When suddenly confronted by a thing or action that surprises, offends or angers us, many of us impulsively vent out four-letter expletives. Then, of course, we immediately pull back and try to compose ourselves, mumbling excuses for the embarrassing lapse to anyone around who have heard us.
It happened once to a revered spiritual director, silently causing me to feel second-hand embarrassment because several persons, including ladies, were there.
Did that incident lose my respect for him? Not necessarily. It was to me not surprising or shocking. In fact, I was amused. LOL, he is like me after all.
I also recall another good-looking executive, a heartthrob in fact, who would verbally make fun of gay employees. One time when he was giving a briefing, from out of the blue, he suddenly let out a girlish shriek and covered his mouth reflexively when he accidentally dropped his cellphone. Everybody froze in their seats. You could cut the palpable silent air with a knife.
Over the years, I keep encountering news about well-known and highly respected religious leaders who perorate endlessly and hatefully against the so-called sins of adultery, pedophilia, homosexuality, abortion —only to be “exposed” later that they were doing those very same “sins” in secret all along.
As the sages say, when you point the finger of accusation at someone, always keep in mind that your other three fingers are pointed towards you. So be careful. Your outward accusation could be a self-confession. More often it is a deflection, designed to cover up and distract others from looking in your direction. The louder and more strident, the more suspicious.
That’s us revealing our human, imperfect self, we say. In fact, when shocked, angry, or terrified, our instinctive ejaculations and exclamations only serve to give us away, revealing another side of us. Our hidden, dark side. Psychologists call it “Shadow Self.”
The term “shadow self” was first conceptualized by Carl Jung, the other pillar of modern psychology, in the mid-1900s.
For Jung, a complete personality consists of both the positive and negative qualities in every individual, but only the qualities that seem desirable and appealing are expressed in what he calls “person,” which is the social mask we wear every day.
Most of the time, he says, we repress those thoughts and feelings that are labeled as negative or unappealing or even dangerous. They are in fact said to be “sinful” and need to be confessed again and again as we were told as students in exclusive Catholic schools. Remember the sins of hatred, anger, gluttony, greed, lust, and so on?
As we grew up and became more adulterated and secularized in our outlook on life, we no longer saw the need or value to confess, period. We ignored them and fought to keep them under the lid. Even now, some of us still refuse to believe that they are a part of us. Lo, in unexpected moments, they reveal themselves, to the surprise of those who know us, and to our embarrassment. No matter what, they have always been there.
In retrospect, ceasing to confess the dark aspects of our shadow self was probably a mistake. Because in my late life, I have been made to realize that confessing or talking about our dark desires would have had a salutary effect, in a psychological way.
In their book “Romancing the Shadow: A Guide to Soul Work for a Vital, Authentic Life” therapists C. Zweig & S. Wolf tell us that “the Shadow can be a source of emotional richness and vitality, and acknowledging it can be a pathway to healing and an authentic life.”
Jung believes this acknowledgement and acceptance is the key to treating not only the mind of man but his Soul as well. More significantly he believes that this Shadow Self is a latent force present in all of us, in many instances forming a strong source of creative energy.
Why do you think Pablo Picasso kept creating masterworks till his 70s? I suspect because he had tremendous lust like a radioactive uranium ore, which continued to glow inside and gave him the creative energy even in late age.
It is said that no great man is a hero to his butler or psychiatrist. That’s because a butler knows the darkest secrets of his master and becomes an absorber of the negative force hidden from the public. By allowing his master’s wild nature to come out in his daily life, the butler helps this shadow to be gradually tamed and become integrated into his master’s whole self and thus enables him to be stronger, more dynamic, and creative.
I am now in the middle of a book about Winston Churchill written by William Manchester. His atrocious behavior within his inner sanctum will shock the ordinary reader. He could be tactlessly offensive to intimates sometimes. He would go to and fro, literally and unabashedly naked while crafting or rehearsing his speeches. Yet his butler and confidential coterie of maids and assistants allowed him to indulge himself because they all accepted that it was an inseparable part of him. Churchill would not have been the great Churchill we know and admire if that dark self of his was reined in.
Similarly, in the relationship between wife and husband there must be a space in between as a neutral field to allow their respective dark natures to emerge and accepted without being judged or suppressed. My wife has frequent dark dreams and I let her tell me about them because they can give both a clue on her fears and anxieties. I believe that letting them out in the open helps prevent them from manifesting themselves later on as physical ailments. Talking about each other’s most intimate desires and hidden impulses would definitely help but if only both spouses are open and mature enough to understand.
This lack of acknowledgement and acceptance of the shadow self —and the disconnection from our true whole self—can be dangerous. The more our darkness is avoided, the more it grows within us, an inner demon waiting to burst out at any unexpected moment.
So next time we let out a four letter expletive or exclamation in anger or in frustration, start rummaging into your innermost closet and find the hidden self that you have locked away. Remember, in the same way that a house divided against itself cannot stand, we cannot continue having fractioned lives, accepting some parts of our nature but rejecting and ignoring other parts.
As the ancient book I Ching teaches us, every yang needs a yin. Nothing is purely good or purely bad. The two qualities oppose each other while at the same time complement each other. Unless we learn to first embrace that darkness within ourselves and harness its creative force, we can never attain self-love in a balanced, healthy way.