Integrating the Shadow

Author: Joan Kistler, ISIS Class of 2013

In our Essence, we are whole, perfect beings. When we incarnate into this world as Spirit in human form, we are unlimited in the authentic expression of our Essence – but not for long. We are soon drafted into the limiting roles of our cultures, religions, and families. To fit in and feel safe, we begin to hide many aspects of ourselves. The parts of our light that we block are called Shadow.

When I was in my early twenties, I was suffering from intense anxiety, depression, and social isolation. At that time, I asked my mother what I was like when I was very young. She told me that I was very funny, easy-going, and friendly. I then realized that I was not by nature so serious, fearful, and reclusive. Since then, my inner work has been to return to my natural state of being by identifying, understanding, and integrating my Shadow.

How did my Shadow come into being? When I was five, my mother began to experience mental health issues. For about six years, my home environment was very unstable and emotionally toxic. As an empathic child, I readily absorbed the feelings of intense fear and despair that defined the emotional climate in my home. During this extremely stressful time, my parents also couldn’t handle my typical childhood wants and needs. As a result, I naturally felt that I was nothing more than a huge nuisance to them. If I didn’t stop being such a bother, what would they do?

To protect myself from rejection and abandonment, I unconsciously split-off and hid the parts of myself that my parents couldn’t tolerate by attacking those parts and driving them into the Shadow. As a result, I created a false self. This false self became a “mask” that I wore around my parents that looked like what they seemed to want: a child who wants and needs only to be who they want and need her to be.

This false self overshadowed many aspects of my authentic self. However, the false self could not completely silence my authentic self, which frequently fought for expression. Anxiety and depression resulted from this constant war raging within me. After playing this role for so long, I became stuck in it. This created problems for me later in life, especially in my relationships with others. Because I was never bringing my authentic self into those relationships, they were phony and doomed from the start.

On a collective level, humanity suffers from a similar problem. Many of us were indoctrinated into that ages-old lie of our religious institutions: that our very nature is sinful and therefore unacceptable to our Source. To protect ourselves from eternal abandonment and rejection (a.k.a. “Hell”), we turn our power over to a false self, the Ego, which promises to protect us from this intolerant, jealous, and wrathful god. We allow the Ego to drive our Light into Shadow. As a result, the Ego overshadows many aspects of the True Self – the whole, perfect Spirit that resides within humanity. The Ego teaches us to cower in fear of this angry god who cannot tolerate us – to see ourselves as subordinate and separate.

Shadow is all the parts of ourselves that we refuse to accept and therefore drive underground. Then it is free to take on a will of its own because we refuse to “see” it – like the wayward child that the parent refuses to take responsibility for (“Oh, no – not my Johnny!”). The guilt trips laid on humanity by its religious institutions have caused much confusion. On the one hand, we must reject our perfect Spirit because God resents competition. On the other hand, we must also reject our humanity as “corrupt” because God demands perfection. So – we have to be perfect, but God resents competition. What a conundrum! It’s the perfect catch-22 to keep our will in shackles. What if we fully accept both our Spirit and our humanity? Then we take responsibility for the whole aspect of our Being in this physical existence, and nothing is driven underground where it can operate without our conscious awareness.

In reality, we are to be the receptacles of the power of Source in this world – as equal and One with Source. Our limited sense perceptions and child-like level of consciousness have caused us many misconceptions about our relationship to Source, Mother Earth, and each other. As a result, we suffer from tremendous fear and all of the subsequent emotions – anger, guilt, fear, shame, and despair. Some of us become sanctimonious and – like sibling rivals – attempt to prove ourselves worthy by condemning others. Some of us are so overcome by shame that we don’t even attempt to draw near to God. We figure that there is no way that we can ever be good enough. In either case, what we don’t realize is that we are not loved because we are good; we are good because we are loved – by our Source eternally.

How can I reintegrate those lost parts of myself? As a part of my energy, I can’t fight my false self without driving it underground. Then it will become Shadow, creating mayhem like a little gremlin in my life. As an adult, it no longer functions in a way that is beneficial to me. It helped me to survive a difficult childhood, but now it is time for me to assign it a new role: one that is more useful to my personal evolution and the evolution of this planet and all its inhabitants. There certainly are times when I need something to restrict my words and actions to avoid hurting myself or others, but not to put a stopper on who I am. The day that I can boldly stand before my mother and father without any pretense is the day that I am fully healed.

I believe that the Ego has also had a role to play in this great drama of Consciousness Evolution. Without the experience of separation, perhaps we would never become autonomous enough in our consciousness to experience ourselves as co-creators – just as children have to leave behind their symbiotic relationship with their mother in order to become independent. Once they separate out, they go through a period of ego-centeredness, which they must also eventually give up in order to co-exist peacefully with others. Otherwise, they can expect much pain and misery in life.

In order to become Universal Humans, we must also move beyond our ego-centered consciousness into Cosmic Consciousness. To integrate the Ego, we must not attack it because it is part of us. If we deny that, then it will retreat into Shadow and operate underground right under our very noses because we refuse to “see” it. We need to observe it carefully (really “see” it), appreciate it as part of our energy, but make our choices from our Heart Center – our True Self. Thus, we accept the wholeness of our Being, reclaim our will, “Shift” it back to where it belongs, and stand boldly before our Source as One.

Next blog by Joan Kistler - the Integration of the Anima/Animus