You’ve probably heard of Carl Jung before, but I never knew of this one particular concept that I now think about quite regularly. There are things about ourselves that we personally dislike or think that society will reject us if we let them be. The shadow, in each of us, are the aspects of our personality that we don’t like and therefore reject or repress. The shadow is our repressed identity.
There’s stuff we all put on the back burner in our minds, gut feelings we have that go ignored, fears we disregard, or immoral urges / irrational thoughts we reject.
It’s an interesting endeavor to attempt to bring these things to light, and one I think we should all be pursuing in one way or another. I received advice from a professional recently, about what tends to happen when we keep things buried for too long — they take control. Usually the things we ignore come back to haunt us. Pushing things aside only makes their grip on us that much more powerful.
Don’t ignore your gut feelings. Your future self will thank you.