Connections: Owning Your Own Shadow

It has been several days since my man has informed me about the impending divorce of a couple we have known for the last twenty years. She has worked with my man for that long. They are buddies. I guess the path to divorce started with a keypad program she installed on their computer so she could monitor their teenagers' chatroom activities. Little did she know that it would also reveal his activities, despite the fact that he was in the know about the spying. There is much more to the story, but what I have to say and how this affects me has everything to do with the concept of projection, which is discussed in Owning Your Own Shadow.

You see, whenever this sort of break-up happens to other couples, my man feels a strong affiliation with the jaded spouse and makes assumptions that I might be moving along the path of the wrong-doer. I really hate being forced into that role. This kind of projection has happened several times before, and of course, it happened again earlier this week. Trust me when I say that it is a tough job figuring out how to defend yourself against such projections, because for some reason, it makes matters worse. It is difficult when you love someone and they make negative assumptions about you regularly.

But what is especially difficult this time around is that I have really been fighting a depression all summer long, a depression that he is impervious to. He is so happy-go-lucky. His life is so perfect for him, that he doesn't seem to care about my thoughts or whatever turmoil roils within me. Either that or he is blind to the inner me.

As I read this book, there is much talk about shadows. A shadow is the part of us that we hide from others, from others, from the community. Why do we keep secret thoughts and secret lives? According to Johnson, it is simply for survival. To reveal the side of ourselves that is incongruent with the way the community (or the family in my case) thinks or believes can cause too much instability that it threatens us. There is nothing wrong with the shadow. We all have one. However, when the shadow grows too large, it steeps into our more outward lives.

The bottom line is that at some point, we cannot contain our shadows.

Johnson also talks about how there is gold in the shadow, and that we can use it to improve ourselves. I am still working on how to apply that to my own life.

Last night, I had a disturbing dream. I am not sure how much of it I am willing to divulge here. Johnson contends that we need to pay attention to such dreams. At this moment, I am not so sure how.