Ego/Persona, Shadow, Self Jung

Carl Jung was the one who introduced the term "shadow" in psychology. He gave it its own
meaning: the true self hidden. That true self sticks to you like your shadow in the rays of the
sun. If you're in the sunlight, you can be low or high jumping, kicking against your shadow
and whatever, but you never get rid of your shadow. That is exactly the same with your true
self.

Because your true self is what you are, and it stays with you, no matter how hard you try to
hide it. The meaning Jung gave to the concept of the shadow was highly innovative for his
time. It was a new inside about man, as part of a society, it is about how you can lose
yourself, how you can be tempted to sacrifice your unique individuality to the social
community and how you can regain true self. (For example being raised with over
overprotective/helicopter parents)

But, despite this wonderful and insightful meaning Jung gave to the concept of shadow
unfortunately diving with great tenacity, always pop ups the explanation that Jung meant
with the shadow our bad side - as if we were essentially evil or sinful and that we have to
accept this. But that is the opposite of the meaning Jung gave to "the shadow." That it is not
our evil, sinful side.

With this negative sentiment is the Jungian concept of shadow unfortunately landed in the
traditional Christian belief that man would be a sinful being and that you should accept that.
For as it is unfortunately often explained, the misguided explanation wast still around, even
among people who have left christianity long ago . The significance that Jung gave to the
concept of shadow is completely separate from it; it is even the opposite of it, and intended
to redeem man from this negative self-images. What is it? It has everything to do with the
relationship between ego and the self. But the really enriching understanding of Jung
decided in "the confrontation with your shadow." How about that?

Social identity, ego and self

We do not live alone in the world. We share the world with our fellow men. And already as a
young child we are taught to adapt our social environment. For example, we learn to speak
the language of our ancestors, writing and arithmetic, and also the prevailing conceptions of
good and evil, who is important and who is not, and much more. In itself there is nothing
wrong as we acquire knowledge and skills of our social environment and that we as social
beings learn to adapt to it. It is a necessary skill to be able to participate meaningfully in
society. This adjust is accompanied by a particular mechanism, namely shaping our social
identity: who we are as a part of the society in which we grow up. This social identity here
we call the ego. But this can be a problem. Our social identity does not always coincide with
who we really are. It is an image that we learn to make our own. If you keep saying that this
image is your true identity, if you believe that you are that image, this can cause separation
of the true self. Then forms the ego and the self no natural unity, but a sort of separation/ not
balanced.
Ignorant of your true self

We want as a child, usually to be like our environment requires of us. This entails the risk
that we are in a smaller or larger portion not dare to be like our natural ability as our
expectations are not accommodate with our true. We can go and deny a part of us that exists.
We forget that part of our normal self. And so you can get into a state of not knowing your
true self. Your true self gets hidden behind a mask, the mask of your social identity, your
ego becomes an impenetrable mask behind which is hidden your true self.

Shadow = that part we deny

And now we come to the concept of the shadow as Jung referred to it. What is the shadow
acording to Jung? That's the part of your true self that you have to learn to deny and you do
not allow into your consciousness. But that is never lost. It's a part of you that will always
be there, even if it leads a secret life. It sticks to you like a shadow in the sunlight. It always
stays with you, even though you're not aware of it. And what then? In each person there a
desire to be present with your true self in the world. a will to recognize the true self and to
be known. That's a natural desire a healthy expression of your will to live. And if you do not
allow yourself, then that has consequences, sometimes reaching consequences. What you re
becomes demonic.(symbolically speaking)

Everything you repress , you can count on this that it dives early or later back in to your life
again. And usually in some demonic form. With demonic Jung mean that your custom life to
which you were attached can have a traverse in a catastrophic way. If you arrived in such a
situation, it is not the devil that deceived you, but your shadow, the repressed part of
yourself that demands attention, and therefore disruptive acts in an almost secret
(unconsiousness) way into your normal 'lives.

We can now formulate the first law of the ego and the self Jung: What you repress becomes
demonic. (This CAN result in Mental Illenss/Psychological/behavioral problems)
See also the works from Alice Miller on this: https://www.alice-miller.com/en/

Shadow scares you yourself

Everything you repress can emerge in a very bad shape. It can strike in a way that leaves
you in bewilderment about yourself. You can be scared of yourself. As a result you are
fighting harder and harder, trying to repress your true self. Some people succeed in this so
well that they become a "model-man," and they can acquire much social prestige with it.
But for someone who is so perfect, there is often a snag. Think of the celibate priests who
find themselves again and again on the wrong path, to their astonishment not only of the
onlookers , but also of them selfs. That starts with the repression of natural human urges.
And that goes for every other aspect of your true self.
Your social identity is part of System

Your social identity, your ego does not stand alone. It is a part of the culture, of the structure
of the society to which you belong. That structure of society we call the system here. And it
sometimes seems as if this system leads its own life, as a kind of given personality that not
only forces us to behave in a certain way, but also compelling to impose on us a social
identity, and let us take all sorts of appropriate emotions to experience. The System where
we are part of can even desire that you should distrust your true self and deny it. The
collective self-denial may even be a structural component of a system. Quite remarkable is
that obligatory self denial can even be a part of a spiritual tradition. For example, you learn
that as humans we are sinful, you are incapable of doing any good and inclined to all evil.
As a participant you may be required to such a tradition that you recognize that you no good
and that you are basically bad. That collective compulsory negative self protects you from
your true self. (This is why the Abrahamic religions are so destructive!)

Summary terms

We have now adopted a number of terms. Let's put it in a nutshell: Self = your true nature,
that what you're naturally. System = a system of beliefs that divide the members of a group
or culture with each other, usually without being aware of it, and usually closely linked to a
collective humanity. Ego = your self-esteem, your social identity as part of a system.
Shadow = that part of you that you deny, that you pretend it's not there, but it will always
ask for recognition.

Should we get rid of our ego?

Should we get rid of our ego, as in all kinds of (Western and Eastern) spiritual currents is
required of us? No we should not. With our ego we are in the world, we participate in the
world. It is the form that we assume a role that we play in all kinds of relationships with our
fellow human beings, and that we give meaning and content to our lives. There is nothing
wrong with that!

Is the Ego/Persona is bad?

To point it out clearly: man is not bad, and the Ego/Persona is not bad. These beliefs about
the wickedness of man and the wickedness of the Ego/Persona is a part of the social
suppression mechanisms of the True Self. What can go wrong is that your Ego/Persona gets
separated from your True self. This separation of Ego/Persona and the self can make you
miserable. But that can also be restored to an OPEN RELATIONSHIP between
Ego/Persona and The Self
But what should we do with the Ego/Persona? Where Jung refers to is that there may be an
open relationship between your Ego/Persona and your own Self, so they are not separated
from each other. And if the Ego/Persona and the Self are separated (What happens when
over-identification with our Ego/Persona takes place, or the other way round) from
each other, you can learn to recover from that separation between the Ego/Persona and the
self. That's called healing, you heal the separation by reconnecting the Ego/Persona and the
Self in an OPEN RELATIONSHIP. The Ego/Persona as an expression of the True self

In an open relationship between the Ego/Persona and the Self, the Ego/Persona itself is
fluid, malleable. You can then playfully and fairly deal with it your personal relationships.
Remember that the truly great actors always be recognizable in their act. These are great
personalities, and that is why they are a perfect actor. With their personalities, they gave
gleam to their lives, to their role, whatever this role may be... (To use the shadow as the
creative part to BECOME...to not staying static...BUT TO BE DYNAMIC!)

For healing, for restoration of the open, creative relationship between the Ego/Persona and
the Self, is needed: the confrontation with the shadow. Over this is a very common
misunderstanding. That misunderstanding is that the confrontation with your shadow would
mean you should accept that you are 'bad' or have dark sides.

That you should come to terms with your "evil", by recognizing it first and second to accept
it. But that is absolutely not Jung's intention with the confrontation with the shadow. How
dit we create the shadow? By putting parts of ourselves away. How did we do that?

Because that we learn to call those parts "bad" and that we distrust those parts. We learn
certain parts of ourselves to label negative, and this creates the seemingly legitimate
repression of those parts of ourselves. We are not poor/bad, we learn certain aspects of our
own experience as poor/bad.

This labeling can also be translated into that we trying to reason with our Intrusive
Thoughts. We start labeling these parts of ourselves negative or bad because, we are taking
them literally. We are more busy with WHAT we think, instead of HOW we think. We need
to get out of the RIGHT and WRONG thinking and go BEYOND that....THE HOW!

''To understand that, like dream images, intrusive thoughts are metaphors. We’re so
conditioned to take everything in life at face value that it can take some time to metabolize
this deeper truth. As Jungian analyst Marion Woodman says, “We’re living in a civilization
that doesn’t understand metaphor.” When we understand that archetypal thoughts are
metaphors and our task is to dissect the thoughts and mine for their truths, we’re able
to create some space between us and the thought. Taking the thought literally is the
kiss of death when it comes to doing inner work, what dreamworker Jeremy Taylor calls
“mistaken literalism”. (This is also the reason why we have irrational fears based on the
CHOICE we have to took these intrusive thoughts literally) For the Full article see:
https://conscious-transitions.com/intrusive-thought-what-if-i-harm-a-child-pocd/

See also: Dr Steven Phillipson - How ERP works, and the power of choice:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CGyW1Rp1Y2g
For those negatively labeled parts of your True Self, you can be deeply ashamed. Also, that
shame is a part of the social repression mechanism in which you can become. You learn to
be ashamed of your True self. Do you want to retrieve the hidden parts of yourself, to
become "complete", then you need go past this shame. If that concerns you keep in mind
that behind these negative labels very beautiful features are hidden from yourself.

So we have to confront those negative labels. That is often a painful thing, ashamed as we
can be. But the outcome is not that we accept that we are "bad." If we are prepared to face
our negative labels to face them, to deal with the confrontation then the outcome is always
almost a magical transformation that takes place. That thing that you call bad side will prove
to be just a really nice, genuine side of your own innermost being." Beyond Good and
Evil!