Erich Neumann

Why have the Germans always been right about psychology and the human condition? I've learned a lot recently from Erich Neumann. I've been struggling really hard with my place in life and this world recently, and the universe somehow steered me to this video on YouTube. How to Integrate Your Shadow - The Dark Side is Unrealized Potential. It's strange how this happened, but I found this video in my suggestions but marked it as 'watch later' and forgot about it. So, I'm donating platelets yesterday ( a 2-hour session), looking through my 'watch later' list for something to watch, and pulled up this video. But I need to back up a bit: I have been feeling 'off', angry, useless, agitated, and unhappy lately.

Amidst all my gifts and abundance, I still felt agitated and wanting. I wanted to call a therapist (3rd time's a charm!), but I could not even begin to know how to explain my feelings to someone else, so I've been putting that phone call off for weeks. I needed something, and I didn't know what that something was. I was seeking punishment and desiring failure. For instance, I liked it when my hotel reservation got screwed up a couple weeks ago, and I was left without a place to stay in a small town at 10pm. I said, 'Thank you for putting me in my place!" "Finally, I get what I deserve! (you entitled little bitch)." That feeling of insignificance and 'smallness' was good. I had been reduced. So that incident led to thinking about why it felt good to be made small...again. Petite like a child with petite powers, over nothing. I liked it. Then, I was looking for something to watch and decided on that video. What is strange is the timing. I could have watched that video last week, the month before, or any other time while struggling. The time was yesterday, and that's when I needed it most. That's when the effects were most significant and most profound. That video had been sitting on my list for months, maybe longer. But the time to watch it was the right time to watch it. I'm lying on the reclining donation chair, chuckling about how appropriate and timely it was for me. I feel more connected to something that may have controlled the events in my life. 

 Now, to the video. It's a simple video showing still photos of times in the past when people had real struggles. Neumann, Jung, and others are cited, but Neumann's quotes really got my attention and woke me up to what was missing...my shadow self. We all have a shadow side, self, or aspect that needs to be acknowledged and 'exercised.' That's what I realized I was missing, the connection to that dark side that I had been repressing in trying to be perfect, ideal, and 'good.' I had labored so many years in trying to be that way, not to rock the boat, not be a burden to anyone, and evidently, that's not good for the psyche. 

As the video was playing, I copied the quotes and put them in my phone notes app, absorbing all the words I could because this resonated with me so deeply and timely.