In the same breath, he spoke about politics and spirituality too
Published in ILLUMINATION
Feb 10, 2024 (Medium.com)
I remember it well.
A girl at school was laughing at me because I had walked into class with my zipper down. She began whispering to her closest friends who also began to stare and laugh. This went on until the whole classroom was laughing at me and I was red in the face without knowing what I had done.
What she didn’t know was that I hated being the centre of attention, I carried a lot of body shame, and I was living with social anxiety. So, although I walked to my seat looking cool, calm, and collected, I was dying of shame inside.
For a long time after that, I never spoke to her. She was the source of my pain and I was going to punish her for it.
Even years later, when I saw her in the parking lot of a supermarket with her two young children, I gave her a snarky comment to continue my passive-aggressive revenge.
Apart from being childish, it must have also been confusing for her. We hadn’t seen each other in years and my moment of shame had well gone, yet there I was, being awkward and confronting for no good reason.
At the time, I felt proud and strong but now I look back and see a very different story.
Now I see that her younger self was just touching a part of me that was deeply hurt inside. She didn’t know it, of course. She was just doing what most school kids do and that’s make fun of each other.
The trouble is we never know what another is going through because “Everyone you meet is fighting a battle you know nothing about.” As Robin Williams so accurately said.
It was only years later when I realised that my anger and shame were running my life and preventing me from having deep connections that I changed my approach.
This aspect of self is what Carl Jung called the shadow. And whether we project our shadow onto others or take full responsibility for it is the kind of social change Carl Jung wanted to see. That’s why he said:
“The best political, social, and spiritual work we can do is to withdraw the projection of our shadow onto others.”
How do we withdraw the projection of our shadow onto others?
My shadow side stems from a fear of being seen and heard. It’s one of the reasons why I’ve suffered from social anxiety for 20+ years.
At around the time I realised my anger and shame were running my life and preventing me from having deep connections, however, I tried to understand it and accept it better, and ultimately alchemise it in my life.
A huge part of that was learning to take full responsibility for my own well-being and not give other people the power to influence my mental health.
In other words, not project my pain onto others and instead see the gift it presents to understand myself better.
This is why I believe, like Carl Jung, that the best social, political, and spiritual work we can do is to withdraw our shadow from others because once I learned to stop projecting my fear, anger, and shame outwardly, I became more curious as to why it was within and what it could teach me. This allowed me to go deep into my psyche, look at the root cause of my trauma, and integrate more lovingly into my life. I then stopped blaming people and instead started thanking them.
Before that, I would either react out of anger or hide in shame and neither did anything to support my growth or anyone else’s.
“Everyone carries a shadow, and the less it is embodied in the individual’s conscious life, the blacker and denser it is.” — Carl Jung
Seeing the opportunity of pain
As someone who lived with anxiety for 20 years, the easiest thing for me to do was remove the thing(s) that made me anxious.
However, that seldom worked. Instead, I found that I held myself back from doing what I wanted to do or stopped myself from experiencing what I wanted to experience.
So, for me to grow and evolve, I had to learn to face my fears so I could understand them better.
It was scary (and still is) but I found that getting out of my comfort zone is where the magic happens.
This is the opportunity that pain and challenging relationships now present. On the surface, they can be hurtful and/or frustrating, but after digging a little deeper I find there’s often something inside that’s unresolved or not at ease and because of that, I can get to know myself better.
As someone who is deeply invested in personal development as much as I am, this is an exciting prospect!
“By not being aware of having a shadow, you declare a part of your personality to be non-existent.” — Carl Jung
Closing Thoughts
Whenever I think about philosophical topics like I am today I often turn toward nature.
Today’s musings have got me thinking about the moon because it also has a dark side. It too goes through cycles of emptiness and fullness, darkness and light, and both are welcomed as just a part of life.
There seems to be no judgment or shame or suffering on the Moon’s behalf. Instead, it passes through each cycle with the knowing that “This Too Shall Pass.”
That’s where I’m at today in my life. I have finally come to accept what Carl Jung so brilliantly said near the end of his own:
Written by Andy Murphy
·Writer for ILLUMINATION
Spreading joy through writing and breathwork https://www.somabreath.com/#a_aid=AndyMurphy