Of course, self-reflection is a good thing, and the theory of our shadow (unconscious parts of our personality) will give us many opportunities to do that.

I see but difficulties:

   If everything we don't like or admire on others is a subconscious part of our personality, we would be all the same- only some have a trait consciously, others subconsciously.
   If not everything we like or dislike on others is part of our shadow, then we have a difficult time to figure out if something is actually something of our shadow or not.
   
   Quote "Too good to be true": "These people are barricaded behind their mask or persona. They will deliberately avoid any kind of negative reaction or emotion. They refuse to be real and suffer the acceptance of their own dark side and this can be a dangerous thing."
   I can't see that everyone who avoids negative reactions and emotions is trapped inside their mask. This would only be so when avoiding it at all costs. It can be a sign of smartness and social awareness when one is able to circumnavigate negative reactions.

   Regarding the "dark side", when someone points out we all have a dark side, we surely will find something, or we do know it already. Now, does this mean we shall live it? In the article it is said, it's better than remaining unconscious. But where is the benefit? Is it actually better to commit a crime, as to keep it in one's shadow?

Spooky

Hi Bets,
a funny replica to this shadow theory would be, when someone's behaviour upsets you, it might be that it is because this behaviour is your own, buried in the subconscious and you've got a problem to make it conscious, OR rather that you simply have a problem with your reaction to this behaviour . This is a typical tit-for-tat when it comes to the psychology of the unconscious. The depth psychologist would look for deeper subconscious processes, transferences, identifications etc., while the behavioral psychologist would not claim to know anything about such a thing called "subconscious" and would start to treat problems directly.
Both has it's benefits and flaws.

The other thing, I think we actually can combine this theory with the one of the own split off aspects which can be retrieved. We could say, if something in our subconscious is both, very strong, and very strong denialed, it might split off, or in other words, it becomes something like an other person, or semi-person. I don't know if it is necessary in every case to retrieve such an aspect, or if it is possible to make the decision to toss this aspect out forever (or at least for this lifecycle).

Spooky

Quote:


I'm reading The Dark Side of the Light Chasers by Debbie Ford. It is pretty interesting. Certainly this is a topic the deserves a book rather then an info-mercial page!.

From what Ford says, I think her concept of this is that we do have the potential for everything in us, and we have to accept all parts of opurselves in order to function optimally. I think she is talking about personality traits rather than talents. But the idea is that we do have the potential for anything and everything. So if someone has a trait you (nonpersonal you!) can't stand then perhaps you are repressing that part of yourself, and it will show up in others in your life until you accept it in yourself. She includes exercises to show you how to work on identifying and accepting these shadow parts.

She backs up her claims with examples, including personal ones. Some are amusing and do clarify what she means. She totally believes in the work and I think that is why it works for her.

I'm willing to apply it to situations where someone pushes buttons or makes me miserable in the social sense. I have trouble extending it to more serious situations, but maybe on a deeper level it applies there too.

One of my "favorite" examples involves a ..course (?) she was giving in a particular community. Each day when she spoke, one particular woman who happened to be African-American stood up and was hostile with her (Ford is Caucasian). This went on week to week. She tried to do her process but just couldn't figure it out. Exasperated, she commented on the situation to a friend also at the course. The friend said, Oh don't mine her, she's just a racist. That sent Debbie reeling. Never in her life had she thought of herself as a racist. But if the process was correct, she had some racist elemant in herself. I guess she spent the better part of the night trying to accept her inner racist. (She had grown up in Florida and her father was the first white attorney in the state to have a black law partner, or something like that, and she was proud of that). She finally recalled a particular thought she had had, and was able to "accept" her inner racist. The next week, at the meeting, the woman walked in and again asked her weekly question, except that this time she stood up and said what a great job Debbie was doing. Afterwards, Debbie asked her what had happened to change things, and she said, I don't know, I just walked in and fell in love with you.

So this stuff can be pretty compelling. (I suggest reading her version of the story! The book is in my local library system in multiple copies, so it must be easy to find).

Maybe it is anoither version of forgiveness and maybe sometimes the person you have to forgive is yourself. I don't think using this path is obligatory or useful for everyone, but it works for some. There are probably other paths to the same result. Some times the hard part is figuring out exactly what I am projecting.

My sense is the issue is perhaps explained by the perspective that everything in the world is God created. That it's perfect, even though it can appear pretty awful when we focus on what's actually only one polarity of a single duality and not the total picture.

That this perfection somehow arises when it's all condensed back again into the eternal now, or at least examined from a higher , more holistic view.

So for example something that seems nasty perhaps often (always?) has a role to play in teaching a lesson which viewed from the perspective of no time or a longer time frame delivers a perfected outcome.

Or as is often said  - there's no action which in this relative world is in all circumstances inherently wrong, or inherently good - it depends on circumstance.

This in a sense implies that we may need to act in ways that appear wrong if we are to to act wisely or from love - to show tough love as well as a the nice kind. Or we may find ourselves presented with life circumstances which if we can't cope with the nasty will force us to drop our mind made (not heart felt) scruples and act in a non loving or unwise way towards others.

Sorry if the language is clumsy, but what I'm trying to say is that realisation or the ability to truly live through love seems to require the ability to cope with any circumstance or reality with equanimity, and act freely as required to manifest wisdom and compassion.

That a mind made block to certain categories of action arbitrarily deemed 'not nice' in the relative framework of the thinking mind may actually lead to great harm.

A Buddhist view would say that the dualistic separation of actions into 'nice' (good) and 'not nice' (bad) is normally an artefact of ego. That our taking a personal view of everything, and categorising/judging so that things are labelled and assigned to these piles usually reflects our tendency to grasp after what we deem short term/small picture pleasurable, and avoidance of that we regard as the opposite.

We're all familiar with the issue of grabbing short term pleasure at the expense of longer term suffering, and with the difficulty we all experience when the wiser course is the hard road. This very coarse categorisation of events into two mind made conceptual piles divorces us from reality too - which is usually far more granular - and leads to bad decision making.

These factors together cause us to go for 'nice' actions even when these are not loving or wise.

I suppose we don't have to think too hard to come up with lots of instances where the most terrible harm is done through an inability to act firmly.

The mollycoddled child that grows up to be a self centred monster or unable to function due to lack of exposure to life experience.

The politically correct leader that seeks repeatedly to appease when resolve and firmness are actually required. And much worse...