After hearing and watching the infamous “slap” by Will Smith during the Oscars this year, I had quite a few thoughts rushing to my mind. But, of course, most of those thoughts have already been discussed and written about extensively in the media.
But one thought that continues to linger has to do with something I learned in my psychology classes many years ago. It’s called the Shadow Self, a concept created by Carl Jung, one of the pioneers of talk therapy.
The Shadow Self: Accepting our Dark Side
The Shadow Self essentially refers to those qualities, characteristics, impulses, and personality traits we don’t like in ourselves. As a result, we expend energy to repress those qualities or deny their existence. Carl Jung argued that the Shadow Self exists in all of us, whether we want to admit it or not.
Jung’s Shadow Self explains why we need to avoid judging Will Smith as a “bad person” based on his actions, as it could easily have been you or I doing the slapping.
Anytime you’ve felt the urge or acted upon the impulse to be mean, you caught a glimpse of your Shadow. Lied to a friend? That’s the Shadow in you. Gave someone the finger? Yep, it’s the Shadow. Thinking of flying down to Moscow and torturing Putin? Your Shadow is the one booking the flight and planning the torture.
Applying this to Your Life
Because everyone has a Shadow Self, it’s futile (and unhealthy) to try and deny it. To successfully manage your Shadow, you need to start by accepting it. Don’t deny that you have a dark side. For, if you deny it, you are more likely to repress it, and when you repress something for too long, you lose the ability to learn how to control it.
Instead, accept that you have a dark side; accept that you have a Shadow Self – one that is just as real as you are. Once you acknowledge that you have a dark side and recognize what it looks like, you can begin to understand and control it without letting it control you.
Summary
What Will Smith did on that night was wrong on so many levels. He displayed aggression and assaulted a colleague in front of millions of people. Because of it, he deserves the consequences he receives.
But whatever opinion you and I might have about how far his behaviour crossed a boundary, we need to accept that all of us have the potential to act out similarly.
We can all judge Will Smith’s behaviour as wrong and inappropriate and that he needs to be held responsible for his actions. But we can’t judge him as a person. In a split second of poor judgment, his Shadow got the best of him, which could happen to you or me.
Richard
P.S. If you’re interested in exploring your Shadow Self in a safe, confidential, and therapeutic environment, reach out to someone on our team of professional therapists. They’d be more than happy to accompany you on your journey.
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