Befriending the Shadow

One of my favourite stories as a child was Ursula K. Le Guin’s “The Wizard of Earthsea”.  I was enchanted by the rich imagery Le Guin conjures through her mastery of language. 

But it was only after re-reading the fantasy novel in my forties, during a period of intense psychotherapy, that I came to appreciate the strong Jungian themes running through the story. 

The main protagonist of the story is Ged - a brilliant but arrogant young wizard-in-training, whose impatient desire to look more powerful than his rival Jasper leads him to cast a spell that unleashes a mysterious, monstrous and formidable shadow creature into the world. 

From this moment onwards, the shadow creature endeavours to hunt Ged down, which forces Ged to give up his pursuits of glory and renown as a wizard and run as far away from the monster as possible. 

Ged begins to live a more humble life of service, which allows him the experiences he needs to arrive at a place of humility and understanding. Ged eventually realises that the shadow will haunt him all of his life, unless he turns around and faces it.   

At first Ged believes that the shadow is something external and outside of his control that he must destroy. But he ultimately comes to realise that the shadow creature is in fact a split off part of himself - a trauma wound - that he must learn to accept and to integrate.

“In silence, man and shadow met face to face, and stopped. Aloud and clearly, breaking that old silence, Ged spoke the shadow’s name, and in the same moment the shadow spoke without lips or tongue, saying the same word: ‘Ged.’ And the two voices were one.” (Le Guin, p.164)

Through Ged’s struggle with the shadow, Ursula K. Le Guin illustrates that one of life’s most difficult battles is the inner struggle to recognise, accept, integrate and nurture all of the wounded or ‘shadow’ parts of our identity—even those parts we might find fearful, hateful, or untameable.

Like Ged’s internal struggle with his shadow, during my own process of ‘shadow work’ in psychotherapy, it seemed that the more I became familiar with the unconscious ‘shadow’ parts of myself, the less frightening they became.

Ged’s many encounters with the shadow throughout Earthsea over the course of the story, mirror my own experience of how coming to know oneself is a life-long journey. There are no short-cuts - for adults or for children. Bruce Perry has said:

“Troubled children are in some kind of pain – and pain makes people irritable, anxious and aggressive. Only patient, loving, consistent care works: there are no short-term miracle cures. This is as true of the child of three or four as it is for a teenager. Just because a child is older does not mean a punitive approach is more appropriate or effective. Unfortunately, again, the system doesn’t seem to recognise this. It tends to provide ‘quick fixes’ and when those fail, then there are long punishments. We need programs and resources that acknowledge that punishment, deprivation and force merely re-traumatize these children and exacerbate their difficulties.” (The Boy who was Raised as a Dog, Perry & Szalavitz, 2006, p. 244)

Le Guin’s story emphasises that you cannot beat trauma out of a human being.  You can only love it out.

Peeling back layers of woundedness requires patient, loving and consistent care.  I believe it also requires the support of an experienced mentor like Ged’s master Ogion. A therapist who is wiser, stronger and kind - and who has traveled their own path in and out of the shadow world.

Personally, recognising, accepting and integrating the wounded parts of myself was not a one-off, sudden realisation that happened overnight in a flash of lightning; rather, it was a laborious and often painful process of self-discovery and surrender that took me, like Ged, to a wide open sea that felt bleak, cold and lonely.    

At some point, like Ged, I felt able to recognise my shadow as the ugliest, most horrible and beastly parts of myself – the defence mechanisms associated with ‘Complex Post Traumatic Stress Disorder’ that are extremely hard to admit to, and are also undeniably hard for those closest to me to bear.  

However, in naming this shadow as me – Juliette - by befriending it, communicating with it and thanking it, rather than seeing it as an enemy to destroy or run from, I was able to integrate the shadow into myself – and, at last, to begin to live a life on my own terms.

By integrating and absorbing the shadow back into himself, Ged finally accepts himself as whole.  And with wholeness, comes power.  

“Ged reached out his hands, dropping his staff, and took hold of his shadow, of the black self that reached out to him. Light and darkness met, and joined and were one.” (Le Guin, p. 165)

Ged’s struggle against the shadow monster can be interpreted in Jungian terms as an archetypal story - a story that teaches us the power of recognising what is unconscious within our psyche.  

As Le Guin describes Ged’s realisation that there is no light without shadow, or shadow without light, we, the reader at last comprehend that in order to live a life without fear or suffering, and to fully embrace the power of his light, Ged must stop rejecting and living separately from the shadow part of himself he fears or despises. Instead, he must learn to accept and live with it.  

"…Ged had neither lost nor won but, naming the shadow of his death with his own name, had made himself whole: a man: who, knowing his whole true self, cannot be used or possessed by any power other than himself, and whose life therefore is lived for life’s sake and never in the service of ruin, or pain, or hatred, or the dark." (Le Guin, p. 165-166) 

Ged goes on to become one of the wisest and most powerful magicians in the land.

Le Guin’s story is a timeless allegory – a gift of a story that I carry with me like Ged’s beautiful yew-wood staff - ingrained with courage and with hope.

Like Ged, by recognising that the shadow is and always was a part of myself - and by calling it my name, its true name, I was able to begin to tame the shadow - to play with it and to love it - allowing it to lose its destructive power over my life.

Carl Jung affirms:

“Until you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life and you will call it fate.” - C.G. Jung