You Go There. I Go Here.

Persona, according to Carl Jung, is “the side of personality one shows to the world”.

Contrast that with a person’s shadow which “represents those qualities that people do not wish to acknowledge but attempt to hide from themselves and others”.

That’s it! That’s why people can’t seem to grasp the whole me… or that’s why I don’t understand others the way they want me to. There is a part of their personality that is hidden. This part may be denied or may not be acknowledged by the person, or it may be known but is not expressed as the person’s persona is.

What strikes a chord is that each of us possesses a shadow. We all believe that our shadow may be what makes us weak or strange or unlikable, but each one of us has it. This similarity ultimately reflects our shared humanity. The persona and shadow are just some of the archetypes proposed by Jung. These archetypes are patterns or images that have been passed from generation to generation, ultimately making up our collective unconscious.

We all have a face we show to the world, and we all have a face we hide as well. That’s why we should not be quick to judge or blame… We all go through the same trials and face similar conflicts as we try to acknowledge, accept, and embrace our shadow. That’s why we recognize, praise, and envy others’ strengths (because we want to make them our own). That’s also why we pounce and shred other people’s weaknesses (because we do not want them within us). All our roads are not easy… To pass the first test of courage- that’s what we all want.