“The psychological rule says that when an inner situation is not made conscious, it happens outside, as fate. That is to say, when the individual remains undivided and does not become conscious of his inner contradictions, the world must perforce act out the conflict and be torn into opposite halves.”
— Carl G. Jung, Aion: Researches into the Phenomenology of the Self
Usually, the good half remains within us, while the bad one is outside us. To no lesser extent, the opposite is also true—we are the embodiment of evil, inferiority, insignificance, and baseness, while the outer world personifies our beautiful, outwardly projected half.
As Jung says, our Shadow contains not only repressed negative psychic contents, but positive ones as well. What characterizes it as Shadow is its unconsciousness. And since psychological health means wholeness, the first and most essential step in this regard is to integrate this rejected half. It becomes clear how—by making it conscious.
One way to do this is by recognizing, in events from the outer world—situations or people that are sources of problems and difficulties for us, that irritate us and provoke judgment (or, conversely, strong attraction and admiration)—the projections of unconscious inner contents. This is the meaning of Jung’s quotation above.
For me, this is not merely an interesting theory with questionable practical applicability, but something I constantly observe in my own life. I saw it most clearly during a period when I was experiencing difficulties in my partnership with my boyfriend. I was very angry with him about many things, and above all because he was selfish. Despite all the psychological knowledge with which I was armed, I continued to feel like a victim in our relationship and was unable to deal with the inner voice of accusation that I directed toward him.
I knew that if he did not change his behavior, I would have to take responsibility for ending the relationship—but “something” was preventing me from doing so. I stood crucified by my powerlessness to change things and my lack of readiness to leave him, until the moment finally ripened for me to resolve this conflict.
What triggered it was a passage from a book stating that responsibility for the state of our partnerships is not shared equally—fifty percent each. It said that our responsibility is, in fact, one hundred percent. Each person is one hundred percent responsible for their part of the relationship—whether to leave it or not, and if they do not leave, how they participate in it. And this is so because we attract partners who embody the unconscious and repressed aspects of our psychic Shadow, so that we can live them out in a way that is acceptable to us.
In my case, this meant that because of my inner prohibitions against being selfish, I was suppressing this part of myself and living it out by having a partner who embodied this quality for both of us. When I reflected on it, I discovered that this was indeed the case. The more I tried to accommodate his wishes, the less he accommodated mine. On a deep subconscious level, the communicating vessels of our partnership registered a strong imbalance in the distribution of selfishness within our relationship. And I, too, was responsible for that.
This did not mean that I was responsible for his behavior. It meant that I was responsible for being in a relationship in which I was dissatisfied because I was not getting what I wanted, yet could not leave. And the “something” that held me there was nothing other than the rejected “other half” within me, for whose lived expression I needed someone to embody it.
As is usually the case, when a person connects with responsibility rather than blame or self-blame, energy for action and change appears. Once I decided that it was not fair for only him to be burdened with expressing selfishness for both of us, while I played the role of the caring and good one, I began to allow myself to show selfishness as well. It was terribly difficult for me, but I now knew that this was my issue. I had a goal that inspired me—to learn, within a real partnership, to express the selfishness that had been pushed into my psychic Shadow.
I no longer made decisions about whether we would separate or not. I knew that if separation were to occur after I had learned my lesson, I would be able to do it without upheaval. I would have dealt with the hidden cause that had kept me captive until then. To my great astonishment, it was precisely at that point that he began to change, showing signs of care and attentiveness that I had been waiting for so long.
From the distance of time, I can now imagine how loving it was on my part to begin to be selfish. In this way, I had finally given him the opportunity to experience the caring part of himself as well—the very part that until then had been predominantly my domain.
If I use Jung’s language, the world no longer needed to split into two halves in order to portray my inner conflict. It became internal. The external conflict, which until then had existed between me and my partner, was gone. In its place there was inner tension, generated by my effort to be conscious—deciding, moment by moment, how to express my true desires in a mature and responsible way.
This tension, however, was far better than the helplessness I had felt before, when I experienced myself as a victim. It was creative, because it developed me, and I knew what its purpose was. Most importantly, my judgment toward selfish people disappeared. I now knew that they are part of the game of duality, and that if they appear in our lives, it means something about ourselves.
“Only the complete person knows how unbearable man is to himself.
From a Christian point of view—at least in my opinion—there is therefore nothing to object to when a person feels obliged to fulfil the task imposed upon him by nature: the task of individuation and the realization of wholeness and completeness.
When this task is undertaken consciously and deliberately, one avoids the unhappy consequences of repressed individuation. That is to say, when wholeness is voluntarily accepted, it no longer needs to force itself upon the individual against his will, nor does it appear in its negative form.”
–C. G. Jung, p. 80, same book, translated from Bulgarian
If this publication reaches you through the play of synchronicity, consider which part of you is being required to be embodied by the external circumstances of your life. Then take responsibility for it. The feeling you will experience when you do so is incomparable. The reward for those who succeed in learning this lesson is a sense of inner wholeness, maturity, and strength. It is definitely worth it.
Kameliya Hadzhiyska
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