2025-06-29 What is the human shadow?

The shadow is our dark side — the part we want to ignore and pretend doesn t exist. It holds our secrets, impulses, repressed thoughts, and raw feelings. It s the part of us that wants to cross the line and do the unthinkable or the socially taboo.

Our shadow is full of primitive, raw energy, and we will find the roots of anger, greed, jealousy, deceit, hate, bigotry, and selfishness there.

Swiss psychiatrist Carl Jung developed the concept of the shadow. He famously said,

“Everyone carries a shadow, and the less is embodied in the individual’s conscious life, the blacker and denser it is.”