CONFRONTING THE UNIVERSAL ADVERSARY

Psychologists sometimes speak of the ‘shadow side within’ as a metaphor for the part of us responsible for many of our difficult and irrational behaviors and thought patterns. However ‘the shadow side’ is not our enemy to be embattled against. It doesn’t stand equal and opposite to our supposed ‘good side.’ Exactly what is the shadow side is a mystery.

It often causes us to act or think in ways we instantaneously regret, such as an angry outburst when we know better. When we say something unintentional yet telling; a ‘Freudian slip’ it indicates there is someone under the hood besides just our voluntary mind.

We have behaviors and thought patterns that we know are irrational, such as phobias or obsessions that we haven’t conquered. Sometimes the harder one tries to suppress a “weirdness,” the more warped one becomes. Those who can accept themselves with ‘defects’ are better off.

The shadow side can also put up a barrier to progress. It won’t let us evolve unless we fight for it. This serves to filter out the fainthearted.

There is another level to all this. If you are one who believes that you on some level create your external reality, then perhaps in some way we have chosen our obstacles and hardships in life. If you have experienced a succession of difficulties, they may have been created by some other part of you as a part of the plan. If you have experienced a run of bad luck, it might be because you are ready for that as a part of the test.

Life can seem horribly unfair and random in the events it throws at us. Therefore, if in some deep part of our subconscious we created this, it bespeaks of how very strong we may be and of how were not in it for a “free ride.” If someone has a life of repeated setbacks as opposed to repeated successes, it could show them to be more the master of the game compared to the more fortunate one, from the point of view of spirit. You can be judged in part by what you are up against, regardless of how it got created. If you are able to deal with big problems, you are a better person for it.

When you are deceased and there is a historian dredging up your life history, you will not be judged better if you owned a Mercedes instead of a Toyota. You will not be rated on what you currently value as “making it.” You will in part be judged on the hardships you faced and how bravely you faced them, and on how ethically you conducted yourself. So there is no need to envy those with better luck.

The real enemy is our own expectation that things should be easy or that success should be handed to us without real effort.