How relationships can be the best place for transformation
“I don’t want us to be each other’s unresolved trauma.”
The meeting of two personalities is like the contact of two chemical substances: if there is any reaction, both are transformed. — Carl G. Jung
“I don’t want us to be each other’s unresolved trauma.” I told to my boyfriend, after one of our biggest fights.
Relationships can be the best place for trauma projection, and I didn’t know how to deal with all of this.
Because I have been an Artemis, all my life. Fighting alone. Hunting alone.
Now, I had to be an Aphrodite and embrace partnership.
Making peace rather than war? Creating a life with a man? Are you kidding me?
It took me a while to realize that I have an extremely wrong understanding of independence. My partner was just trying to create a safe and nurturing commitment between us, and I was just perceiving this as a threat to my personal idea of feminism.
Devotion was not in my dictionary. Now I see that most of the estimations I practiced as a feminist were against my feminine energy. Doesn't that sound paradoxical?
I was unconsciously suppressing my all ability to love and be compassionate. I was suppressing my receptiveness.
How?
Being the only child of divorced parents, solitude was not always a preference for me. I eventually started believing that the only way to be self-sufficent is to be alone. Alone was safe. Alone was strong. Alone was independent. Alone was free. Alone was easy.
But also, being alone was a part of the dark side of my psyche.
Shadow
We all carry a dark side in our psyche. Carl G. Jung, founder of analytical psychology, calls this side shadow. According to Jung, while ego is something we consciously know, shadow is perfectly hidden and we fail to see it. Whatever we ignore, repress and deny in our personality does not go away, but stays as our shadow.
For Jung, shadow and ego come from the same source, and balance each other. Ignoring this dark side that we are not completely aware of might be damaging, as well as ignoring the gold side of our psyche.
There is no light without darkness.
Projection of the shadow
Projection is always easier than assimilation. Unless we do a conscious work on our shadows, they will be projected on somebody else or something else. Especially on our partners.
Shadows In relationships
To fall in love is to project the most noble and infinitely valuable part of one’s being onto another human being. Robert A. Johnson
“Let’s heal together.”
I have one bad news, and one good one. And they are the same: Relationships are the best place for shadow projection.
Shadow projection might be destructive in intimate relationships, but it can also be transformative.
How can it be transformative?
1-) Observe your subconscious defense mechanism. What threatens your ego in your relationship?
2-) How often do you blame your partner? What do you blame them for? What is the certain behavior you focus on in your partner? Can it be something you subconsciously deny in yourself?
3-) What triggers you the most in them? What do you dislike about them?
4-) What do you like about them the most? Yes. Shadow projection does not have to always be negative. We sometimes tend to deny, repress or ignore good parts of our personality subconsciously, if they were not appreciated on the date.
5-) Most importantly, do not beat yourself up! Everybody does this. Use this as an opportunity as a self-awareness, growth, and better connection with your partner.
Thank you for reading.
See: The Lowest Vibration In the Spectrum: Shame
Resources: Johnson, R. A. (2007). Owning your own shadow: understanding the dark side of the psyche. Seoul: Ecolib.
