This is drawn from Carl Jung’s work:
Radical self-acceptance requires an effort of radical self-honesty. In order to actively move deeper into the psyche, each opportunity one takes to examine a personal feeling, thought, or action must be approached with a willingness to accept the complete and often undesirable, potentiality of what it truly indicates about oneself: that we are not always who we think or hope we are.
Each of these moments, personal or professional, is like a small step down a stairwell into the unconscious. As one descends further, confronting the deeper and darker elements hidden in the basement of the psyche, one must, in Jungian terms, work to integrate the Shadow, the breadth of one’s potential faults and wickedness rather than rush back up the stairs in denial.
One’s shadow does not disappear by looking away from it. Just as one cannot outrun the shadow cast by the body, there is no evasive tactic that separates the individual from their psychological shadow. The danger lies not in its existence, but in the attempt to deny it.
“Good does not become better by being exaggerated, but worse, and a small evil becomes a big one through being disregarded and repressed… The Shadow is very much a part of human nature, and it is only at night that no shadows exist.”
Awareness of one’s dark side allows for recognition and management when it inevitably rises uninvited. One must know of a problem to address it; admitting illness is itself an act of healing. Though self-acceptance and authenticity may sound simple, the work of radical self-acceptance and individuation is anything but. In an absolute sense it may be impossible; in a human sense, it may be life’s greatest and most difficult endeavor.
To truly accept one’s downfalls, weaknesses, potential evils, and shameful or unpopular qualities, to admit that what we fear or despise in others may live within us, and that we are not, and will never be, entirely who we wish to be is a task that shakes the core of the psyche. Yet it is proportionally essential to a fulfilled and integrated life.
Ultimately, Jung’s work offers insight and method not only for identifying the flaws in our internal navigation system, but for gaining access to its controls, allowing us to set our direction according to who we truly are, and where we are actually able and willing to go.
Source: Carl Jung (via contemporary lecture analysis,
“Becoming Your True Self – The Psychology of Carl Jung,” YouTube, 2021).
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