Interested in a workshop all about dancing with your shadow functions? Join me on October 8: https://www.meetup.com/baaptsf/events/288338568/

(I realize that this is last minute. I plan to offer similar workshops at a later date. Let me know if you’d be interested in attending something like this by leaving a comment).

Watch Psyche Design Season 2 Episode 2 on YouTube:

Transcript:

Hello there. So today I'm going to be discussing Turning a Friendly Face Toward the Shadow. And what kind of lifestyle would that be if you were someone that genuinely had, or generally had, a friendly attitude toward your shadow. So this is a huge topic. And I'm actually going to be doing a workshop on a very similar topic that's called Dancing with the Shadow: Embracing Your Inner Paradox next Saturday, the eighth, I believe. I'll have a link for that below, if you're interested. And if you can't make it, I understand that this is last minute I want to be doing, I will be hosting similar workshops in the future on this subject.

So a lot of you listening to this probably are familiar with Carl Jung's concept of the shadow. This episode is not going to be really focused on defining the shadow, I might make another episode on that, but I'm going to assume that you have a general understanding whenever I say the word shadow— which is essentially all the parts of our psyche that we're not conscious of, they might make our ego uncomfortable, we might be in denial of these things, it's a pretty general term for those contents of your psyche that you cannot see.

So, um, we also want to bring up the question of — Now that you know, your personality type (assuming that you do know your personality type), now, what? How does that knowledge of your personality type shift your perception?

So, I've been circling around these sorts of topics for several years now. But what I'm, what I'm coming to... like, this main point, I guess, that I feel like I'm coming to is this idea of — what is your ego's attitude toward the shadow? And I think that ,if you are familiar with your Jungian personality type pattern, that will tell you a lot about how your ego naturally functions, and your tendencies, your preferences, but it doesn't tell you what your attitude is toward the shadow.

Um, there's a lot of talk out there within the personality type community, like... let's say you're not really you don't have as much background on Jung, but you have been studying personality type for a while. There's a lot of different ways of talking about things such as ...developing your shadow functions, or tapping into your Inferior Function. All of the all of that regarding developing the shadow functions is a portion of "shadow work" in a more general way, because your personality is only going to be your... your personality type is just going to be sort of a sliver of your psyche.

It can kind of tell you this hero's journey that your ego might be going through. Now, one of my biggest criticisms of how people discuss personality type is, I think that the ego trap that we can get into is that once we, once we know what our personality type is, then what again, like I said, — Now, what what do we do with that information? The ego can approach this in different ways. The ego can double down on its own self-understanding and be like "yes, I am that, I am an ENFJ, I am a feeling type, I am an intuitive type, I am an extrovert." The ego could be like, yes, that is me. Now, what are the shadow sides of that?

So, using myself, my ENFJ best fit type as an example. The shadow of that would be introversion. It would be sensing, it would be thinking (more specifically with my cognitive functions, Extroverted Sensing and Introverted Thinking would be the exact shadow flip side of my Dominant and Auxiliary functions). Not to mention the shadow functions that you don't prefer. All of these are parts of the shadow.

And we can take the attitude of, "I'm a feeler. Therefore, none of that thinking stuff matters to me. None of that sensing stuff matters to me." Or you can take a different attitude, where you approach the shadow with curiosity with humility, with interest with openness.

So that is I guess my number one reflection question for all of you is what is your attitude toward the shadow?

And then, I'm going to be talking pretty generally about the attitude, and how to potentially develop an attitude toward the shadow that might be more embracing it. Because the thing is, is that...

It's normal for the ego to separate things between, "that's me, and that's not me." And that can be very helpful. And, in fact, even whenever you are discovering your personality type, it can be very helpful to be able to separate me from what's not me. If you realize you're an extrovert, it might help you figure out what kind of career to go into. Knowing that I have preference for intuition and feeling, for example, can help me figure out what what sort of careers to go into, it can help me understand maybe some of my relationship patterns, people I tend to gravitate toward.

Um, so, knowledge of type really is just the first step. And how you approach that knowledge of type is absolutely crucial for how much value type actually could bring your life. And I think that we don't talk enough about the *how* we talk a lot about the *what.* We talk about the difference between ENFJ and INFJ, we talk about the difference between intuition and sensing. And Ne and Ni, (if you're into the cognitive functions) we talk a lot about these differences.

And I think that if we don't talk enough about the *how* of how we are approaching that information... if we don't intentionally talk about the how, what will happen is that our ego will naturally without even thinking, do the separation game, where we double down on our identity. And we identify with these functions that are our preferences, or we identify with this personality type. So there's nothing wrong with seeing yourself in a personality type. However, each of the 16 personality types, they are assigned essentially, they're... they're kind of like social roles that you play. They're not the Self with a capital S.

Now, in Carl Jung's idea of individuation, it's all about this journey to find the Self. And the Self is separate from our egos. And so knowing your personality type can very well be a hindrance to finding your Self. Even though it tells you a lot about how your ego works. So that's why this attitude thing in this "how" is very important. Because if we're just taking in the information of "I'm an ENFJ, these are my tendencies, these are my shortcomings, and this is how I might manage stress, and these are the things that might trip me up." If I just take in that information without reflecting on that. And without thinking about, "what my attitude is going to be toward that?" It's so easy to just fall into a trap of "okay, well, I guess that means I need to avoid all of these things that are my weaknesses... or else I'm going to make a fool of myself, or else I'm going to fail, or else I'm going to experience pain."

It's the ego.. it's naturally you know, going to try and do that. So um, you know, knowing your personality type can be very beneficial for improving your relationships with friends and family who are a different personality type than you however, you also can choose to take in that information and discriminate against different types. You might say, "I don't know... that type is quite different from me. So I do not understand, I don't care to get to know those people."

Some... it's way too common in the type community for people to say things like, "I don't get along with this sort of type, or I would never date this sort of type." And, again, it's normal for ego to have preferences... like especially when it's coming to picking a job. For example, like, like I said before, the 16 personality types, they kind of play the social roles. You might think of it as a kinda a caricature, to be to be honest. It's not your Self. It's not who you really are deep down, it might even be similar to a mask you wear in order to perform a sort of social function.

You know, the ego is there for a reason. Your preferences are there for a reason, there's likely lots of potential and talent there. So for example, for me as an ENFJ, I'm going to attempt to use my extroverted feeling and introverted intuition to give back to society in some way, because those are the functions that I naturally use. And so you know, there's got to be an outlet for your your dominant functions, I'm not saying to like, not focus on them at all. But I think that there's this, there's this wall between what we're conscious of, and what we cannot see.

And I think that, so ... Jung suggested that having this attitude toward the shadow was a moral ... was actually an ethical thing. And he described it as a moral feat to be able to embrace the shadow. So "Shadow Work" is a whole other topic that I could do another video on, but I'm sure you've heard about it, it's become quite a buzzword these days. But the whole idea of doing Shadow Work is a lifelong journey. So what I'm talking about, though, today is the first step, I'm talking about the attitude that your ego has. And this is something that we can shift, shift to just a small thing, and it can make a huge difference. And I think that regarding the attitude we had toward the shadow, there's always going to be a wall between what we're conscious of and what we're not, however, um, how thick is that wall?

And so it can go the wall between your shadow and your, your conscious and your unconscious, could be a big thick brick wall, or it could be a piece of glass, you know, very thick glass could be very thick glass, but you can potentially see a little bit through so anyway, and another thing, when it comes to the ego attitude is yes, your ego is always going to have this need for control, potentially.

But what kind of control? Is your ego a tyrant? Is your ego, trying to basically stomp out everything that is not like it? Or is your ego, a democratic ruler, a transformational leader that is listening to all of the psyche and taking responsibility for all of the psyche?

So what I think... what we really want to get to, and what a lot of my content moving forward is going to be discussing is not so much what is your personality, but how do you use your knowledge of your personality, to think about how to really be yourself and not just stop at the identity label. Because I think that a lot of us that get into personality type, we do it because we are into self discovery. We want to know more about who we are, we want to improve our relationships. And I think that giving... getting the label of ENFJ, for example. That can feel like the short-term fix, like you can get this dopamine hit of "Yes, I learned about myself. Cool." But there's more.

And I guess I'm trying to talk about this resistance. That or "how" we need to kind of lean into the resistance here. And feel into that. If we want to go a little deeper and find ourselves or be on the path to finding ourselves on the path to dancing with the shadow in a more symbiotic way. Because the thing is, is that these shadows are going to come up whether we like it or not, and it's really a matter of "How do we respond when those shadows come up?" The thicker your walls, the more tyrannical your ego. If a shadow comes up, you're going to not see it coming in, you're going to be more likely to blame and double down on your ego’s tendencies.

But if you respond with curiosity and humility and openness, when your shadows come up, you can use that as a learning opportunity.

So this can, this could apply in a personal sense or in an interpersonal sense. So for example, using type in an interpersonal sense, let's say, I, as an ENFJ, is engaged with a ISTJ in a work situation. If I was not already having this attitude of humility and curiosity about my shadows of sensing and thinking, then like, that's going to directly change how I interact with that other person. So for me interacting with an ISTJ. If I am curious and grateful and intrigued by sensing and thinking, then I am going to engage in a completely, like... I'm just going to engage in a completely different way, I'm not going to be like, shut down, and like ignoring and completely blind to any value that they would have to offer.

And so much of this is about, I think, leveraging the creative potential that already exists between people, and between yourself, and kind of leaning into that resistance and leaning into that creative tension. Because like, for two people to have different type preferences, it like really can go one of two ways. Well, the two ways are a spectrum, but you can be approach it from love and curiosity, and really gain from the other person's... like, allow the other person's strength to teach you something and allow you to integrate some more of your shadows, sothat you walk away from the relationship better off than where you started. Or, it can turn into this, this war-like battle between two tyrants of the ego. But if both of the egos attitudes toward each other, was from a more transcendent and transformational mindset, or a growth mindset, you could say, then you're going to be aware of these little differences in these little these points in which you can work together. And both.. both gain and this doesn't even have to be interpersonal, like I was saying, like, this could just be you.

Personally, let's say you're working on a project, and you find yourself you keep getting stuck in the same types of spots over and over, or maybe in your personal life, you find yourself repeating certain patterns over and over and you get triggered, and now you're in this spiral, and you don't know how to get out and you're frustrated with yourself, because you always seem to be getting into the same spirals. So no matter who it is, who's involved, even if it's just all in your own head. It's like when you trip, it's like, look at yourself, or and be like.. how? Yeah, change your attitude about what you're tripping on.

And I think if we can almost like play a role of like an investigator, whenever the shadows come up, it starts to get really fun. Now, I personally think it feels fun. I've done a lot of trial and error with this with my inferior Ti (introverted thinking) throughout the years. And in fact, for those of you who have been following me for a long time, you might have noticed that I have not been posting nearly as much as I used to post, and the funny thing about that is that I've been reading more I've been writing more I've been questioning more, my thoughts are clearer. And I'm not feeling the same urge to share that I used to. And it's actually very strange because I think that with my dominant extroverted feeling, I always had this impulse to share with everyone else and help others. And then the more curious my extroverted feeling started to get about my Introverted Thinking. The more I realized how much that information how much it had to offer and how much it can help me help others.

So, for example, using Extroverted Feeling and Introverted Thinking as an example, I've realized that getting really clear on my concepts and getting better and quicker at my word choice can help me put something into exactly the right words, that will be exactly what someone needs to hear that will actually crack one of their limiting beliefs. So, extroverted feeling just without Ti... just on its own without ti might feel like empty platitudes of you can do it, I love you, I've got you go for it. But Fe with some Ti in there can tell you specifically, like, why you can do it, or how to do it or, you know, It can help clarify things, and it can help you feel better. So, you know, my... the more I've wanted to lean into my Fe desire to want to help others, the more I realized that there's all these problems that I want to solve here, so how do I solve them?

I don't just want to be a cheerleader. So I want to actually help people. So what does that mean? Well, I'm gonna have to do some work and think about it, and I'm gonna have to, you know, figure it out and troubleshoot it with with inferior Ti.

So anyway this turning a friendly face toward the shadow, I think that it's like this first step, to just sort of open your heart up to a little bit of curiosity. And I think it's the first step toward an entire life or an entire journey of Shadow Work, integrating the shadow and all that good stuff.

And it's something you can do every day, just check in with yourself, and what is my attitude you can check in your with yourself, whenever you trip up, you can check in with yourself every time you meet a new person, or you can just do it every morning or every night just sort of be like, what's my, how's my attitude? And I think that the potential here if you want to know my opinion here, is that I think the shadow is gorgeous, absolutely beautiful. I think it's the mystery of life, I think that you find a lot of artists are inspired by the shadow.

A friend and I talked about the concept of shadowgazing, we might turn that into an episode... (We thought about turning that into a podcast, so don't take that name). But anyway, like the whole idea of shadowgazing, I've just been thinking about how it starts with, like this first step is to just loosen up a little bit, and perhaps see the value in the shadow. And be, you know, have your ego be a little bit more humble, be a little bit more curious about what it doesn't know, so that whenever the shadows come up, you could be open to it like a sponge rather than...

This is another thing is that I think sometimes. When people talk about shadow work, or even about developing their functions, they might feel like, "oh, I need to dig and dig until I find out what's wrong with me until I find the problem." And I think that it's not so much that, it's not so much that we have to dig into our shadows. I just think we need to be open because like I said, and like I've said before, Carl Jung has said is that this individuation process, it happens on its own.

The shadows will come up on its own, you don't have to do the work to go dig up the shadows. That would be your ego controlling the situation. I've been guilty of that, of being like "I need to dig up my shadows."

And it might feel like you're going somewhere. but like, I think that the in reality... The mindset is a lot like mindfulness, it's it's a lot like meditation, to where it's about letting go. And it's about just letting the shadows come and leave. Like it's the same with meditation, if you're letting thoughts kind of pass by, to where like you're just listening, you know? You're open, you're grateful. But that, this first step might be just having more of a friendly face rather than trying to stomp out the ego. Because honestly, it's so easy to stomp out the shadow with our ego because that's just what we all do. And that's what our culture encourages. So you're not a bad person. If your ego is trying to stomp out the shadows we we all do it even if there's a big part of us that is trying to appreciate the shadow more.

But I think that on the other end, like a lot of artists, they have this mindset where they're not just open to the shadow. They spend their day gazing at the mystery and the beauty of the shadow. And so I think that that is a whole other thing that honestly reminds me of worshiping the feminine principle, worshipping the goddess or Sophia, something like that, that I think has kind of been lost in our society.

I think that there's a lot I can say on this. And now I'm kind of just throwing out some half-baked ideas here is that basically, a lot of people right now are talking about, "oh, these divided times, I can't believe how divided we are, everything's so chaotic." And whenever Carl Jung came out with his theory of Psychological Types, and was talking about thinking versus feeling sensing versus intuition, he was talking about the one-sidedness of the Western mind. This is a whole other point that I want to make another video about is that he was talking about the one sidedness of the Western mind. And so one thing that I think we can forget is that a lot of his this theory, a lot of his theories, probably, you know, it is universal to all people, however, culture plays a big role. And so we can't forget that, especially putting this in the context of when it was written in like the late 1920s. And also, from a Western standpoint, Jung was pointing out how this one-sidedness is becoming a huge problem.

Now, if you remember earlier, whenever I was saying that this attitude, where we are more mindful, where we are more open toward the shadow reminds me of mindfulness, it makes me wonder if the Eastern mindset if their religions already have some of this shadow curiosity baked in a little bit more. Because if you look at the history of wars in the Western World, and how much it can feel, very divided... like even the whole idea of the Industrial Revolution, and the scientific revolution, and this rise of materialism, it makes sense to to see how potentially the Western culture has more of "this, this versus that" There, it seems to me like there's a strong divide of you're "you're either this or that."

And Carl Jung's book about Psychological Types, when he brought up the types, it's like, our tendencies toward these functions is kind of just one way that we're a little bit crazy, it's not necessarily a good thing to be a type. It's not a bad thing, it's a part of our process. It's a part of our... the way I see it, we start out whole and undifferentiated, then we differentiate ourselves, and then we go down the individuation path, and then we get closer and closer to an integrated wholeness.

But it's like, um, we start out with all this potential, and every choice we make, leads to more differentiation. Or ego is saying, "this is me, that's not me, this is me, that's not me." We're like deciding who we are as you go. But all that potential still with us to where we eventually can then attempt to bring back all of that potential back with us through embracing the shadow as we get older.

Anyway, with the "divided times" is that I feel like right now, in 2022, in America, in particular, because that's what I can speak to, is that it feels like we're getting more and more divided into two distinct camps, politically, and you we could see this in our social issues as well. And so, um, I think that will actually, the whole idea of... I definitely think that Christianity is part of the reason for this, because the whole idea of good versus evil and original sin. I think that facilitates this division. Like if we're, if we really believe that there's good and then there's evil, and as these two separate camps, then we're very much looking at things through the duality perspective.

Whereas we also could look at both of those, the duality through a transcendent perspective, like a triangle, where we're looking at both from a bird's eye view and we are attempting to integrate both together. So anyway, I'm getting a bit into other things that I kind of didn't want to get into, because I think that they would be better for their own dedicated video. But, I guess my point is, is that one of the reasons why I think that this is important is because I think that this that, you know, Jung suggested that our attitude toward the shadow was very important in that it was, in fact a moral feat to attempt to integrate your shadow.

And I think that while fully integrating the shadow might feel like a far off pipe dream... (maybe similar to ideas such as enlightenment, or even ego death). Well, that might feel like a far out pipe dream. What you can do today, right now is be a little bit more humble and a little bit more curious about your shadows. And knowing your type doesn't only show you your preferences, it also shows you your shadows. And so you can be aware when you're interacting in the world, keep your ears perked for the things that potentially you would have just glossed over and fought found not important, you can start to be like intrigued a little bit by it.

And, um, I think that we're in the midst of a cultural shift Cultural Revolution, and I have no clue what is going to happen. To me, it feels like a "things must get worse before they get better" sort of deal, which I don't really like. However, this brings me to a whole other topic of that I've been thinking a lot about self-development as being a reflection of social justice as well, and how a lot of this rise of self-development these days has felt a little bit narcissistic, a little bit like, "how do I improve my career? How do I have it all? How do I hold up... Or, how do I make sure that I measure up to all of these impossible Western standards?" But if we think about the division that we are facing in our culture, and if we want to come together and have there be less conflict, what sort of attitude would the human race have to have in order to do that? And it doesn't mean that you let go of something you believe in or something that's your preference? Absolutely not. Because some tendencies or some opinions are more integrated than others. And so some things aren't even a true binary... some things are like a radical ego, comparing itself to a more well-rounded view. So even whenever I say, when I talk about the left and the right politically, I'm not even saying that they're on equal footing. I'm, I absolutely don't think that but um, anyway, I'm... what helps me is thinking about it, as "I'm in charge of my mindset, I'm in charge of what I how I respond to." But, I'm not in charge.

So this is a this is another thing of your ego needs to know that it is not as "in charge" as it thinks it is. But what are you in charge of? So, kind of allowing the ego to play its role and sit back and watch a little bit and observe and enjoy the shadow, my ego is not in control of other people, of everything that happens to me. But it can control how it responds whenever a shadow comes up, or when a lesson comes up in, we can control how we choose to engage in our attitude toward things if we're curious and loving, and all that sort of stuff (more on Love in another episode).

But I would argue that shifting our attitude about the shadow is going to be a very crucial shift in order to support this cultural revolution that I think we're kind of in the midst of, but I think that it's probably going to take a decade or two (if not more) for us to like actually get there. I feel like a lot of people are starting to have these discussions lately. And I guess I want to open the door to this discussion. What would it look like to dance with the shadow? What would it look like to embrace it and its role there? (Which now as I'm saying this I'm realizing it kind of just reminds me of... it feels feminist in a sense. Because I feel like...)

A lot of times, you know, the moon in astrology has been associated with the subconscious. A lot of feminine Tarot archetypes are associated with the unconscious and the shadow. And I do feel like there's something very receptive here. And very, like almost feminine energy spirituality here that to where this decision to embrace the shadow in and of itself is a way of balancing the polarities between light and shadow. So, because you know, if there's light in their shadow, and if there's a shadow, there's light, the to feed into each other. And I would argue that our western culture has been very focused on the light. And right now we're facing a lot of black and white thinking a lot of division where we need some more gray area here. And I do think it reminds me of a lot of the Eastern mindset of mindfulness, and letting go and being a little bit more receptive to things and a little bit more perceptive.

So, and I think that that's an attitude that's needed, in particular right now. And I think that it is something that we need to talk about when it comes to our personality type. Because knowing your personality type can be a catalyst for finding the self and for individuation, and improving your relationship with your shadow. But only if you're asking yourself about that attitude.

And you're asking yourself, how. "How am I using my personality type?" So, I think that there's a lot of beauty to be seen in the shadow. And like I said, I think a lot of artists, what they get their work from gazing at the shadow, and from marveling at its beauty.

So thank you so much for listening to this episode. I would love to hear your thoughts. Please let me know if you've had any questions or if there's any topic that really struck you. The more comments I get, it's going to really help me feel like we're having a back and forth as a podcast and will help me have ideas as well so I could post more regularly. So thank you so much and have a wonderful rest of your day.

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