Courting the Dark Side: Finding a Balance Between Light and Shadow
Laurel Reufner
I have a secret to let you all in on: I’m a reformed people-pleaser as well as a sufferer of an over-active guilty conscious. I’m not saying that guilt is a bad thing—not in its proper place. It can certainly help keep us in line when it comes to how we treat others. But it’s also possible to let guilt hold us back from more fully enjoying life and being who we are. And that’s a problem that lies within our shadow self—our dark side—first identified by Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung.
Freud described the unconscious as a place where we store all of our repressed ideas and emotions. However, those ideas and emotions don’t always stay put. Sometimes they resurface into our conscious mind, usually when we least need them to. Jung took this concept several steps further by describing the shadow as a spot where we place (repress) all of our dark thoughts and desires—things we think of as sinful. Entire books and many academic papers have been written on Jungian psychology and the nature of the shadow, but this definition will serve well enough for our purposes here.
Many of us come to Paganism from different spiritual or religious paths, ones that are usually a bit more dualistic (good vs. evil) in their theology. This isn’t necessarily an attack on those paths. I mean, we all want to be considered good, right? So what do you do when you don’t feel that a particular impulse or emotion is considered good? If we could just shove those bad things down in our minds deeply enough, we could bury them and forget all about them. We could win out over this dark side. Except that’s not really how it works. In order to reach wholeness and ultimately be a better person, we need to embrace our shadow and learn to work with it.
Denying our shadow, at the very least, keeps us from enjoying the full emotional range of life and at its worst leads to violence, addiction, and alienation. We become adversarial within ourselves, but we don’t have to do that.
My goal here is to give you some insight into making friends with your darker side. All too often, not only do we put dark, sinful thoughts into our shadow, but it’s also where we sometimes put useful emotions and thoughts, all because we may find them uncomfortable. Fear of all sorts can find a home in our shadow, as well as pride and confidence in ourselves. Sometimes we might even hide love in there. What’s a Witch to do? What Witches often do: try to deal with it head-on.
Making Friends with Your Shadow
Where do you start getting those impulses under control and begin embracing your shadow side? For me, it was a case of acknowledging certain feelings, especially when I would feel guilty about things that a person really shouldn’t feel guilty about. You know, things that would be perfectly acceptable in other people. If I wouldn’t think badly of someone else for saying that they couldn’t do a certain thing or for rightly standing their ground, then why the heck should I feel guilty about it in myself? Of course, the reasons for my overly developed guilty conscience go way back to my youth, which is something that still needs work—but I’m getting there.
I’ve learned to pay attention to when I’m feeling guilty about something and seek out the reason for it. Then I keep repeating the following mantra for as long as I need to: If it wouldn’t bother me if it were someone else, then it probably shouldn’t bother me. This is a tactic that works well for other emotions as well. And sometimes, feeling a little guilty does get me to do something that I should be doing, such as getting off my duff and surprising my family with a special home-cooked meal. If I’m really tired, they’ll understand if I don’t, but if I’m just being lazy that’s another matter. (A big part of this process is learning to be honest, at least with yourself.)
Something else that helps is working to untangle why you feel a certain way. And by that, I mean taking the emotion back to the source. Do you find it hard to take pride in yourself because you’ve long been told that pridefulness is wrong and you’ve taken that message a little too much to heart? While excessive pridefulness is a problem, taking pride in a job well done is a very healthy thing for your self-confidence.
You also need to pay attention to when your shadow is trying to protect you. Perhaps you’re afraid of personal relationships because you’re really afraid of being hurt or rejected. So instead you live your life lonely and cut off from forming close relationships, maybe even becoming bitter and resentful of those around you who have what you’re so afraid to try for. Maybe you were rejected once by someone for whom you cared deeply and you don’t ever want to feel that way again, so your shadow tries to give you that protection by keeping you afraid and isolated. Tackle this problem by acknowledging the fear and realizing that your dark psyche is only trying to help you. Then take small steps to get out there and meet people.
Pay attention to that little voice when it starts to speak up, listen to what it’s saying, and then ask yourself where that emotion is really coming from. What is your shadow trying to protect you from? What might it be trying to tell you? Why do you feel bad about feeling perfectly normal human emotions that we all have?
One final suggestion is to start a practice of mindfulness or perhaps meditation. In those moments of inner stillness, realizations and enlightenment might come to you. For me, it’s the stillness of the night and maybe some contemplative candlelight or a good long drive over roads I know well that often lead to a mental calmness that lets me sort out my thoughts and feelings. Part of my mind can then wander about inside itself and discover thoughts that I had no idea existed.
Of course, these suggestions are only starting points, and sometimes we all need a little extra, professional help. If you decide that’s the case, then please don’t hesitate to go get some. There is no shame in acknowledging when you need assistance. Knowing when to do so can be a true sign of strength.
Laurel Reufner loves writing about all sorts of topics. An observer of human nature, she found the topic of this particular article to be truly fascinating and enlightening. Many thanks go out to reader Claudette for suggesting it. When not lost in her own head, she lives in beautiful southeastern Ohio, with her husband and two rapidly growing teenage daughters, who both continue her wild child legacy. Visit her on Facebook.
Illustrator: Rik Olson