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Showing posts from July 27, 2013

Awareness of the Shadow

"Everyone carries a shadow, and the less it is known consciously, the blacker and denser it is… Beneath the surface we are suffering from a deadly boredom that makes everything seem meaningless and empty… to find renewal means to descend into one's darkness." —quotes from Carl Jung There was a man who was so disturbed by his own shadow that he was determined to lose it for good. So he got up and ran. But his shadow kept up with him, and so he ran faster and faster until the exertion took its toll and he dropped dead. If he had simply stepped into the shade, sat down and stayed still [meditated], his shadow would have vanished.   —Chuang Tzu, The Way  Each individual has a reservoir of behaviors, desires and experiences—the shadow—that are rejected and disavowed during the hunt for acceptance and approval from others, for we humans are essentially pack animals, built to socialize, interact, seek and establish security from each other, just as fish are built to