Blame, Projection & Your Shadow
I do my best to stay away from political commentaries and hotly debated topics. So let me begin by saying this blog has nothing to do with politics and everything to do with personal growth & self-development. Yours and mine.
Carl Jung, one of the great psychologist of our time spoke often about the human shadow. He described it as the unknown, hidden dark-side of personality. He also said that it is irrational and prone to psychological projection. A way in which we take our inferiorities, imperfections, & deficiencies and project them onto others.
It is the result of our either our unconsciousness or our unwillingness to take ownership and responsibility for our less than wonderful parts.
It not only happens with individuals it happens within cultures, institutions, and throughout our current society, and you don’t need to look to hard to see evidence of this phenomenon.
Shadow: Old as Human-kind
Blaming and projecting our dark-side onto others is nothing new, it has been present since day one of our existence on this earth.
Whatever you choose to believe about Adam & Eve, you cannot help but see the circuitous projection of blame and irresponsibility in the Garden of Eden. Eve blames the snake for eating the apple, and then Adam blames God for giving him the woman who made him eat the apple. Who knew that this story would be a fore-shadowing of what was to come.
Projecting our dark-side was at the core of what drove the Crusades, Inquisition, Salem Witch Trials, most every war, and all forms of racism, hatred, and genocide. All of which can be labeled as a form of evil.
Currently, we seem to have taken this problem to a whole new level. We now demonize and condemn anyone who opposes our beliefs or disagrees with our opinions. It seems as if this behavior has been normalized because it consumes every inch of our television, computer, and cell phone screens these days. Fueled predominantly by the media and leveraged by our countries so-called leaders who have an agenda to drive.
The division and hatred this creates for our fellow human beings is slowly destroying our country and our world from the inside out.
A Solution?
Screaming, hollering, and bitching about what is wrong without offering a viable solutions only adds to the problem.
So allow me to share with you the following 7 personal beliefs and actions I am taking, as a way to take responsibility for myself and to control the only thing I can control – ME!
- I believe that I am not responsible for changing the minds of others, I am only responsible for being the change I wish to see in the world by changing me and my beliefs.
- It is not my job to play god or judge others, regardless of whether I agree or disagree with their point of view.
- It is my responsibility to seek to understand why others believe what they believe, without condemning, judging, or projecting my shadow on them.
- I know that the biggest obstacle getting in my way is me and my ego. Ego as I define it – which is rooted in my need to be right and in control and stems from my insecurities.
- It is my responsibility to focus on being more inclusive of everyone, instead of being exclusionary and kicking them out of my club, my church, my tribe, or my political party, etc.
- When I am angry, upset, or pissed off at someone, I know it is my ego taking over and I am simply projecting my shadow (in the form of my arrogance, stubbornness, resentment, fear, insecurity, pride, etc.) onto them so I don’t have to own it.
- When I scream, holler, judge, or condemn others, I am simply revealing to myself and the world a snapshot into how I feel about myself. Remember this when someone else is ranting or acting out, especially in the media!
A Conclusion
Let me share something I have learned about myself so far on my life’s journey regarding my own shadow.
It has taken me a long time to get to a place of even being willing to own the fact that I am my own problem. I know that living the principals mentioned above is not and will not be easy. It may get easier but it will require acceptance and humility, not something I have mastered by any means. I mean let’s be honest, it feels better to judge, condemn, and believe I am better than others, or think I am right. At least for a short period of time, but it is fleeting. Believing I know better or am always right, is just so very wrong!
That said, I still believe that together we are powerful enough to change the world! I mean after all we created this problem, therefore we can solve this problem, just not with the same thinking that got us here.
We just have to be willing to:
- Focus on changing ourselves instead of trying to change everyone else.
- Take a good hard look and own our shadow and our not-so-great parts instead projecting them onto others.
- Last, focus on the reality of how much more we are alike, instead of the fallacy and story we make up in our heads or are told how different we are from one another.
At least that would be a start…
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