Embracing Your Dark Side

Article Summary

Everyone strives to be a good person, by doing various deeds from helping out others to donating to charities. We all want to be good and we all want our actions to be a proof of it. But the question Dallas Jeffs asking us here is, if we have to perform good deeds to be good, what is our default state?

We all have a dark side, the side which is not always politically correct. The side which we don’t want to acknowledge because the pressure to be good is really strong. But avoidance is rarely a solution.

Carl Jung and the Shadow

A 20^th century psychologist Carl Jung theorized that we all have a dark side, called ‘The Shadow’ which is the unconscious part of our mind. It is the part of our mind which we try to downplay because it is the negative aspect of our personality which we always try to hide.

This shadow is that negative force which hides most of our negative traits. Jung infers that shadow can grow more in people with low-self esteem, to an extent where it starts shadowing the positive traits. The fear of being judged for negative aspects can lead a person to bury more parts in their shadow, whether or not they’re negative.

Jung says, that to become a fully realized person it is important for one to embrace their negative or dark side. Ignoring our shadow is like ignoring a part of our body. We need to fully embrace and understand it in order to become self-aware.

Everyone strives for achievements and perfections, however when one fails it is often accompanied not by just failure but also anger and resentment. The more self aware we are and the more we embrace ourselves, the less likely it is to occur. Once we start to embrace our dark sides, it becomes easier to identify other’s.

What is “Good”?

Just like it is easier to identify darkness when there is light against it, to identify our shadow we have to first realize what is actually good. But what is this good?

For most people, ‘good’ is good morals, but morality in itself is a relative concept. Good morality depends on several factors like our religion, upbringing, education, etc. This always creates a situation of conflict, we don’t always know what is good and we also don’t know what is good for the others and what actually makes it good for them.

For many people, being selfless is being good. To give away their possessions, to help and take care of everyone and everything. But there’s as such thing as being too good. If you’re too good to others and not good to yourself it ultimately turns the darkness inwards. Being too selfless often burns you out internally.

It is difficult to take care of others when we don’t take care of ourselves. We need to fulfil our own needs before trying to fulfil other’s. And the best way to do it is ‘self-honesty’ especially in aspects of our life which we don’t like. Sometimes, it is better to acknowledge that we are not that good instead of always acting like it. Our morals can be flawed and we need to learn that it is nothing wrong and completely okay. It not only help us to accept ourselves, but also others.

Embracing Your Own Dark Side

As Dallas put it, just because we can identify darkness in others, it doesn’t mean we’re accepting it also. Although, we should not tolerate wrong actions or ideas, we should at least, tolerate the individual themselves – enough to help them.

Acceptance is very hard to come by today, and if we don’t get it from our surroundings, we’re bound to seek it from questionable sources. People with low-self esteem often give into darkness because they don’t feel accepted.

We are often too quick to accuse and too quick to judge. And we need to stop to look at the whole story. We all need to embrace our dark sides, because without darkness there is no light.

How to Embrace Your Dark Side

The first step is to become self-aware. We often know about negative traits but we fail to acknowledge them. The key to success is to harness our negative emotions in such a way which ultimately benefit us.

Jealousy and Anger are two negative emotions which can be used to our benefit. Jealousy often comes from our desire to achieve. If we channel our inner jealousy, it’s energy can actually motivate us to achieve our goals.

Same is the case with Anger, which if used constructively can help us achieve things we think are out of our reach. The source of anger can often serve as a motivation to do better and rectify that source or situation.

A dark side is very complex. We think we should suppress it, but it is certainly more compound. We don’t need to suppress our dark side, instead we should embrace it from time to time. It is one way to become more self aware and successful in life.

Ruchika Verma