Exploring our Shadows through the Psychology of Fame

What happens to you when someone “out there” stirs the often familiar yet uncomfortable feelings of disgust, anger, and hate, or on the other side of the polarity: infatuation, love, and idealization. 

Carl Jung believed the shadow to be the neglected, and often personified, parts of the self that we prefer to keep hidden from both ourselves and others. We begin a conscious relationship with these mysterious inner partners by seeing how our experiences of the “other,” are often extensions of our self. In some strange way, it seems we may enter our inner space by exploring the forces that move us in our outer space. Thus, when we look to the collective, we may reveal doors and windows that take us within. In our worldwide culture, the famous and the powerful — royalty, religious figures, celebrity figures, political leaders – placed on the pedestals of the divine, reveal an excessively over-valued reflection of both the positive and the negative qualities we sense or desire in ourselves. This is called shadow projection.

In this workshop, uncovering the root of these questions is the very quest we are on — to recognize that often what we seek “out there” is found within and that the unlived parts of us often carry a heavy burden whether we know it or not. Reflecting upon and integrating these beautiful segments of our bodies, minds, and souls offers us an invitation to a broader and more expansive life, greater awareness and presence with the nature of our personal experience, and the depths of the patterns and forces encountered in the human experience. 

To explore and deepen your relationship with the ideas of how shadow projection and fame intertwine, we will work with practices like…

• guided self-analysis
• journaling
• group discussion
• active imagining
• lecture and study
• film

Join John for an unforgettable week of walking the philosophical path of the scholar and the seeker, and the deep work of cultivating a practice in yourself that will help open your eyes to how these various psychological concepts and ideas are expressed in our broader culture, all while soaking in the incredible opening and healing energy of the land and sea.

Recommended reading: Meeting the Shadow, edited by Connie Zweig.