The Shadow By Marie-Louise von Franz: Why You Keep Running From the One Thing That Will Heal You — Transcript

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1. 0:00Let's look now at what Young called the
2. 0:01shadow.
3. 0:03One typical nightmare is that one is p
4. 0:05pursued by some terrible or demonic or
5. 0:09unknown power and one runs and runs for
6. 0:12one's life and knowing all the time in
7. 0:15the dream that finally they will get
8. 0:18one. And you hide and you can't hide and
9. 0:22and they will see you and you look for
10. 0:24another hiding place and they will
11. 0:27discover you again. and you run and run.
12. 0:30Persecution always means something wants
13. 0:33to come to us. The only way to meet a
14. 0:37persecuting demon is to turn around and
15. 0:40to say, "Here I am. What do you want
16. 0:42from me?" Then the nightmarish pursuer
17. 0:46generally changes face. It simply
18. 0:48represents that we have turned away from
19. 0:52some part of our psyche and therefore it
20. 0:55runs after us. It wants to get at us
21. 0:58literally and but we don't want it. The
22. 1:02unconscious shows us the face we show
23. 1:04it. If we reject something within us
24. 1:07then it becomes ne destructive to us.
25. 1:11And if we don't reject it that's what I
26. 1:13mean by saying turning around and saying
27. 1:15what do you in a friendly manner what do
28. 1:17you want then you suddenly see that it
29. 1:20isn't so bad. Then you have a chance
30. 1:24that whatever pursues one has shows a a
31. 1:28more amanable face and that one can make
32. 1:31some pact with it or some arrangement.
33. 1:35The the shadow we is what the name we
34. 1:40generally use for uh persons of the same
35. 1:44sex appearing in dreams which very often
36. 1:47have a slight inferior quality or
37. 1:49opposite quality to the ego of the
38. 1:52dreamer. The shadow can be our inferior
39. 1:55side, our best enemy so to speak, but
40. 1:59can also have just be our other side. A
41. 2:02beautiful couple of ego and his shadow
42. 2:06are for instance Doniote and Sancho
43. 2:08Pansa. The one being completely crazy
44. 2:11and unrealistic and the other being a
45. 2:15body man down to earth. They they they
46. 2:19can't live without each other. Sancho is
47. 2:22not evil and Doniote is not only good
48. 2:25but they are the a typical example of e
49. 2:28the ego and its shadow in thousand
50. 2:31forms. With our framework well in place,
51. 2:36we turn now to the interpretation of
52. 2:38modern dreams.
53. 2:41Beginning with men, we see how dreams
54. 2:45reveal an unlived shadow side.
55. 2:50The shadow is the same gender as the
56. 2:54dreamer.
57. 2:56I think it's really important that we
58. 2:58recognize too that in our society when
59. 3:01the feminine is mentioned people tend to
60. 3:05think we are talking about women.
61. 3:09But in this process of integration
62. 3:13in the individuation process,
63. 3:17it is the relationship to the feminine
64. 3:20within
65. 3:22that is determining the relationship to
66. 3:24the feminine without.
67. 3:30Inside everyone lurks the shadow.
68. 3:33Behind the mask we wear for others.
69. 3:36Beneath the face we show ourselves lives
70. 3:38an unknown side of our personality.
71. 3:41At night when we lie helpless in our
72. 3:43sleep.
73. 3:44Its image confronts us face to face. Dr.
74. 3:47Von France dreams show us our onlived
75. 3:49life through the figure of the shadow.
76. 3:52Psychologically what is the meaning of
77. 3:54the word shadow?
78. 3:56That is simply a name we use for the
79. 3:59fact that most people are not fully
80. 4:03aware of all their personality traits.
81. 4:06Our we like to imagine ourselves as
82. 4:10being intelligent or generous or
83. 4:14goodnatured or practically gifted and
84. 4:17whatnot. And there are other qualities
85. 4:20of our conscious personality, inferior
86. 4:23qualities which we know somewhere. I
87. 4:27mean the surroundings tell us about them
88. 4:29generally and in quarrels it comes out
89. 4:32but we tend to push it into the shadow.
90. 4:35We don't look at it and when we think
91. 4:38about ourselves we forget about these
92. 4:41qualities.
93. 4:43uh only our best friends and people we
94. 4:46live with or marital partners can
95. 4:48generally very clearly point out these
96. 4:51more in inferior traits.
97. 4:54Can the shadow also take a positive form
98. 4:57because of of wanting to play a social
99. 5:00role. Most people identify more with
100. 5:02their positive qualities and therefore
101. 5:05the shadow is generally more awkward,
102. 5:07inferior, sometimes a bit evil or uh
103. 5:11socially unadapted. But that is not
104. 5:14always so. There are people who prefer
105. 5:17to live their worst side and then their
106. 5:19shadow is positive. Uh there has been
107. 5:23made studies among criminals who live so
108. 5:27to speak the worst side of their
109. 5:29personality and then they have a
110. 5:31positive shadow. They have a a
111. 5:34well-meaning
112. 5:36helper of man as a shadow figure. But
113. 5:42the normal average is that we identify
114. 5:45or prefer to identify more with our
115. 5:48positive and uh developed traits of
116. 5:52character and therefore push more the
117. 5:54inferior side into the shadow. The f
118. 5:58most famous example is Mr. Jackekal and
119. 6:00Mr. Hyde. There that is a literary
120. 6:04representation where we can really see
121. 6:06how man and his shadow live together and
122. 6:09act upon each other.
123. 6:13Everybody casts a shadow so to speak by
124. 6:17the very fact that we are for instance
125. 6:20uh if we use a lot of intellectual
126. 6:23thinking our feeling will be relatively
127. 6:27inferior undeveloped because we don't
128. 6:30give it enough time. or somebody who who
129. 6:34works mostly with machines and technical
130. 6:37things tends to neglect his fantasy, his
131. 6:41passive fantasizing or his artistic
132. 6:44gifts. And so we but so the shadow, if
133. 6:49we repress the shadow, we are only half
134. 6:52people. That's why there are in lit
135. 6:55literature such tales that the devil
136. 6:57steals the shadow from people and then
137. 6:59they are so to speak in the claws of the
138. 7:02devil because we need a shadow. The the
139. 7:05shadow is what keeps us down to earth
140. 7:08which reminds us of our incompleteness
141. 7:11and which also provides us with uh
142. 7:15complimentations.
143. 7:16We we we would be very poor if we were
144. 7:21only what we imagine to be.
145. 7:25While you are looking at our shadow
146. 7:27nose, it is important to remember
147. 7:30that the shadow is not always dark,
148. 7:35mean, dangerous,
149. 7:38evil.
150. 7:40Shadow for Yung means those parts of the
151. 7:44same gender self that are still in the
152. 7:48unconscious
153. 7:51unknown to our conscious ego.
154. 7:55Is it possible to actually diagnose a
155. 7:58disease from a dream?
156. 8:02After the event, one can say so, but I
157. 8:05wouldn't have dared to say so ahead of
158. 8:07time. I could I would have only said you
159. 8:10are living against your own instincts
160. 8:13and that will very likely end up in some
161. 8:16kind of disease
162. 8:18because it's obvious if you eat too much
163. 8:22or too little or if you sleep too much
164. 8:24or too little if if you do anything
165. 8:27against your instinct you are likely to
166. 8:29catch a disease.
167. 8:31As if the dream says you did not get the
168. 8:34shock from outside, you got it from your
169. 8:36own nature. Which reminds one of the
170. 8:40fact that Yung once said there is no
171. 8:43difficulty which we ultimately are not
172. 8:45ourselves. We are our own difficulty.
173. 8:49I would say that is now achieved in in
174. 8:52our modern world. A woman can live her
175. 8:55sexual life as she likes. And so that is
176. 8:58no longer the problem. Now comes the
177. 9:01much bigger problem namely a liberation
178. 9:04of the heart.
179. 9:06That is what should that's the program
180. 9:09of the next 50 years.
181. 9:12Liberation of the heart.
182. 9:15There are two possibilities of human
183. 9:18connection. The one is technical by the
184. 9:21boss and the employee the the tram the
185. 9:25the bus conductor and and the passenger
186. 9:28and so on. And that is uh organized by
187. 9:32rules and even organized nowadays by
188. 9:35psychological rules.
189. 9:37There are training programs for managers
190. 9:40how they manage the employees and so on
191. 9:44and and that is all rationalized. And
192. 9:47the one thing which is always left out
193. 9:49is the like the liking and the disliking
194. 9:53and the feeling reaction. For instance,
195. 9:56what does not count? A woman would
196. 9:58sometimes like to say this sounds all
197. 10:01very logical, but I have a strong
198. 10:03feeling against it.
199. 10:06No, nobody would take put any attention
200. 10:09to that nowadays. If she cannot
201. 10:12formulate it as a logical deduction
202. 10:16just to say my feeling tells me my my
203. 10:19feeling instinct tells me this is no
204. 10:21good. Then one just ignores it. one
205. 10:24walks over her. And men do the same
206. 10:27thing. Men have feelings too, but they
207. 10:30ignore them. They they think they have a
208. 10:33funny feeling in their stomach and they
209. 10:35think, "Oh, oh, that is a jet lag or
210. 10:38something." And they they rationalize it
211. 10:41away. They don't listen to the the
212. 10:44reactions of the heart, spill them out
213. 10:47that way, and that's the way it has to
214. 10:49be. The whole depersonalization and the
215. 10:52whole mass organization of modern
216. 10:55society is destructive to feeling.
217. 10:59Bon France has emphasized
218. 11:02that the face that we turn to the
219. 11:05unconscious is the face that is
220. 11:07reflected back to us. In other words, if
221. 11:11we are angry, we often get an angry
222. 11:13response back from the unconscious.
223. 11:16If we are diffident, the same kind of
224. 11:21diffidence comes back to us.
225. 11:25It's very important when we feel
226. 11:28ourselves being chased by a demon
227. 11:33that we stop and hold instead of
228. 11:37running. Some people run for a lifetime
229. 11:39away from this thing that is running
230. 11:42after them. If we can just stop and turn
231. 11:46around and say, "What do you want?"
232. 11:52Bring in all the strength you've got to
233. 11:55say it or to look this thing in the
234. 11:58face.
235. 12:00It's amazing how you may get an answer
236. 12:04and it will tell you what it wants. It
237. 12:06may say, "I want to love you. I want to
238. 12:10know you. I want you to know me.
239. 12:14And the demonic may suddenly become
240. 12:19the its opposite. Remember those two
241. 12:22energies that are in opposition, the
242. 12:25contraries that make that huge energy
243. 12:28once it starts to move.
244. 12:32So to turn around and face that energy
245. 12:36may be to turn the devil into Christ.
246. 12:43Remember Satan and Christ were half
247. 12:48brothers and Lucifer does mean morning