Owning Your Own Shadow - BeliefnetWhen we were one or two years old we had what we might visualize as a 360-degree personality. Energy radiated out from all parts of our body and all parts of our psyche. A child running is a living globe of energy. We had a ball of energy, all right; but one day we noticed that our parents didn't like certain parts of the ball. They said things like: 'Can't you be still?' Or 'it isn't nice to try and kill your brother.
Robert Bly via Wendyness
But if our parents weren't obsessed with sin and badness and had said "Your activity is annoying me, would you take it elsewhere, or control it to please me?" instead of "ADD is sick, oops Can't you be still?" If they said "Your brother will hurt just like you do when hit, can you consider his feelings?" For the adults that is use your natural empathy to identify with your potentially hurt brother? Instead of "It is sin to try to kill your brother." Intervention may be necessary, but it is not necessary to dump a bunch of
BS into the kid's bag during the intervention.
In the interventions it is not a necessary or even desirable to dump negative self-worth into the shadow bag. The child must learn to control antisocial behavior which may be driven by powerful instinctual drives, self protection, fear of strangers, and abandonment by significant others in one's society. The child must also learn to reinforce the equally powerful instinctive social drives, respect for mentors starting with the parents, empathy, respect for all in one's chosen society, and others. But this must not be a shadow function but intelligently reinforced for the benefit of the child. Parents must be as careful of the thou shalts as they are of the shalt nots, so that the child is not trapped into cliques or beguiled by a charismatic but inimical leader either in business or in religion. In this way the child consciously builds a cultural self that will fit in with the social milieu of his chosen society, initially that of herm parents, but ultimately that which will be selected as a result of adolescent choices and occupational preparation and selection.
The cultural self must be managed by an aware and active consciousness managing all relevant social interactions. Will hesh do it perfectly, never making a mistake, of course not. Mistakes are how we learn especially in social situations. For a properly raised child, whose parents and mentors made the child aware of the reasons for interventions to prevent harm to self and others, the unconscious and especially a hidden unconscious (shadow) will have no place in the behavior of the adult.
Thus we give children control over their actions and in effect to relegate the subconscious to the trivial. Body regulation, habits, manners, and peripheral awareness for interesting things to bring to the conscious attention of the mind. I threw manners in as a late addition, I don't think they can be called shadow as they are necessary cultural conditioning. Manners are, if anything, a subconscious benevolence to identify one as a properly socialized member of the society.
The issue is not uncontrolled actions, but how the control over actions is established. I put manners in as a late addition to subconscious control, but perhaps they can be used as a illustration of what I mean. Good manners are essential to fitting in to ones society. As an example, good manners has been defined as the noise you don't make while eating your soup. This needs to be unconscious, we can't worry about every spoonful of soup we eat. But manners can be in the shadow, or in the volitional unconscious, simply by the way we are taught them.
"Slurping your soup is crude" that is only a crude person slurps soup, puts eating soup in the shadow. An inadvertent slurp reinforces the idea that the person is crude and not socially acceptable, whether or not it is commented on.
An alternative is "Slurping your soup is annoying to mommy" and by extension to others. An inadvertent slurp now generates an apology at least mentally if not spoken, with no effect on self image. Eating soup is still managed by the unconscious and very strictly I would add to the point of nausea for violation, but the apology rather than shadow pain can make all the difference in solving a manners issue. See
Too Big for a Fork for an amusing example. If it were a shadow issue I would have been between a rock and a hard place. I could have been a rude guest and refused the food, or I could have been a barbarian and chewed the meat off the fork."
Wouldn't it be nice to be 25 with an empty bag? It can be done. As noted above, proper socialization without input into the shadow bag by parents and early mentors is critical, as is training to consciously accept or reject social precepts. That way when people try to dump BS into your bag simply say "I don't need that. I can control that behavior, or do it where it won't annoy other people. Or I can choose to comply with this social directive. Normally the conscious choice would be to so comply, but the compliance would be voluntary and not shadow driven.” This is known as being socially responsible. Kids learn it naturally unless people dump BS into their bag.
If people weren't loaded up with BS from the time they were 2 the shrinks and the preachers wouldn't have anything to work with. One of the most important things I learned early in life was the difference between "You are bad" and "Your behavior needs better control." I also learned very early that "You are bad" must for my own wellness be interpreted as "Fix your behavior." Fortunately I was encouraged to do so by my atheist parents, well technically Unitarian, I don't even know how they viewed God, but God and sin were not a part of my life growing up. As a result I don't have a bag full of BS to deal with particularly the BS about what I am. Contrary to popular belief this is neither unusual nor unbelievable.
When that little tinhorn in the fancy dress in the overdecorated balcony tries to dump his BS into my bag, I simply tell him that my BS bag has no bottom, and herm BS means nothing to me. Hesh will usually then scream "God will send you to Hell sinner!" and I will smile nicely and say "Hesh may try if Hesh wishes, but I doubt Hesh would as I am not a sinner. My BS bag is empty."
I am not unconscious. It is not part of what I am. I was brought up to be responsible for all of my actions conscious or not, and therefore had to be aware of unconscious, read instinctive, reactions and control them. It was not hard, I never was indoctrinated that my instinctive reactions were bad, just that they needed to be controlled for moral, social living.
In the early years events frequently get stuffed into the unconscious shadow by parents and mentors whose shadow has been carefully nurtured by their parents and mentors' belief system or culture.
Perhaps, but if you break the religious leash on the dark side, you may find that it is relatively easily controlled if not completely eliminated. The first step is to realize that almost all people are good people, most importantly yourself. That way when the religious guru or child psychiatrist tries to help you control the dark side, you may properly ask what dark side? The guru will say the dark side we all have, and you can properly say speak for yourself. Depending on the religion the guru will say all are sinners, or all have the yin and the yang, and you have every right to use the tiresome atheist mantra: Prove it. The guru is making a positive assertion and the default is that it is false. Pointing to the occasional bad guy doesn't cut it. You may properly ask to show your dark side, hesh did say all after all.
A person starts with total control over herm soul. It has no sides or points.. It is just a working reflection of social instincts as you have learned to control them. Your parents and family will normally help you shape it into the benevolent and beneficent soul that is your birthright. Don't sell it to the devil guru who will inevitably shape it to herm needs, not yours."
The most pernicious result of ceding the soul to religions is that they then get to define it any way they want to, and you can bet your tithe that it won't be for the benefit of the parishioners. It will always have the dark side that God or the guru will have to help you manage. And managing it means making you worry about it all the time as if it were really a part of the natural soul. It isn't.
If humans were evolved with a dark side to the soul they would have joined the rest of the hominids in extinction. Mom and the other caregivers including of course Fulghum's Kindergarten teacher, will guide the development of the soul in socially integrative, benign, empathetic, loving ways. Unfortunately the social milieu historically has included religious indoctrination which includes hijacking the soul for the benefit of the shaman.
It is critical that when one shucks ones milk church, one pulls one's soul out and shucks the dark side that was indoctrinated right along with the need for the God of the milk church.
As an example from the hot topic on this thread, I was never indoctrinated that my sexual impulses were bad or 'dirty.' I was, however, strongly indoctrinated that if the Girl Scout was not similarly inclined or I was not prepared and ready to accept the consequences of my instinctual action, I had better cause her to cry and walk out the door, or cause myself to say "Oh, shit. Oh well, there will be another who will be similarly inclined."
All of which have happened to me. As well as similar situations where we were both willing and eager, but not ready for the expected consequences. In one case purely psychological consequences. As a normal heterosexual male, in normal heterosexual social activities, I have had all the usual opportunities, and temptations, but in general according to my standards I behaved morally rather than instinctively. I have no regrets about missed opportunities, I think I chose wisely to miss them. But it was not denying my dark side. It was controlling my life.
One of the reasons I have found God dysfunctional is some of the natural tendencies encouraged by God are not useful in my society. Fear of strangers or people different from me is a natural tendency that at one time was quite useful. It is no longer so. As Oscar Hammerstein wrote in South Pacific
You've got to be taught before it's too late.
Before you are six or seven or eight.
To hate all the people your relatives hate.
You won't do it naturally, you may naturally fear strangers, but this fear is not bad or dark or shadowy, you have to be taught that the fear is hate which is bad, and dark and a shadow. But someone had to teach you."
While many autonomous processes don't need to rise to the level of consciousness to function, they are not immune to conscious manipulation. Placebos as an example.
"However, one can be 100% conscious of behavior influencing activities of the mind/brain. The fact that you believe Jungian therapy can give you some control over the shadow is evidence that such control is possible. The real question is what belief system, and it takes a belief system to mask behavior influencing activities from the consciousness, causes the shadow? In a different post you noted that touching yourself 'there' is bad or something like that. Why? Touching yourself 'there' is natural. See any dog. What belief system other one that is trying to control your sexuality would suggest such an unnatural attitude?"
It is the control over sexuality and other natural human behaviors like following the leader, among others that gives religion its power for good and for abuse. The control over sexual expression was used as the dominant sin expression by Paul. See Romans 1.
If the natural sexual expressions as seen in our simian relatives were free to be expressed by humans, one would see a considerably different human evolutionary pattern. I suspect that the two female family structure would be dominant, with the women choosing mates from the males based dominance and power to provide a stable society and for their intelligence and ability to provide a suitable dowry for the anticipated child. The men would still play their political power games not for genetic continuity but for dominance over the social structures supporting the female dominated reproductive needs for the society. The harem would be a self chosen group adhering to the rich, intelligent and powerful. Low status men would probably touch themselves "there" a lot.
I do not deny either sin or shadow. Both are integral components of powerful and useful belief systems. But the proposition that either necessarily applies to me requires substantial and significant support to overcome my reasoned denial. You may scream until you are blue in the face that I am a sinner, but until you can provide independent proof that I am intrinsically a sinful person your screaming is so much noise in a thunderstorm. It doesn't help to show that I did something bad, you must show that I did something bad because of sinfulness. And by the way something you think is bad or sinful has no relevance to the discussion.
Genetic behaviors are shadow only when someone normally a shaman tells us they are bad, or evil, or sin and we must suppress them. If we see them as natural, powerful drivers of achievement, that must be controlled, not suppressed, we can use them efficiently to achieve desired ends.
If they control us, as they will if suppressed, then they normally will be expressed dysfunctionally as you note above. The terms you use above are shadow terms for natural genetic behaviors. Displaying feelings about others is the way we create social bonds with those we wish to include in our social group. But controlled expression is necessary for social survival, which in many cases means physical survival. Take lust as an example. It is a powerful mammalian drive to reproduce the species. It is absolutely necessary to be able to indicate to a member of the opposite sex that you find them sexually attractive. If you repress it as sin you end up with the young adult party where all get drunk to lose their repressions and many end up in bed, or on the couch or on the floor. If one is aware of the power of lust one can take appropriate control measures to make sure it serves one's needs, rather than the mammalian need to reproduce.
It is like a powerful engine in a car. No less of a safety maven than Ralph Nader said 'Power is safety.' But put that power in the hands of a kid whose competitive drive is a suppressed sin, and you have an accident looking for a spot marked X.
This is not to say that control of powerful instincts is easy, or that it is always successful but awareness is critical to control. Knowing the capabilities of the double-bitted ax is a key to using it safely and effectively."
"I do not argue that perhaps most people believe in the dark side of humanity. I suspect this is a result of the prevailing Pauline concept of universal sinfulness. When you are taught from a young age that you are a miserable sinner and require salvation it is easy to internalize the concept of sin or a dark side. The trick it to understand Paul's theology, reject it rationally, and look around at the people you know. How many of them could you even identify what their dark side consisted of?"
For me this is the most devastating legacy of Paul's sales pitch. And why I find Romans 1 to be the most crippling book in the whole bible. It is a litany of all the human impulses that must be controlled to be sure, but are not inherent in all or even most. And yet one has this peroration that tries to rope everybody into the sinner category so Paul can later sell his savior. And guess what? If you give the church the child till he is 10 you will have a child with an internalized sinful nature with a dark side that he must find salvation for. He can reject the church, and even God. But the dark side remains. If only people could internalize "I am a good kid. God doesn't make junk." If only Paul had.
I do not have a sinful nature nor a shadow. I have a very well developed sense of what natural tendencies I have to control to assume a beneficial role in my chosen society, but those natural tendencies are not dark, or bad, or evil, they are simply not useful in an intelligent cosmopolitan society.
