We Are Less Noble Than We Think

Several years ago, when I started doing more in-depth therapy, something strange happened: I started seeing myself as less of a ‘good person'. Instead, I got in touch with aspects of myself that could be petty and needy and jealous and unhinged. These were parts of me that definitely didn’t fit into the ‘nice Arab girl’ I was conditioned to be or the ‘even-keeled therapist’ I liked to see myself as.

I think this should be the fine print of any good therapeutic process: The deeper the process, the less 'noble' we start to see ourselves as. Ultimately I think this is what being 'authentic' truly is: A deeper knowing and acceptance of both our strengths AND our weaknesses, of the parts of ourselves we are fond of AND ALSO the ones we try to hide, even from ourselves.

Perhaps the aim is to move beyond seeing ourselves as only good or only bad to being able to see ourselves, and others, in a deeper and broader way than the very narrow and shallow images we typically move through the world with.

Indeed, I sometimes imagine us all walking around with billboards announcing who we are trying to be:

‘I am a good person’

‘I am helpful’

‘I am kind’

Sometimes those billboards are seemingly more sassy:

‘I am rebellious’

‘I am self-sufficient’

‘I am unconventional’

These ‘billboards’ we identify very strongly with are sometimes called the persona or the as-if personality or simply identity - the masks we wear, yet mistake ourselves for.

We can become very attached to our billboard, and believe this is all we are. We also often judge others on THEIR billboard and cannot see beyond it. And yet, like the Moon who also has her dark side, we are so much more than these two-dimensional images of ourselves.

We are so much more complex and nuanced than is immediately visible to us.

Swiss psychiatrist Carl Jung wrote:

“How can I be substantial if I do not cast a shadow? I must have a dark side also If I am to be whole.”

This ‘dark side’ is not meant in the sense of an evil force, Star Wars style. Considering we are not one consistent person but instead are made up of different parts, this refers to parts of us that are hidden, that are not in the ‘light’ of consciousness, and that we are therefore unaware of.

Parts of us that we are aware of are often identified as ‘this is me’. For example, we can think of ourselves as strong and capable.

Yet at the same time, there can be a part of us that sometimes moves into despair and wants to give-up. Those parts are not ones we like to think of as ‘me’ - and yet they are there, too, only perhaps not so much in our conscious awareness, but in the ‘dark’ or ‘shadow’ parts of us.

These are the parts that give us substance, that make us complex, messy, three-dimensional beings and not just two-dimensional billboards.

Instead of being contradictory we can be someone who is mostly capable and strong, yet at times also just wants to give-up. Doesn’t this add depth and feel more realistic than someone who sees themselves as only strong and capable, or the opposite - as only ever wanting to give-up?

We are all more than just one thing.

Carl Jung called these parts we see as ‘not me’ the Shadow.

He defined the Shadow as:

All aspects of oneself that are unknown or unrecognized because they have become split-off, hidden, repressed, or otherwise rendered invisible to the ego.

The parts of us that are cut off and put into the Shadow are often what is deemed unacceptable or intolerable This is often what society considers unacceptable and also what our family context may not have allowed, like anger or vulnerability.

How the Shadow develops

As we grow-up in the family and culture in which we are born, we quickly learn what is ‘acceptable’ and what is not. We learn what makes us ‘good’ and ‘responsible’ members of society. And so the process of cutting off ‘unacceptable’ parts of ourselves begins. When a child who once played and yelled and loved without filter is told to be quiet and ‘behave properly’, they quickly learn to cut off their more spontaneous, loud, wild, creative expression in order to be ‘good’.

This process of splitting off parts of ourselves happens unconsciously and is necessary to a certain extent for us to live in society with each other. As children we rely on our caretakers for survival so it also makes sense that we would choose attachment over wholeness - even if this means losing contact with parts of ourselves. After all, none of us escape childhood unscathed - or as Jungian analyst James Hollis says, "We are all recovering children.”

What goes into the shadow is not ‘bad’: It is simply what is seen as unacceptable in the context in which we grow up. So in one family this might be vulnerability, sensitivity, and emotional expression. That family or culture might value being ‘tough’ and mock any signs of softness. Another family focused more on agreeableness and sweeping things under the rug might deem anger, aggression, assertiveness as unacceptable - and in this family being ‘nice’ and ‘helpful’ might be valued.

So the Shadow is not bad or evil - it simply contains parts of us we learned were unacceptable or felt intolerable that we had to cut ourselves from.

As we build our sense of self as children and teens, we are simultaneously defining ‘I am this’ - our ‘billboard’ identity - and at the same time defining ‘I am not this’ - and this is split off and goes into the Shadow.

so where does the Shadow go?

It doesn't disappear - it just goes into hiding, out of our conscious awareness. Jungian author Robert Bly talks about a ‘long bag we drag behind us.’ He talks about how we spend the first 20 years of life stuffing parts of ourselves in this bag, until we become just a slice of the whole person we once were as young children:

“Behind us we have an invisible bag, and the parts of us our parents don’t like, we, to keep our parents’ love, put in the bag. By the time we go to school our bag is quite large.” - Robert Bly, A Little Book on the Human Shadow

Yet these shadow parts are not fully or easily available to us because, as Diana Fosha writes,

“That which becomes off-limits in the communication with the caregiver eventually becomes off-limits for the person to experience and consider - even in the privacy of his inner life.”  - Diana Fosha - The Transforming Power of Affect

Other, more somatic approaches, see these parts as living in the body. And though we are not fully aware of their existence, these shadow parts might still show up as physical symptoms, numbness, emptiness, tightness, or dissociation in the body.

Our Billboard Identities

And so we grow-up and we identify with the billboard identities. And yet, the more we identify with one thing, the more its opposite sits in the Shadow, like a dark twin lurking in the background, longing to be seen.

We may be polite and politically correct, well-adjusted members of society - yet we are not fully alive or real or creative. Often our drive, power, passion, and instincts are locked away in the Shadow, and a lot of our energy might go into keeping them there. There is a lot of lost vitality locked away in the Shadow.

As Liliane Frey-Rohn writes:

“The Shadow retains contact with the lost depths of the soul, with life and vitality - the superior, the universally human, yes, even the creative can be sensed there.” - Liliane Frey-Rohn

Hints of the Shadow

While we never directly see the Shadow, we can get a hint of what is in our Shadow.

A good place to start is to notice:

Where do we judge others with an emotional intensity?

For example, if I judge my partner for being lazy, the ability to rest might be in my shadow and I might be over-identifying with being productive. If I can get curious about my judginess instead of judging myself for it, it holds a lot of information. Perhaps it tells me that in my family, rest was frowned upon and that this is something I do not fully own - perhaps by being busy all the time or feeling guilty when I am not being productive.

Admiration and envy can also provide hints of Shadow

Admiration and sometimes envy often point to something in ourselves we are not fully owning yet seeing in someone else. We often admire something in others that we may have the seeds of in ourselves yet are not fully owning. For example, if I admire or even envy someone who is putting themselves out there in a very public way, this could give me information that this matters to me too, perhaps not exactly in the same way, but in some way I may not be fully aware of.

owning the Shadow before it owns us

The more we reject these parts of us, and insist on the billboard ‘image’ of ourselves, the more these parts will take over in moments when our guard is down: When we are drunk, or tired or in a fight with our partner. They might even show up repeatedly in people or situations we encounter. This is often when we say something like: I don’t know what got over me but…

We can also get hints of Shadow through moments of defensiveness, denial, feeling stuck, self-sabotage, a symptom like physical disease, slips of tongue, humor, in dreams, nightmares, daydreams and fantasies.

And yet instead of judging ourselves, what if we got curious? Could this be a part of me I haven’t fully encountered yet? The invitation is to see this as a search for wholeness, to re-integrate parts we had to cut ourselves off from.

Because if we are not in touch with these ‘shadow’ parts - they don’t just disappear. They simply take over in ways we don’t fully control or comprehend.

allowing mess and complexity

Maybe we are all more complex and messy and REAL than the good, normal people we try so hard to be. Maybe, and despite what society tells us, the goal was never to be a perfect billboard but to become a whole person - shadow and all. Because if we don’t own these parts, they will not just disappear- the will still manifest themselves in some way.

I think back to that version of myself in early therapy, sitting with the uncomfortable discovery that I was not quite as 'good' or as ‘even keeled’ as I had believed. I had, after all, whacked my partner with the garbage bag I was holding while we were arguing. Now I can laugh at these moments as being a messy, complex human doing my best in this things called Life. And if I am honest, the ‘good Arab girl’ and ‘even-keeled therapist’ billboards were definitely boring. Someone capable of pettiness, jealousy, neediness, and of whacking someone with a garbage bag - well doesn’t that person sound more interesting?

“Unfortunately, there is no doubt about the fact that man is, as a whole, less good than he imagines himself or wants to be. Everyone carries a shadow, and the less it is embodied in the individual’s conscious life, the blacker and denser it is.” - C.G. Jung

PS - If you want to read more about how ‘normal’ is really not something to aspire to, I recommend this Substack post by Maria Nazdravan.