Understanding Your Mind - The Ego, Shadow, & Projection

The part of your mind that is within your conscious awareness and contains your sense of self is referred to in Jungian Psychology as the ego. This part of your mind is primarily concerned with your survival and safety. When you were born, you became apart of a pre-existing family and the larger culture that they belonged to. Slowly, bit by bit, you were shaped and molded by those around you. Qualities and behaviors that were valued by your family and culture were rewarded, while others were shamed. This external pressure began to shape your sense of self and the personality that you presented to the world. Internally you began to identify with certain qualities as being “me”, while rejecting or hiding those that didn’t help you to fit in or to survive. This slow pruning process of your inherent wholeness was a natural part of your early life. It was important for you to survive, to fit in, and to be loved and your ego rightly prioritized those things. But your survival and acceptance was not without cost. As your sense of self and conscious personality formed you inevitably lost touch with aspects of your authentic nature. What happened to those rejected and forgotten aspects of yourself?

The qualities that your ego did not believe would best enable you to survive and to fit in slowly would have drifted outside of your conscious awareness. But they did not disappear.

They now reside in your unconscious mind in what is called the shadow. Many people mistakenly believe that the shadow contains the qualities that we do not like about ourselves, but this is not true. The shadow does not contain qualities that you are consciously aware of, but rather those that you are completely unaware of. Another common misconception about the shadow is that it includes only negative or dark qualities. The shadow can include any qualities that your ego believed weren't socially adaptive. Some people find that their creativity, spontaneity, or passion was recluded to the shadow. One way that you can gain insight into what lies within your personal shadow is by examining your conscious personality or what Carl Jung called the persona. The persona is a type of psychological clothing that mediates between your internal sense of self, and the world that you interact with. Your psychological clothing allows you to control to some degree how other people perceive you. As a young child, you may have been praised for certain qualities like being good, nice, or smart. Your ego would have taken note of what

qualities you were praised for and what qualities you were shamed for, and it utilized that information to develop your persona at a very young age. What qualities would you use to

describe yourself? How do you wish to be perceived by others? When you have a few of those qualities in mind, think about their opposites. Those opposite qualities are likely within your shadow. But why is it important for you to understand what lies within

your shadow? Because of a psychological process called projection.

Projection is an unconscious process with which we attribute qualities onto others that our ego is incapable of identifying with. In other words, we are projecting our shadow out onto another person. These shadow qualities will appear to belong to the recipient of our projection, and so we will develop assumptions or expectations regarding that person. How does this affect us? Our projections will always be accompanied by a strong emotion. This can look like intense admiration or disgust. Magnetism, or repulsion depending on how our ego views these qualities. What we fail to recognize is that this intense emotional response is actually being created by our ego. As I said before, our ego is primarily concerned with our survival. It determined a long time ago that there was a specific way for us to best function in the world and it strongly believes that if we display the qualities that it has rejected we will be harmed in some way. This can happen with even seemingly positive qualities if our ego believes that they would jeopardize our ability to belong. This rejection inevitably leads to an externalization of these qualities, as the ego does not want to claim them. This concept can be very difficult to grasp. But when we understand the unconscious process that is taking place we have the ability to reclaim our power and our projections. How can reclaiming your projections help your relationship?

Within your intimate relationship you will find much more than just love and connection. How so? While your ego is dedicated to keeping your persona in tact, your unconscious mind innately desires wholeness and balance. With every projection, you are being offered a powerful invitation to reclaim the qualities and energies that were lost to your conscious mind. Each time that you notice that you are emotionally activated, you have an opportunity to turn inward and to learn more about yourself. The triggers that you experience are the doorways into your unconscious patterns. By clearly identifying the qualities that trigger you about your partner you’ll be able to see what parts of yourself need integration and

acceptance. By doing this work, you will be able to retract the projections that are causing recurring conflicts and emotional distance, you will be able to reclaim your personal power for change, and you will finally be able to meet your partner as they are, without the haze of projections obscuring your sight.

For more information on how to work with your triggers - check out the free guide on my website that will help you to understand what your fight is really about.