STORY BYOn February 2, Punxsutawney Phil came out of his hole to look for his shadow. This year he saw it, which he took as an omen of six more weeks of bad weather, and promptly returned to his hole. In this month, when azaleas, forsythia, and crocus promise Spring, we thought it might be wise to discuss our own shadows and what happens if we, like Punxsutawney Phil, dive for cover when we see them.
The shadow we are referring to is the psychological shadow each of us carries with us, no matter what the weather is. Our psychological shadow is that part of us that is unclaimed or unacknowledged by us.
Our shadow may be negative characteristics that we would rather not see ourselves as having, such a jealousy, meanness, stinginess, arrogance, hostility. The seven deadly sins address faults most people strive not to have. Those faults are our shadows that we keep hidden from ourselves and others.
But our shadow may also be some trait that we just don't see as being "us." A shadow for an introverted person could be the secret longing to be a cabaret singer or for a macho man to grow orchids or to learn to needlepoint.
“We dance round in a ring and suppose,While we may not act out the fantasies of our shadow self, negative or positive, being able to look at our shadows honestly has important implication for our physical and mental health.
Body, mind, and soul are inseparable. When our shadow drives us to wear masks and use our personas to pretend we are something we are not, then we have problems.
One problem is that the unacknowledged shadow may erupt unpredictably. Janet Jackson's shadow side was literally exposed to millions of people at the Super Bowl halftime. While few of us will ever impose that kind of upset on so many people, our shadow can be equally shocking and appalling-to ourselves and others. Mild-mannered people who erupt in road rage, careful, plodding planners who get smashed at an office party, religious people who cheat on their spouses. .
There's then a painful, gnawing conflict between what our consciousness tells is in our bones and souls and what our masks keep presenting to the world-a misrepresentation of who we really are.
Our bodies and brains, through consciousness and soul, keep ringing an alarm we hear, but choose to ignore. They may be urging us to embrace our shadows. Sooner or later, the ice breaks and we sink into dark, cold waters. In near drowning, illness or disability may be what rescues us and importunes us to be honest with ourselves about who we truly are.
Until we do, our dark and disowned shadows will keep perched on our shoulders like ravens, mocking our masquerade and belittling our performances. Our dreams at night may try to teach us. But if we ignore them as well, what we have repressed-whether it is our true nature, our brokenness, or our deceit-will come back to haunt us, usually in painful ways.
Herman Melville, a brilliant writer, whose Moby Dick,
showed he knew a lot about human nature, good
and bad, gave us a remedy for what to do when we
start feeling our shadows overtaking us. Like
Ishmael, we all need to acknowledge the inner
darkness and respond in a way that takes us to a
soul-calming sea.
From Moby Dick
Call me Ishmael. Some years ago-never mind how
long precisely-having little or no money in my
purse, and nothing particular to interest me on
shore, I thought I would sail about a little and see
the watery part of the world. It is a way I have of
driving off the spleen and regulating the circulation.
Whenever I find myself growing grim about the
mouth, whenever it is a damp, drizzly November in
my soul, whenever I find myself involuntarily
pausing before coffin warehouses, and bringing up
the rear of every funeral I meet; and especially
whenever my hypos get such an upper hand of me,
that it requires a strong moral principle to prevent
me from deliberately stepping into the street, and
methodically knocking people's hat's off-then, I
account it right time to get to sea as soon as I can.
Shame and guilt are twins, lodged in deep parts of the brain. James Hillman, a Jungian psychologist, says the "cure" of the shadow is loving all of ourselves, our inferiorities, defects, and self-loathings so that we come to appreciate "the paradox that rotten garbage is also fertilizer." (From Raising Lazarus: A Neurobiology of Depression and the Soul, by Blair Justice, his next book, with coauthor Pittman McGehee).
Owning our negative shadows doesn't mean we have to be happy that we have baser longings or that we should flaunt our sins. It means we courageously acknowledge to ourselves and perhaps others that we, too have a dark side.
Taking a "fearless inventory" of our lives is a necessary step for the recovery in most 12-step programs. Even if we are not struggling with an addiction, a fearless inventory of our shadows, positive or negative, can be the beginning of turning garbage into fertilizer or fallow land into a blooming garden for this Spring and the Springs of the rest of our lives.
The invisible shadow bag we all have strapped to our backs is often stuffed with anger, resentment, hurt and other memories we try to forget. But our brain and body won't let us forget. Much of what we find unacceptable in us is locked into the silent, implicit, nondeclarative self, where our brain's amygdala has to live with it.
Until we make ourselves take a deep look at what's in the bag and then do something about what's there, we will be plagued by the stress that comes from dragging around all that unnecessary weight.
The amygdala will keep sending us signals, which often translate into pains and aches, dysphoria and depression of which we can find no cause.
Relief comes when we give words to what's unspoken and unacknowledged. The memory then shifts in the limbic brain to the explicit, semantic self, where the nonverbal becomes verbal.
The scientific literature tells us that the trait most associated with happiness is the ability to forgive. We all get hurt by those we love and many we don't love. Forgiveness, including forgiveness of ourselves frees us up so that our amygdalas can "sing" again. And the shadows that tell us to expect more cold and darkness in our lives will start forecasting an early Spring, sunny and warm.
UPDATED: 1-03-2006
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©2000-2006 Office of Institutional Advancement, UT-Houston
Dr. Blair Justice is professor emeritus of psychology at UT School of Public Health and the author of several books. His wife, Dr. Rita Justice is a psychologist in private practice in Houston.
See Drs. Justice also at:
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