, and so on. It may even include traits generally considered positive,
such as passion or creativity. In many cases shadow traits are traits or desires that are
rejected by society as a whole. The idea that one should not have these characteristics has
been taught from childhood onwards and that is why we’ve become ashamed of them and deny
their existence. As long as you’re ashamed of it and push it down, it ends up in the shadow
Generally, people tend to suppress the unconscious parts of their
psyche - especially their shadow parts. They are in denial, often both to themselves and
the outside world. And ignoring the parts of you that you are ashamed of might seem
like the key to confidence, at first. But denying the shadow does not make it go away.
In fact, doing so only makes its presence worse, because what you are unaware of, you cannot learn
to control. Thus, what we suppress tends to come out uncontrolled in our weakest moments. The
shadow is then the cause of outbursts, emotional blowups, snapping at others and unwanted thoughts.
For example, someone who is considered to be a gentle person,
might have lots of repressed anger that they have failed to acknowledge,
and so may snap furiously at another in a moment of weakness. These moments then feel
like they come out of nowhere and might give you the sense that you barely know yourself.
One of the most important aspects of the shadow is that it is unconscious - and thus, unknown to
you. This leads to problems: whatever you push down the most tends to control your life most.
As explained before, the parts of yourself you reject then bubble up when you have no
say over it and will leave you feeling hopeless and not like yourself. This can
destroy your confidence. To prevent this, we have to bring the shadow
into the light. To make conscious what is unconscious. To get to know our shadow side.
But how? Well, encountering your shadow happens in daily life in the way of ‘projection.’
‘Projection’ is what someone does when they fool themselves into thinking that they see
their own flaws or fears in someone else. It’s a way of saying: See?! I am not selfish, they are!’
You project onto others what you deny and reject in yourself. Do you ever have those moments
when you find yourself judging someone harshly - either out loud or in your head? Or when you catch
yourself being biased or holding onto a certain prejudice? Or when you’re quick to take offense?
It is very likely that those are the moments that you project your own unwanted traits onto others.
As soon as you encounter traits that you’re afraid you possess, or particularly do not
want to be associated with, your reaction will be stronger than it would be normally.
That is because those are the traits that you unconsciously want to make sure are the
opposite of what you are - and what better way to do that than be completely opposed to it?
Thus, something that could have been slightly annoying suddenly becomes a huge problem.
You cannot let go of the fact that your coworker is often distracted, for example, because you need
to make it clear that you are not. You’re better. These are all ways in which you
trick yourself into feeling more confident about yourself, but the confidence is based on denial
and repression - and thus, it is unearned and fragile. The more you hate on people and traits
you possess, the more self-hate you unknowingly gather as well. Any confrontation that catches you
off-guard could ‘expose the truth’ and leave you feeling completely vulnerable and self conscious.
So, in order to own yourself, you need to find the traits you reject and take the time to question
yourself the next time you find yourself having a strong reaction to something. What is it that
made you feel so upset? And Why? You might just discover that these are the traits that you are
most afraid to have. It is very hard to become conscious of these reactions. This is why Jung
advises activities that clear the mind and allow you to take a step back from yourself. Meditation,
for example, is a good way to do so. Journaling about your feelings and experiences is as well,
or drawing to ease your mind. When you find the moments you react strongly and impulsively,
you can examine them. Why do you feel that way? What triggered your reaction?
Keeping an actual list of your reactions and possible shadow traits can work wonders. You
will find that you can truly get to know yourself in a way you’ve never done before.
You can also see the process of meeting your shadow as the creation of an honest advertisement,
or perhaps review, of you as a person. Imagine yourself seeing it: a flyer, promoting you.
As expected, we want this flyer to be filled with benefits, perks, our usefulness and the way
we make the people around us feel good. But the goal here is to be as honest and focused on our
‘bad side’ as possible. Fill it with your flaws, your bad habits, the worst things you’ve done,
the things you’d normally never admit to anyone. It will be a hard, painful and potentially scary
process - but if you can manage to write an advertisement or review for yourself as a person
like that, you have met your shadow. Step 2 - Accept Your Shadow
In the words of Jung, ‘The most terrifying thing is to accept oneself completely.’
In this stage, we ask ourselves the question: ‘Who am I really?’
Becoming aware of the undesirable traits you have pushed deep down is one thing,
but accepting their existence is another. Although we can become aware of our
shortcomings or insecurities, we have a hard time accepting them as part of who we are.
Instead, when we get to know ourselves in ways we don’t appreciate, we often immediately jump
to solutions. If you are inclined to be a bit lazy, all you need to do is make sure you’re
always busy! If you’ve found that you’re insecure about your voice, you can either start to speak so
much that you forget about it like me or barely speak at all so that you don’t have to face it.
If you’ve found that you’re sensitive, just make sure to never let those emotions show.
But… no. Because then you’re simply pushing it down again - and before you know it,
you’d be right back where you started, denying your shadow. Instead, you have to accept the fact
that you have certain traits or inclinations without immediately wanting to change them.
To own yourself completely, you have to accept yourself for who you truly are.
This is, of course, easier said than done. Accepting undesirable traits as yours can make you
feel like you’re a bad person. It can change the image you had of yourself. And that is scary. Jung
acknowledges this and says: ‘It is a frightening thought that man might have a shadow side to
himself.’ Imagine taking that advertisement you created, and looking at it and thinking, yes,
this is me. You’ll probably want to crumple it up and throw it away, burn it, never see it again.
But you’re going to have to carry it with you if you actually want to change. The reality
of the situation is: the shadow is only frightening when it is unacknowledged and
unaccepted - because that is when it becomes uncontrollable. Accepting it is the best way
to keep it under control. Accepting it is part of finding your balance. It might make
you feel like you’ll be more insecure if you do accept it, but this is temporary. It is only a
small step in a process that will make you feel more in control of yourself than ever before.
A very good first step to doing so is analyzing why you wanted to hide it in the first place.
Who taught you to hide them? Your parents? Classmates? The internet?
Why do you think you’ll be less likable or lovable when you show these traits? How true
is it that people will dislike you for showing this trait? Imagine you’ve found greediness in
your shadow. Imagine that your parents always got incredibly angry at you for not sharing,
or tended to suddenly take your possessions away as punishment. This could have given you
the feeling that you need to preserve your own money and possessions as much as possible - but
also the feeling that it is wrong for you to do so. When you know where it comes from,
you understand yourself better and can accept yourself more easily.
It is imperative to understand that everybody has a shadow side and your shadow does not
make you a bad person. It simply makes you human, and all humans are complicated and
have multiple sides to them. Furthermore, accepting your shadow brings inner balance
to your life. If you’re pushing greediness down and become too generous to contrast it,
your generosity is out of control and not worth as much as when it comes from a real place.
The same goes for all the bad traits you try to counter. This is because countering bad traits
has an air of insecurity to it. For example, if you force yourself to be overly generous,
you’d probably quietly feel bitter about all that you’re giving away and then feel guilty
and thus self-conscious about said bitterness. Or you could find yourself feeling ‘fake’ or
like ‘you are acting the role’, which also makes you believe that your true self is inadequate.
All of these consequences are incredibly damaging for your confidence. In order for
your good traits to shine, you need to have some darkness every once in a while. You need to look
at your bad traits over and over again. Say them aloud. Look in the mirror and think, this is me.
Slowly, you’ll start to realize that they are not as horrible as you might think.
Step 3 - Integrate Your Shadow To quote Jung, “If a person wants to be cured it
is necessary to find a way in which his conscious personality and his shadow can live together”.
The final and most important question, after having found and accepted your shadow, is this:
‘How can I change for the better?’ There is a beautiful benefit to finding and accepting
your shadow: the acquiring of a certain wisdom that is hidden in every single part of yourself,
even the parts that seem bad. This means that for all the parts of our
shadow that we acknowledge and accept, we can use those parts of us in a good way.
Once you know it is what has been holding you back, you can actually use it to go forward.
If your shadow is a dragon and you are the knight fighting it, you haven’t won after merely entering
the fight and facing your opponent. You have to overcome it. The recommendation is thus not to
passively accept your shadow. It would be akin to passively standing before the dragon, so to speak.
So, if you’ve found greediness in your shadow, this does not mean you just have to go on
knowing you’re a greedy person and never change. This, too, would leave you feeling like a bad,
undesirable or deficient person. It’s unlikely that you’d be ‘confidently greedy’ since you still
think of it as bad. Instead, to actually grow more confident and fond of yourself, you should use it.
Acceptance is merely a way to go to the next step:
integrating the shadow into our behavior and lives. Your shadow is here to teach you. It is
here to show you who you are, why you are the way you are - and why that’s
wonderful! All shadow traits are traits that could be good, if only you use them right.
Let's go back to the example of having found greediness in your shadow as a response to the
treatment you got in your childhood. If you’ve made it this far, you can go on to analyze this
trait to work out what behaviors this has caused. Did you become overly generous to
combat it? Or have you been behaving greedily while beating yourself up over it? In any case,
you should sit down and think, journal or talk with others about what behaviors you
have exhibited as a result of certain undesirable traits, and then think: how else could I act?
How would I rather act? The shadow is an invitation to think about your behavior and learn.
Now is the time to analyze what you think is actually greedy and what you think are normal
acts of self-preservation. Not wanting to give your friend your most expensive outfit is normal,
but not wanting to let them borrow a spare coat for the night when they forgot theirs
might just be a reaction coming from your childhood - and you can adjust your behavior.
When before you probably lunged onto either one extreme or the other,
now you have found that you are allowed to keep your expensive clothes to yourself,
but can be a bit more generous with the stuff you don’t rationally care that mch about anyway.
On the one hand, you can donate to causes you care about, but on the other, it is also okay
to spend a little on yourself sometimes. Such a balance, never going to one extreme nor the other,
can only be found when you’ve faced your shadow traits and incorporated them into your life.
Or, as another example, somebody who’s been pushing down fear by
being too impulsive can start to use it in order to think their actions through more.
Somebody who’s let their life be controlled by fear can now use it as an opportunity to become
courageous. The beauty of ‘bad traits’ are that they make us conscious and considerate.
The shadow is a beautiful part of you that can be a great help if you just let it.
Integrate your shadow by finding out what good behaviors can come from those ‘bad’
traits. Only then will you reflect your inner self truly in your actions. And only then you
won’t have to fear judgment from others. Nobody can call you out on being greedy, or a coward,
or anything else, if you’ve already examined and combatted that behavior instead of denying it.
You will never be more sure of yourself as when you’ve accepted every single part of you
and behave accordingly. Not only will this make you feel more confident, more free and happier…
It will leave you feeling completely assured of who you are and how you behave.
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