Those who know about such things say that in any relationship there is one up and one down in terms of power over or who has the upper hand.  In a healthy relationship, this will alternate.  I don’t think this is true in the relationship with ourselves.

I once pondered metacognition – the thinking about thinking.  You know how you’re standing at the kitchen doing dishes, and you say to yourself, “Today I have to buy coffee, mail that package, text Cindy, and return that awful blouse”? And then later you get home and realize you forgot to buy coffee, so as you drive to the Dollar General you say, “You are so stupid, how could you forget coffee!”

Ok?  Who is the I?  And who is the You in these conversations we have in our head?  I submit the one saying “you are” is Jung’s Shadow Self, and I don’t think it’s ever good to let the Shadow be the upper cognition.  Or not good to let our Shadow have power-over for too long.  The Shadow is useful for pointing out our foibles and identifying what we need to work on, but giving that asshole upper reign for too long guarantees a miserable person.

Marie-Louise von Franz, a close associate of Jung, said:

[If and when] an individual makes an attempt to see his shadow, he becomes aware of (and often ashamed of) those qualities and impulses he denies in himself but can plainly see in others – such things as egotism, mental laziness, and sloppiness; unreal fantasies, schemes, and plots; carelessness and cowardice; inordinate love of money and possessions.

But Jung carried on quite a bit about the Shadow Self and the Collective Shadow. It’s fascinating stuff and time I did some more reading about it.

I think we are living in an era where the Collective Shadow of this country is romping unconstrained, and it’s high time for some serious therapy.  Our souls are crying out for rescue from this power that’s taken hold and won’t let go.