You’ve been working for the man who would be your boss for 5 years, now. Slaving away. When someone calls in, you’re the first to say “I can work.” You’ve been studying all the ins and outs of management in this career, and you know it’s just a matter of time before he moves up, and you get tagged to fill his role. And that’s when it comes – a BIG announcement! You know what comes next. In preparation for the advancement you’ve been looking for, you bought yourself some fancy sparkling wine. That promotion is as good as yours!

That’s when it comes. The promotion has been given to John??? John called in sick FIVE TIMES this year! YOU filled his shifts when he called out! Fuck John!

Your mind starts going to a dark place. Murder, maiming, maybe smearing a little fresh poop on John’s car. You’ve been so wronged, there should be consequences!

At some point, hopefully before John finds his name written in rabbit blood on his car, you’ll probably have a moment of clarity. “What are these thoughts? This doesn’t feel like me.”

Understanding Your “Demons”

Carl Jung-senpai was a fantastic psychologist who mapped the mind into a series of categories to more broadly understand the ways it worked. Usually, in Jungian psychology, when we discuss “demons,” we’re referring to your persona, your ego, and your shadow. Here’s your field guide.

Your Persona

As you carry yourself through life, society shapes your identity in a myriad ways. “Don’t do this.” “You can’t do that.” “Your dreams are not achievable.” As you run into traps, pitfalls, and inevitable social dead ends from maybe being a little too weird and open, microtraumas start forcing you to wear a mask, slowly building you into your most acceptable version of yourself. This is called your “persona.” Think of your persona as your “prettiest” self. It is whom you are most comfortable with society seeing.

In our scenario from the beginning, the persona is the work horse. It’s the one who sacrificed your time at the office, slaving away, looking for your big break. The important aspect to note here is that your persona isn’t really you. It’s the image you want people to see. It’s the instagram filter you put over your entire public life. The sacrifices we make to look pretty for the cameras wear on us over time. However, once that camera pans over to John, suddenly, the mask slips. The reason for carrying it this whole time has been invalidated.

The Ego

Think of your ego as you in the purest sense. It is a sensitive child, for which you have developed several mechanisms to shield from the harsh challenges in life. The ego built the mask that would eventually become your persona as people took podshots at you for not quite fitting the mold. Its response is in your interest, but it doesn’t always work out in your favor when it shows up. The Persona is one side of a coin. With it now removed, and the ego bruised, something else is coming out to voice objection.

The Shadow

The shadow is every idea you have attempted to cover up. It is thrown in a pile on the unconscious side of your mind. As we shape and form our persona, the shadow is the messy part we shave off. It’s very easy to say to yourself while reading this that obviously, the shadow is the bad guy – right?

It’s a little more complicated than that. The shadow is the messy, leftover parts from creating your persona, a mask born from small traumas. In many ways, we are hurt for simple character quirks and identity concepts we like to flirt with. In this way, a person with a shy persona may have a shadow that is brave, and ambitious. A person with an angry persona might have a shadow that is compassionate, and deeply empathetic. A person with a homophobic persona may have a homosexual shadow.

So – why does the shadow lash out, in sometimes the ugliest of ways?

The Feedback Loop

This is by no means the first time you swallowed a difficult pill. It might not even be the first time you dealt with John’s bullshit by smiling and moving on. Each time, the voice nipping at the back of your head reminds you that this is bullshit.

Each time you reject the narrative of the shadow, you give it another opportunity to come back and say, “See? I told you!” Not to mention, you are suppressing part of your own personality to gain external favorability. This is deliberate emotional sabotage, and it will trigger a rubberband effect when things don’t work out. When you treat the shadow not as an adversary that needs to be controlled or contained, but as a friend, your shadow will treat you the same way.

Doing Our Inner Work

Carl Jung-senpai referred to this as our “inner work.” Recognizing our thoughts as what they are and where they come from helps us come to terms with them. Everyone has toxic thoughts, after all. In this aspect, you are not as unique as you think you are.

It’s important in this time that we simply treat these thoughts as they are – simply thoughts, that will come and go.

When we react to thoughts through an adversarial lens, it doesn’t make them go away. In fact, they tend to become a central focus for a little while.

Your thoughts are simply abstract. They have no concrete impact on the real world, and it’s important to treat them like such. They don’t have to be scary. They have no control over you. You still have the option to act on them.

Conclusion (With A Bit of Insight)

Our inner work is an exploration of our identity – where in our unconscious selves we might have misappropriated important parts of our identities. Exploring our mind and coming to terms then, allows us to become our complete self, rather than simply the face we want the public to see.

You dedicated a huge portion of your life looking for that promotion, and left your future in the hands of someone who was simply interested in the success of his business. He didn’t see your sacrifice; only the result.

Life isn’t meant to be taken so seriously. Enjoy it. You owe it to ALL parts of you to refuse to fit into a pretty little social mold.