In his book Owning Your Own Shadow: The Dark Side of the Psyche, American author and Jungian analyst Robert A. Johnson states that to honour and accept one’s own shadow is a profound spiritual discipline. It is whole-making and thus holy and the most important experience of a lifetime.
In this episode, we briefly clear up some misconceptions regarding the concept of shadow. It is not our enemy, but our friend. It contains pure gold waiting to be integrated into our personality.
It is not the light element alone that does the healing; the place where light and dark begin to touch is the most profound religious experience we can have in life. The religious task is to restore the wholeness of personality. Religion means to put things back together again, to connect whatever is fractured.
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▶ Owning Your Own Shadow: Understanding the Dark Side of the Psyche
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⌛ Timestamps
(0:00) Introduction
(3:12) Misconceptions of the Shadow
(5:20) How the Shadow Originates
(8:35) Balancing Culture and Shadow
(12:39) The Shadow in Projection
(15:04) The Gold in the Shadow
(16:38) The Shadow in Middle Age
(16:59) The Ceremonial World
(17:46) Paradox as Religious Experience
(21:54) The Shadow as Entree to Paradox
(23:02) The Mandorla