OUR SHADOW SIDE

There was a character named Chris from a TV show called Northern Exposure. Chris, a DJ was also kind of a resident philosopher. At the end of one of his broadcasts he said, “We all want to be Obi Wan Kenobi, but there’s a little bit of Darth Vadar in all of us.”

What a great one-liner.

Put in the language of Carl Jung, we all have a shadow side. That does not even mean that it is bad or evil, it’s simply hidden from our consciousness. It is what we have somehow decided was unacceptable. (I don’t want to over simplify this—the reasons why any of us would submerge aspects of ourselves is highly complex.)

But here’s the deal for Christ In Training; what do you do when something crops up in you that seems to be unacceptable or abhorrent?

In the past denial or blaming someone else were great defense mechanisms. It was very easy to say, “Well if you hadn’t done that then I would not have…;” or “If only I was better nurtured as a child…”

Accepting our shadow is about realizing our woundedness and our need to be healed.

“Lord, I found something inside myself I do not like. I cannot even come to believe right now that it is really a part of me. I realize on some level this is a piece of my woundedness that I have never before addressed. I am open; I am willing to be healed. Thank you, God.