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Shadow Boxing
Can you escape your shadow?
Probably not. It might be nice to think all those doubts and fears that we confound ourselves with could someday be retired for good. But most evidence and opinion suggests that those self-defeating voices are inseparable from our essential selves. We are no more likely to escape them completely than we are to wake up one morning as someone else.
Carl Jung formulated that our negative impulses are rooted in a universal, archetypal aspect of the human psyche: “Everyone carries a shadow, and the less it is embodied in the individual’s conscious life, the blacker and denser it is. At all counts, it forms an unconscious snag, thwarting our most well-meant intentions.”
What does it mean to embody our shadows in our conscious lives? I think one answer is simply to get to know them; to bring them into the light of day, name them, and hold them where they belong—subordinate to our aspirations.
Since April is National Poetry Month, I thought it would be fun to share Robert Louis Stevenson’s playful consideration of the shadow, published in 1885. You might wonder, “How can a poem written for children illuminate my adult tendency to sabotage myself?” The poem gains dimension when you remember that the author was also the creator of one of the most iconic representations of inner struggle with the shadow in English literature: The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.
My Shadow
by Robert Louis Stevenson
I have a little shadow that goes in and out with me,
And what can be the use of him is more than I can see.
He is very, very like me from the heels up to the head;
And I see him jump before me, when I jump into my bed.
The funniest thing about him is the way he likes to grow—
Not at all like proper children, which is always very slow;
For he sometimes shoots up taller like an india-rubber ball,
And he sometimes gets so little that there’s none of him at all.
He hasn’t got a notion of how children ought to play,
And can only make a fool of me in every sort of way.
He stays so close beside me, he’s a coward you can see;
I’d think shame to stick to nursie as that shadow sticks to me!
One morning, very early, before the sun was up,
I rose and found the shining dew on every buttercup;
But my lazy little shadow, like an errant sleepy-head,
Had stayed at home behind me and was fast asleep in bed.
How well do you know your shadow? When do you find opportunities to leave it home in bed?