For Carl Gustav Jung, the renowned Swiss psychiatrist and founder of Analytical Psychology, the shadow is the diametrical opposite of the conscious self, the ego. The shadow represents everything that the conscious person does not wish to acknowledge within themselves.

For example, if you think of yourself as a kind and generous person, your shadow is unkind and greedy. The shadow is not necessarily good or bad. It simply counterbalances some of the one-sided dimensions of our personality. Jung emphasized the importance of being aware of shadow material and incorporating it into conscious awareness. Otherwise, we project these attributes onto others.

A sweet lil’ story that’s a bit like Adam and Eve, without all the deception and sin. It a Hawaiian creation myth, How The Gods Made People: “The great gods sometimes came to earth. They surfed in rolling waves and wandered over plain and mountain. They drank from bubbling springs and picked hala fruit or ‘ohelo berries.”