The Shadow That Carl Jung Talked About

     If you are anything like me, you may have grown up and gone through your young adulthood thinking you had to always be a really good and moral person.  Of course, it is good to be a good and moral person, but excessively trying to be a 'good' person is not always healthy in the long run.  One might have a lack of boundaries due to wanting to please and thinking one had to always be nice.
     Some people innately have a positive self worth where with they can maneuver through life without any neurosis, or not too much anyway.  Some people are unafraid, and some are very afraid.  Fear is everything love is not, but I would say that I was one of those 'afraid' people.  I guess it took alcohol to make me unafraid, what some call liquid courage, and I never even discovered that side of alcohol until I was in my forties. 
     When you have been oppressed by people, such as romantic partners, you can become so distant from who you are, that you do not even know yourself at all anymore.  That was how I was, like a stranger to myself, no tools for coping, no understanding of what Jung talked about, 'the shadow.' 
     When I realized that I was not this perfect woman I wanted to be, I fell apart.  I was so far from good, and this was before I even learned that alcohol could make me feel incredibly brave and free. 
     I had been a soccer mom, the perfect wife, the perfect mother, the perfect housekeeper, and party maker with the perfect image, but it all fell apart, and nothing went right.  It all fell apart.  I could not hang on to my husband, my house, my stature, not even my job in the end.  I landed up with the wrong man after my divorce, and it was like a domino effect of bad events.
     Still, I kept my composure and dealt with my father's sickness and death, my loss of my second partner, and more, not knowing that so many more trials were yet to come.
     I will spare the reader the details, but at one point all I did was make one bad decision after another.  I am surprised I did not completely destroy myself and my life.  The hardest part was that if I had accepted my whole self and not just parts, I would have been okay.  If I had respected myself, I would have not felt so guilty for not being perfect.  I could have been honest with others and with myself, without being afraid.  I was afraid of my Jungian shadow most of all I think.
     I realize that the term is abstract unless one has studied his philosophy of psychology.  No one can be perfect, all good, and to think that is possible is only a road to pain.  Accepting oneself totally is the only way to proceed. 

Back From the Other Side: a poem by Leslie Walsh

I dreamed you came back to me, back from somewhere,
Appeared from the other side,
Your hair still light, your feet were bare,
Your clothes were white, and it seemed you could almost glide.

You said, "I watch over the ocean and the shore," your job to watch o'er,
You said you owned no possessions, your clothing only that you wore.

I followed you, asking if you saw Jesus, if you found God there, answers of truth found somewhere,
Never when you were here did you believe,
Aimlessly I tried to find you again to know if you changed the things you perceive. 

All I know is you came back from the other side, that you watch over the tide,
That there is no death,
Just another place beyond our very breath.

And now I long for you, your fair face and white clothing, your feet bare on the sand,
Now you have gone back there, and slipped through my hand, back to the other side.