How do I integrate my shadow?
>>34683475it's kind of complicated if you aren't willing to read like 5 volumes at least of jung. The short most direct answer is eventually doing active imagination consistently. Going all in and doing it unprepared or without knowing what you are doing can be quite dangerous though.Start with Modern man in search of a soul than read two essays on analytical psychology for the reading. Most of the popular stuff around "shadow work" or even active imagination is kind of a simplification and makes it way more of a "method" than jung intended. Even he thought analysts weren't terribly consistent. Look into your cultural/ethnic background and read it's folklore and history would be an additional key thing.Read/listen to fairy tales from where you genetically originate and things like that. It will help when you get more of an understanding maybe. there's not really a good answer that isn't just "do a ton of work"
>>34683511oh yeah I may not have emphasized it is worth seeing if you can see an actual jungian analyist but like I said quality isn't guaranteed so it's good to have your own familiarity with it
>>34683511NTA, I thought the shadow was a metaphor for a person's capacity for mayhem. What does somebody accomplish by doing active imagination and what are they supposed to be imagining?
>>34683543the point is individuation and bringing the different aspects of your psyche into harmony. The shadow has a bunch of associations and for different people will present differently but it's involved in sex, mayhem, violence, consumption, gore, parasites just the sort of underneath the chtonic is the fancy word used for it. it's part of our psyche i don't really use the term 'shadow work' my self that's more of a popular thing. The goal is individuation and the first and most primary factor of that is with the anima or animus which to start is not differentiated very much from the shadow so it carries some of that energy. A key thing is it's also not a capacity, it is an active present force functioning in your psyche and most people just reduce it mostly to the unconscious so it's impacting them just in a way they are unable to mediate or deal with. By individuating rather than sort of being led from underneath you can see how the shadow effects things and sort of maintain a good relationship to it. Active imagination is more of a sort of self induced psychosis thing where you interact with like apparently conscious entities in your imagination. q
>>34683571Thanks for the clarification, you've grabbed my interest enough that I'll do some further reading like you suggested.
