The Hidden Aspects of Our Shadow — Carl Jung
The more judgmental a person is the denser their shadow will be.
If one has a really strong identification in one direction, the reflection of that is going to be equally strong, like plus and minus. One has to dissolve the strong identifications to reduce the internal noise so that the authentic self can come forward.
The ego identification makes us protect that ego from being undermined. For the ego, it is dangerous to realize that the shadow is also part of us. And that’s what has a neutralizing effect. What happens is that we try to create a barrier of protection around our ego identifications. The main way that we do this is through judgment. We end up judging ourselves internally if we express a certain trait and we try to repress that away from our awareness and keep ourselves from expressing it. We also start judging other people for having a similar trait. This judgment enables us to insulate ourselves from awareness of our own shadow and judgment becomes a necessity for maintaining the illusion of ego and also maintaining unawareness of our own shadow.
