“The sad truth is that man’s real life consists of a complex of inexorable opposites—day and night, birth and death, happiness and misery, good and evil. We are not even sure that one will prevail over the other, that good will overcome evil, or joy defeat pain. Life is a battleground. It always has been, and always will be.” -Carl Jung, Approaching the Unconscious
No one is safe in the clash between our personal Heaven and Hell. As the famed psychiatrist and psychoanalyst Carl Jung (and many Eastern philosophies) believed, there is no good without evil, or pleasure without pain. For one to exist, its opposite must also exist. It’s in this theater of war between darkness and light that our egos and protective sub-characters are forged.
Author and Toltec Spiritual Teacher, Don Miguel Ruiz, believes that everything we say and do is a projection of our own reality. Meaning that, negative actions or opinions portrayed onto someone by you, are often a mirror reflection of yourself and an attribute that you dislike about your own personality or behaviour. For example, you’ve judged someone as untrustworthy even though they’ve never betrayed you. Or, you label someone as argumentative because they don’t see things your way. Dishonest, opinionated, incommunicative, insecure, the list goes on. This is sometimes a clear sign that your ego is fearfully shielding you from your own faults in an attempt to protect itself. These buried faults are what Jung referred to as the “Shadow Archetype.” The darkness that we all hide from.
The theory of psychological projection was founded by the “father of psychoanalysis” himself, Sigmund Freud. Freud defined projection as, “a defense mechanism in which the human ego defends itself against unconscious impulses or qualities (both positive and negative) by denying their existence in themselves while attributing them to others.” For anxiety sufferers, we become adept at “covering up” or burying our heads in the sand to buy time or ignore our issues completely. Unfortunately, it’s like entombing radioactive waste in a dormant volcano. One day, shit’s gonna go real bad, real quick. This behaviour typically manifests itself in denial, deflection or distraction, and false positivity.
Denial:
“Everything’s fine. I’m not an addict. I can quit whenever I want.” These words are a forcefield from the reality that we’re in too deep and too afraid to admit it.
Deflection/Distraction:
“I’ll deal with it later. I’m too busy right now. I have a lot of work to do.” The temptation of comfort and obliviousness gently persuades us to place our fears on the back burner. This inevitably compounds and we never deal with our dark attributes.
False Positivity:
“It’ll all work out. It’s nothing to worry about. Things are great.” This is what we tell ourselves when we’re not willing or confident enough to confront our Shadow Archetypes.
These protective mechanisms are common and widespread amongst the human population, not just with people who suffer from mental illnesses. We all have some level of ego. For me, they’re all too familiar. I ignorantly followed this protocol for many years. Up until the point that I was no longer “myself.” The character that I created was closed-off, cold, and uncaring. I was dishonest and undependable. My confidence was a sham. It wasn’t possible for me to help other people because I wasn’t capable of helping myself. The persona that I projected was an Arctic Summer. All light and very little darkness. This was because I was afraid of what lurked in the shadows. Now I know, without the darkness there is no light. They coexist on the internal battlefield that Carl Jung describes so aptly.
The shame, embarrassment and fear that you carry with you will only flourish in the moonless nights that smother your abandoned consciousness. As you gain the strength to confidently walk into the shadowy realm that is your inner self, walk with purpose. Walk with the knowledge that you’ll have many missteps and falters as you blindly stumble where the light hasn’t yet reached. Break through the fictitious, protective barriers that confine your fears and shortcomings and trust that the Sun isn’t far behind you.
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