Confronting The Shadow

These are unprecedented and strange times - no question.

Daily we see the best and the worst in human nature. The spitters who delight in being truly offensive contrasting with the hundreds of thousands coalescing around a common goal. The joy is that the goodness would seem to totally outweigh the evil. Amen to that.

Moreover, it’s a safe assumption that many of us are now confronting our lesser selves - that part of us that Carl Jung termed the 'shadow aspect'. It’s that hidden part of our brain/psyche that our consciousness seeks to deny or even bury. It’s the primitive, perhaps barbaric side that we find embarrassing to admit to - even to ourselves. Of course, the absolutes of what lies within vary in content and severity with each person, and much can be attributed to ones upbringing. But one thing is undeniable - we all have a shadow.

Like it or not, we all harbour views and indeed prejudices that, if voiced aloud, might cause offence. We know the obvious ones - yes you know exactly what I mean - but that’s just the tip of the proverbial iceberg. And in the right degree there is no harm: one might argue they help ‘position’ ourself in the world, be it the newspaper we read or the pub we frequent. But the current crisis generates such actions and deeds that you find yourself reassessing some of those prejudices: some are reaffirmed but, surprisingly, many are tested and challenged. Experts reassure one minute and then confound the next. One week a revered institution shouted 500,000 may die, and now the same body states 5,700. Both struck me as unbelievable, and out of my shadow I curse at the article.

The events of the last few days have found me confronting my shadow continually. Like it or not, I’m having to rethink, hard. My natural persona has much in common with the ‘stiff upper lip’ characteristic so redolent of the English. As a keen amateur boxer in my youth, the term redoubtable massaged my inflated ego considerably. And now as a pensioner I’m torn between chest thumping rhetoric about the hysterical reaction to Coronavirus, and the thought that a vulnerable friend of the same age is genuinely concerned. My standard ‘get a grip son’ approach seems suddenly inappropriate and ill considered. A Damascene conversion seems imminent!

The likely reality is that when all this settles down - and it will - we will all revert back to type. If so, that’s a rather depressing thought; far better that the world becomes more integrated, more compassionate and less selfish. If in some way this crisis helps me dismantle some aspects of my shadow; it may turn out to be a welcome sea change, when life took a turn for the better. That’s unlikely to be a view held by those who have lost loved one’s, but if those dying too soon can imagine those they leave behind inheriting a better world then perhaps all is not in vain.

As you can see, I’m taking this enforced isolation as a time for deep thought and reflection. I’m not at all religious, but I’m discovering a spirituality I didn’t know existed. I’m appreciating loved one’s in a way I haven’t done for a long time, and the old aged selfishness, and indeed grumpiness, that has crept in osmotically over the years, is being replaced by thought for others. Religious or not, it’s quite an epiphany.

To take a Star Wars quote - May the thoughts be with you!