I recently heard an interview with a couple who made big lifestyle shifts toward simplicity. Something unexpected happened when they were cleaning out the back of a dark closet.
They found six kids’ toys that had never been played with. They knew this because the toys were still in their unopened packaging! The cherry on the top was that these six toys had been gifts given two Christmases before.
Hidden in the recesses of the house, they had found unopened gifts.
I suspect we’ve all had versions of holiday gifts we have put aside and later found. And, in the same way that we have unopened gifts from others, we also have innate gifts in the back closets of our being. We have inner, unopened gifts that are waiting for us to discover them.
These unopened gifts are stored in what Swiss psychiartist, Care Jung, call our “shadow.”
According to Jung, our shadow is the unknown part of our personality. It consists of those traits that we dislike, feel ashamed about, or are unaware of. These traits may be positive or negative.
Either way, the key to health, wholeness, and growth is to try to bring our awareness to those things that we keep in the back closet of our personalities.
How do we do this?
Well, an interesting aspect of the shadow is that, when we have exiled a trait in ourselves, we are often very aware of it in others. If bossy behavior rubs me the wrong way and I avoid doing it myself, you can bet it’s the first thing I notice in others. Bossiness is being stored in my shadow.
Then, says Jung, as we bring shadow traits into our awareness and work with them compassionately, we open the door to powerful discoveries. Each of those rejected and ignored aspects is a catalyst and a key. It’s a catalyst in that shining a light on these suppressed areas frees up creative psychic energy. It’s a key in that it points us to a wound of sorts that, if tended to, leads to gorwth and healing.
So, when my friend Bob gets bossy, my work is to see through my annoyance and into the potential that bossiness holds for me. I can see it as an invitation to consider how I might benefit from adding a dose of the boss into my life and work. Chances are it’ll do me some good!
When looking through the lens of our shadow, the people that most gets on our nerves are our greatest teachers. They are a personal trainer for our soul. Attributes we might think of as weaknesses activate our strengths. The parts of us we want to push back into the closet guide us to our next best self.
So, what traits most annoy you? What aspects of yourself have you disowned? These are likely unopened gifts that are waiting to be discovered.
Try it out. Open one of these unopened gifts, and you may just see a whole new you step out of the shadows.