In the words of Jung, "the most terrifying thing is to accept oneself completely." In this stage, we ask ourselves the question. Who am I really? Becoming aware of the undesirable traits you've pushed deep down is one thing, but accepting their existence is another. Although we can become aware of our shortcomings or insecurities, we have a hard time accepting them as part of who we are.
Instead, when we get to know ourselves in ways we don't appreciate, we often immediately jump to Solutions. If you're inclined to be a bit lazy, all you need to do is make sure you're always busy. If you find that you're insecure about your voice, you can either start to speak so much that you forget about it or barely speak at all so that you don't have to face it.
If you've found that you're sensitive, just make sure to never let those emotions show but then you're simply pushing it down again. And before you know it, you'd be right back where you started - denying your Shadow. Instead, you have to accept the fact that you have certain traits or inclinations without immediately wanting to change them.
To own yourself completely, you have to accept yourself for who you truly are. This is, of course, easier said than done. Accepting undesirable traits as yours can make you feel like you're a bad person, it can change the image you have of yourself and that's scary. Jung acknowledges this and says "It is a frightening thought that man might have a shadow side to himself."
Imagine taking that advertisement you created and looking at it and thinking. "Yes, This is me." You'll probably want to crumble it up and throw it away, burn it, and never see it again. But you're going to have to carry it with you if you want to change the reality of the situation. The shadow is only frightening when it's unacknowledged and unaccepted because that is when it becomes uncontrollable.
Accepting it is the best way to keep it under control. Accepting it is part of finding your balance. It might make you feel like you'll be more insecure if you do accept it. But this is temporary. It's only a small step in a process that will make you feel more in control of yourself than ever before.
A very good first step to doing so is analyzing why you wanted to hide it in the first place. Who taught you to hide them? Your parents, classmates, the internet. Why do you think you'll be less likable or lovable when you show these traits? How true is it really that people will dislike you for showing this trait?
Imagine you found greediness in your Shadow. Imagine that your parents always got incredibly angry at you for not sharing or tended to suddenly take your possessions away as punishment. This could have given you the feeling that you need to preserve your own money and possessions as much as possible but also the feeling that it's wrong for you to do so.
So, when you know where it comes from, you understand yourself better and can accept yourself more easily. To understand that everybody has a shadow side and your Shadow does not make you a bad person. It simply makes you human. And all humans are complicated and have multiple sides to them.
Furthermore, accepting your Shadow brings inner balance to your life. If you're pushing greediness down and become too generous to contrast it, your generosity is out of control and not worth as much as when it comes from a real place. The same goes for all the bad traits you tried to counter.
This is because countering bad traits has an air of insecurity to it. For example, if you force yourself to be overly generous, you'd probably quietly feel bitter about all that you're giving away. And then feel guilty for feeling bad and thus self-conscious about said bitterness. Or you could find yourself feeling fake or like you're acting the role, which also makes you believe that your true self is inadequate.
All of these consequences are incredibly damaging to your confidence. For your good traits to shine, you need to have some darkness. Every once in a while you need to look at your bad traits over and over again, say them out loud. Look in the mirror and think this is me.
Slowly, you'll start to realize that they're not as horrible as you might think.
From that day my dear friend said that thing to me about being defensive, I stopped trying to run away from it. I've heard it too many times maybe it was finally time to accept it. So I did.
STEP 3: INTEGRATE YOUR SHADOW (Next Essay)
