What is meant when certain schools of psychology today warn us about our “shadow”? What is our shadow? In essence, it’s this: we have within us powerful, fiery energies which, for multiple reasons, we cannot consciously face, and so we handle them by denial and repression so as not to have to deal with them. Metaphorically speaking, we bury them in the hidden ground of our souls where they are out of conscious sight and mind.
But there’s a problem: what we’ve buried doesn’t stay hidden. While these energies are out of conscious sight and conscious mind, they continue to have a deep impact on our feelings, thoughts and actions by pushing through in all kinds of unconscious ways to colour our actions; mostly negatively. Our deep, innate energies will always act out, consciously or unconsciously. Carl Jung, one of the pioneer voices in this, says that we are doomed to act out unconsciously all the archetypal configurations which we do not access and control through conscious ritual.
