In this 1988 book, the poet American Robert Bly speaks of some hidden aspects of our personality.
For Bly, we all have a part of our personality "in the light 'and part' in the shade." That is, we all have a part of personality that we show to others and that, therefore, even we ourselves know well. This is the part "in the light." But we also have a part of personality that we do not show to anyone, not even because we know of it. This is the part of "shadow." Bly calls it "Shadow."
But that's in the Shadow? Bly tells us imagine the invisible Shadow as a lot on our shoulders. In this bag we put the parts of ourselves (ie our personality) we do not like. For example, we put the anger, fear, jealousy. We begin to fill the small bag already: we put the parts of us that do not like our parents. We do so for fear of losing their love. As adults we put the parts of us that do not like the company, your boss, the person we love. And even those who do not like religion (sex, for example).
The bag makes us sick. Because each of us is that we put in a waiver of a slice of our life energy. Therefore, the larger the bag, we are worse.
The bag makes us feel bad because that we have not put in good standing there. Try and get out. And, since you do not succeed, we become hostile, creating us psychological problems. And the bad thing is that what happens in a non-conscious: not aware of it.
The bag we create the most damage through the mechanism of "projection". What is it? Every time I meet someone, we are tempted to give it a side of us that we put in the bag. For example, if you hate someone for a particular aspect of his character, that aspect is often one of those that we ourselves and then we put in the bag. Instead, if we love a person for a particular aspect, it is often because we had that aspect and then we put it in the bag.
"projects" is dangerous for two reasons. The first is that as we hate or love a person for one aspect of his character. And the others? The second is that it is also possible to project the sides of our personality that are not in the bag. This means that the vital energy that we have not lost in the bag we can lose the projecting. Let me give an example. If I am brave, but projects the courage to another person (that is, I think the other person to represent the courage perfect), I end up believing that her only to have it. Those who lost so much vital energy.
To reclaim our vital energy we have two ways. The first is find out what's in our bag. The second is to take back our projections. But how? Bly gives us some advice. For example, every time we hate someone for no reason, there is our Shadow. Then, we try to develop ways to increase our sensitivity. We do this by playing a musical instrument, making a long journey, being a little 'alone to listen to ourselves, or by keeping a diary.
From "Honoring the Shadow", an interview with William Booth
Bly ... Jung said that a person who has successfully repressed his Shadow is having difficulty communicating their feelings to others ... In our culture, as a result of the permissive theories on the education of children, teachers of kindergarten, or at least some of them still think it is good that the child expresses anger, 'throw out aggression', as is often he says. With us, children are encouraged to express anger. So that side of their own shadow becomes visible, appears in the light of day.
Booth: This seems to be an antidote to the problem of driving things in the bag.
Bly: The intention is, but does not work very well. And I think that even the expression of sexual material in young people work very well. The problem is this: When the school mother a child expresses anger and violence and acting, it's as if the electrical impulse in the brain would create a path along which the anger will flow more easily next time. But an explosion of anger is often experienced as a defeat dal'Io. The task of the ego is to make us social beings. If that triggers the anger of the child of an adult, the child's ego may be damaged by what is happening. And when the child received an education permissive will have forty or fifty years, still express anger as he did in kindergarten, because electricity continues to travel the same old groove in the brain. The person is not strengthened, but humiliated by these outbursts.
Booth: So the child must have freedom of expression, but also strengthen the ego.
Bly: Well, it's a bit 'as if I were playing together a shadow game. When the teacher intervenes and tells the permissive child to express anger is like giving the shadow fifteen balls and no structure. The permissive theory underestimates the seriousness of that game.
In his book The End of Sex (The end of sex), George Leonard says he was in the sixties an enthusiastic supporter of the full expression of sexuality. Today he feels that this expression ultimately leads to humiliation of the ego and the psyche as a result loses some of its interest in sexuality, loses some of its eros. Our culture has within it a nostalgia for the primitive modes of expression as an antidote to repression.
Nazi youth groups proposed a sort of return to nature, primitivism. The Nazis, of course, contained a state of madness, but not all the movements for the return to nature are crazy, most of them are essentially healthy. And yet through the experience of Kurtz in Heart of Darkness is a danger that we can understand the nostalgia of the early West represents the psyche. Surrounded by primitive impulses, the ego loses its ability to defend their ground and disappears in the mass movements, such as sugar dissolves in water.
(...) We can distinguish the two figures (the wild-wild-wild and brutal, Ed) observe various details. The wild-natural and spontaneous and is in contact with both your feminine side with their male sexuality is positive. None of these qualities implies violence or domination over others. For me, the man at the bottom of the pond (John of iron, from the Brothers Grimm fairy tale, Ed) is more like a Zen master than a primitive, which, in the image that we have, only grunts.
The image of the natural wild- corresponds to a state of mind that allows the shade to return the material slowly, so as not to damage the ego. It seems that the story of Grimm should remember the ancient rites of initiation in northern Europe. Males older teaching the younger males to face the Shadow material in such a way that does not crush the ego or personality. Taught to make that meeting more than a game that a fight.
When the Shadow is absorbed, the human being loses much of its darkness and becomes light, light and playful in a new way. The Shadow is not absorbed creates a dark halo around the person ...
Booth: I'm confused by the way you talk about light in this context, saying that a person absorbs the Shadow does not become dark, but bright, light and playful. In the past, times have you used the word 'light' in the negative. You also said that Bertrand Russell had too much light on his personality and you wanted a leader who was not a raven and a dove and a swallow.
Bly: All right, then I withdraw the word 'light'. Marie-Louise von Franz has said somewhere that a person who has worked with the Shadow and the Shadow which integrated gives the feeling of being condensed. The others can easily recognize a certain authority in moral matters. He said that if a teacher worked with his Shadow, the students, as young people can be, I feel. For him to maintain discipline in the classroom is easy, because students perceive that with him his crow. Other teachers who have not yet worked with his Shadow of discipline can talk all day but did not get it. I like the idea that the work on the shadow gives rise to a condensation, a thickening or thickening of the psyche that is immediately apparent, and generates a natural sense of authority. Without that authority is required. (Pages 73-78)
... the person who has eaten its shadow spreads calmness about him and express more pain than anger. If it is true, as the ancients claimed, that the darkness has intelligence, nourishment, and even information, then the person that has nourished his Shadow has more energy, as well as more intelligence. So we ask: "How do you eat or take back the Shadow of a projection, in practice?"
Tips for daily life could be: sharpen the senses of smell, taste, touch and hearing, create gaps in their habits, visit primitive tribes, making music, modeling clay in the appalling figures, play a percussion instrument, to be alone for a month. A woman can prove to make the patriarch in his spare time and see if you like, but must do it playfully.
A man may try to do the witch in her spare time and see if they like, but must do it playfully. Can learn to make the laughter of the witch, for example, and telling stories. The woman can learn to laugh and tell tales of the giant. (From pp. 64-65)
Robert Bly, from "The Little Book of the shadow" (Red Edition).
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