“People are rarely who they seem to be. Lurking beneath their polite, affable exterior is inevitably a dark, shadow side consisting of the insecurities and the aggressive, selfish impulses they repress and carefully conceal from public view. You must become aware of your own dark side. In being conscious of it you can control and channel the creative energies that lurk in your unconscious”
Robert Greene
According to Carl Jung, Shadow is the alternative conscience of the mind. It competes for ownership and control of our thoughts, with our actual conscience. It can be said that the shadow is the collective conscience of ideas, thoughts, and qualities we repress.
Man becomes enlightened, and complete when he becomes harmonious with his dark side. To completely understand yourself, you must know all parts of yourself, and to be at peace with yourself, you embrace all parts of yourself. When the malevolent power of the shadow is used to construct and forge realities that the individual desires, is possible when the individual integrates his shadow. The hero and villain within becoming one and the same, we’ll call this state of being as a Civilized Barbarian.
This is a man who is kind out of choice, not out of necessity. He is the benevolent dictator, he has the power to destroy his enemies, and yet he owns the strength to be benevolent. This is a man who possesses the ability to wreck chaos but also has the gift of establishing order.
Emergence of Shadow
A child’s innate behavior was highly competitive and ambitious, but for him to be able to form good social connections with other children. The parents forced the child to suppress this behavior, which later leads to doubts, insecurities, and aggressive tendencies down the life.
We all possess qualities we despise, in order to overcome or disguise these abilities, we bury them consciously or subconsciously deep down into our psyche. We present a front that we deem the most admirable, worthy of praise and attention. The qualities we repress do not solve themselves, it’s just a band-aid to a greater problem.
In moments of high stress, extreme tiredness, or uncertainties, these qualities present themselves and in the way that is most harmful to us. You can blame the behavior on other people or circumstances, but you cannot correct it until you identify the source of the problem.
Most of us have been the subject of the behavior wherein our actions and intentions didn’t align. We perform irrational deeds, speak out petty insults; but never understanding the reason behind the behavior. The moments in which you act the way you never imagined is your shadow taking over - In anger you lash out at people and later feel guilt. In sorrow, you blame people for your shortcomings. All these irrational behaviors that don’t make sense to you, after you are overwhelmed by emotions or situations are the result of your Shadow possessing you.
In Addition to that, Society judges us based on a moral compass - some behaviors and thoughts are praised. Some are condemned, scrutinized, and repressed. We are taught from a young age that certain behaviors, emotions, sexual tendencies, and ideas are unsuitable, and are threatened with being ostracized if we enact these behaviors. We are social creatures, we can’t live without constant human interaction. It’s a necessity to have a healthy mind. The worst punishment we can imagine is being ostracized from the tribe. Hence, in order to maintain group harmony, we learn to repress these behaviors.
We learn to mask these behaviors, we create a sense of identity as to who we are, who we are not, and we would never do such immoral deeds - allying with our superiority bias. We think that only lowly and ill-mannered individuals can think of rebelling against society. In order to fit with society, we overlook being comfortable with our true nature.
But, most often than not our innate behavior often doesn’t lie accordingly to the morality of society. We all possess some sense of good and evil. We comply with the morals of society in order to be barred from the consequences of immorality. Most of us have immoral thoughts and ideas, which we never act but yet fantasize about them or entertain that options. We desire to be ambitious, and rebel against the codes of society. We desire to enact our immoral tendencies in such a way that we affirm our self-interest without breaking the moral codes of the group - This is what a shadow integrated person is capable of achieving. He’s an individual driven by self-interest without harming the morals of others. He does what’s best for him, and the people around him.
Contrary to the popular societal narrative, amorality serves us (the individual) more than morality. Especially when the matter of competence is concerned. Societal morals need us to be timid, nice, and never be competitive. Most often than not, it drains us of our natural ambition and the drive to strive for greatness. While being amoral (paired with integrity) enables us to pursue our self-interest without being bound by the boundaries of pseudo-virtuous society.
In order to be better than someone, that is to be higher in position in dominance hierarchies paired with the benefits of being in the higher position (discussed further in the book) you need to overcome other people that in itself is competitive, and self-serving. What often benefits us doesn’t always ally with the ethics of society. And, if you don’t engage in healthy self-serving behavior you would cease to exist - Securing money is self-serving, having a romantic partner is self-serving, needing attention and respect is self-serving. We are creatures of self-interest, the faster we utilize this behavior the more powerful we get, and the faster we better ourselves.
The Shadow is something you shouldn’t be afraid of, but rather befriend. There’s an immense power to be gained by owning your demons. Owning your demons is confronting hell, it requires you to scrutinize your internal, and be harshly judgemental on yourself, something that we humans have a very hard time accomplishing.
To judge yourself is to let go of your beliefs and ideologies, paired with having almost psychopathic indifference to your emotions.
Identifying the Shadow
“If only it were all so simple! If only there were evil people somewhere insidiously committing evil deeds, and it were necessary only to separate them from the rest of us and destroy them. But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart?”
― Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
This is the hardest part of the process of Shadow Integration because shadow (our evil side) is something we vehemently deny and suppress, in order to identify and accept our shadow. We must be able to acknowledge and accept our evil side. Due to this reluctance in ourselves to identify with the shadow, we often reject the qualities that we ourselves represent in stressful situations but are eager to project & identify when someone else does.
We never really point out flaws in ourselves, because that would require us to experience the guilt, criticism, and judgment of society. There’s an entire psychological process working on to justify our rightness, even in conditions where it is evident we are wrong. Paired with the confirmation bias, we pin our shortcomings onto someone else or to the situations - I wasn’t late to wake up, the taxi came in late or it was peak traffic. Often, this would be true, but not every time we mess up.
We may be slow or even to say negligible to judge ourselves, but we are very quick to judge others, and importantly gossip about them. But, what we don’t realize is that we are judging only the flaws we see in ourselves, that is we are projecting our own flaws or Shadow onto them and having a release by scrutinizing their substance. Seeing the shadow in ourselves is difficult, however seeing the shadow in others is fairly easy.
“Behind any vehement hatred is often a secret and very unpalatable envy of the hated person or people. It is only through such hate that it can be released from the unconscious in some form.”
Robert Greene
Most of us outwardly and strongly deny that the use of cunning, seduction charm, or persuasion to dissuade people’s opinion in our favor is vehemently evil and immoral. Yet, we inherently enjoy watching machiavellian shows, it’s no wonder that the Fifty shades of grey is one of the best-selling novel. What we deny in ourselves we project onto others, but this is an unconscious process. In order to integrate your shadow, you will have to work to make it conscious and develop the ability to look for your flaws in yourself as much as you enjoy looking it into others.
You must become aware of your shadow by constant introspection and reflection - unnecessary anger, self-imposed laziness, immoral sexual tendencies, inherent aggressive and ambitious nature. In stressful situations, when the shadow is the most persistent to come out. You must detach from the chaos and identify the source. It is not that we want this evil power for malevolent deeds like criminals. But we want this evil power to become harmonious with ourselves that is to be able to use it creatively for our own desires.
One great way to be able to detach from yourself is through Meditation. Meditation helps us dive within our unconscious to inspect and investigate ourselves. It provides a relaxed mind and a deep state of focus. It clears our mind of unnecessary jargon and allows a streamlined vision for the task. But, you must meditate with the intention to scrutinize yourself.
Identifying your shadow is the process of knowing its deepness, and what provokes your shadow. We all have instances, people, and problems that make us angry and irrational for no apparent reason. Instead of focusing on, and condemning others. We should focus on finding our behaviors and learn to correct them, control them, and use them. A weakness ceases to be a weakness once it’s identified, for you become conscious of its existence and it can be no longer used against you.
Unidentified Shadow poses a greater threat to our well being, it causes us to have contradictory behavior - It makes us the victim of “Shadow possession”, Many of us have friends or know people who claim to quit their drinking or smoking habit, yet often always convince themselves to do it again. The real culprit behind this reasoning is the shadow and not the cognitive conscious, and they are shadow possessed. Every time we do something that we can’t reason with later, we are possessed by the shadow. It is, for this reason, the identification and acceptance of our malevolent side is necessary.
Your aim in doing this is not to be either good or evil, moral or immoral, but to become whole - to possess the capacity for both good and evil, to a barbarian yet civilized. As Machiavelli greatly emphasized, There are two ways of fighting: by law or by force. Laws come naturally to men, force comes naturally to beasts. In order to succeed, the prince must learn how to fight both with laws and with force—he must become half-man and half-beast. It is this ability to tap into your inner beast that makes you powerful.
Mapping your Shadow
As mentioned earlier, every once in a while you find yourself committing irrational decisions, exploding with intense emotions, and later are unable to discern your behavior. In these times, you are deeply “triggered” on a subconscious level, that forces or provokes your shadow to take control of the situation. These certain behavior patterns can be used to recognize and identify your shadow.
Contradictory Actions
Most of us have encountered ourselves or people we know to present a front (mask) that is publicly virtuous and likable, but we come to find out that they are completely opposite of what they present. Someone who preaches niceness but exhibits predatory behavior, someone who appears to respect everyone yet underneath the mask is highly narcissistic.
Avoidance
This is also one of the signs of contradictory action but needs further explanation, that is we often do not realize we are engaging in avoidance behavior. We subconsciously reject and unknowingly avoid people or certain problems, we always come up with a reason for why we weren’t able to make it or meet them. We forge problems to avoid the bigger problem or choose easier problems to solve. In avoiding it, you fear confrontation with the shadow.
Uncontrolled Anger
This is the most obvious of all behaviors, you get angry over petty things or you are quick to anger. And, burst out in rage over the person without even thinking of the consequences of your behavior. The realization hits later that your anger was illogical.
Neurotic Reactions to criticism
Nobody likes to be criticized, because it would mean judgment of the society, and it signifies a challenge to our ego. We don’t like being undermined or judged even if it’s for the betterment of ourselves. A mildly saddening reaction to criticism is normal. But, the shadow emerges when you have a triggering reaction to criticism, and burst into harsh judgment and anger on the person criticizing you, without ever giving a second thought that the person may be thinking for the benefit of you.
Addictions
The reason why a shadow emerged in the first place is because we were forced to repress some of our base behaviors. As such, we find a rebellious thrill going against the society, and a release from repression by engaging in substance-abusing behavior - alcohol, porn, drugs, smoking, gluttony, etc. This often results in further irrational behaviors, irrational & dangerous risk-taking, extreme violent tendencies.
Ardent denial
According to Freud, Denial is a defense mechanism in which a person is faced with a fact that is too uncomfortable to accept and rejects it instead, insisting that it is not true despite what may be overwhelming evidence. As mentioned earlier, we are quick to reject but very reluctant to accept. “You must interpret these denials as positive expressions of Shadow desires.”
Integrating the Shadow
“A harmless man is not a good man. A good man is a very very Dangerous man who has it under voluntary control”
Jordan Peterson
You may ask, what use is integrating such power that is destructive at its core? The answer to it is in all chaos there is an order and in all order there is chaos. The Taoist theory of Yin & Yang represents it perfectly. In good, there’s an essence of darkness and vice versa.
Perhaps a greater question would be can a virtuous person still have some sense of wickedness? If you are amoral i. e. driven by self-interest, and not breaking the extreme moral codes of societies that is you work to benefit yourself without the intention of hurting others, then it is entirely possible. You are merely trying to enlighten yourself, and strive for the best options available to you, that often are repressed by society. You become more of a complete and independent being than a puppet of ethics.
Integrating your shadow is confronting hell, and emerge victoriously. After all, you are going against your moral compass that was nurtured in you for decades. You are aiming to have control over all your impulses - aggression, sexual urges, less of a socialized being, and more of an authentic individual.
Accepting the Shadow
After you have identified and mapped your shadow. The first process is to accept it as a part of yourself. Recognize you have an immoral side, everybody does but you are going to use it for creative, and self-serving dress, and not to wreck havoc in society. Take the existence of it seriously, and repress it no longer. You must understand: in the game of life, anything that you don’t use or overly repress can be used against you.
Expressing the Shadow
Once you have accepted all of yourself, the next process is to express the power of shadow in positive outlets, that is to say, you are letting the shadow out consciously and in a controlled environment. Your psyches are no longer at battle with each other, they are being made to become harmonious with each other.
If you repressed aggression you need to convert this into controlled aggression - You consciously perform activities that need you to be aggressive that is join a fight club or start weight lifting, you can also incorporate this aggression into your work by using it as a fuel or motivating factor.
If you have repressed emotional tendencies, you write out everything down in a journal, pour your emotions out or find the reasoning behind this through meditation or constant questioning. Whatever it may be, You no longer need to repress the behavior but let it out in a conscious and controlled manner.
“No great mind has ever existed without a touch of madness.”
- Aristotle
As mentioned earlier, we are trained to be nice, not be rebellious (look for our own ideas) not overly ambitious or driven such that we maintain good social connections with society. While this is a good mechanism, but this behavior makes us question ourselves, we are in constant doubt with ourself and in an extreme case, it makes us depressed.
The individual who achieve something great in life, break the social norms in one way or other. Winners are cheaters, there’s no exception to the rule. They think more for themselves and less for what others think. They aren’t afraid to express their ideas and be judged or criticized for them. They value being at peace with themselves than comply with pseudo-morals and virtue-signals.
Realize: No matter how nice you are or how much you comply, some people will always hate you and some will like you. As such, you need to be able to offend or hurt people who are exploiting you. Develop the ability to ignore, break or surpass limits that you find to be superficial or made to exploit you. Engage in your passion no matter how much people tell you will fail or how rebellious it is (Note- Some passions are worthless, Calculate the Cost/Benefits)