Step 4: Recognizing Projected Shortcomings
Please note that in this following section, I use the word “pro-
jection” in the narrowsense as explained in Chapter 8: projec-
tion of not fully conscious and undesirable qualities.
If we strongly dislike certain behaviors or traits of movie
characters that we do not recognize in ourselves, different con-
clusions are possible. Maybe we were hurt, angry, or sad when
we encountered similar behaviors or personality traits in family
members, friends, or colleagues. Or perhaps people we cared
about were negatively affected in this way. In these cases we
might not have projected our disowned self on the movie char-
acter, but we are feeling old emotional wounds. Healing of these
wounds needs to happen, because our response to the film char-
acter showed that we are still hurting from our past experience.
Quadrant IV of the Self Matrix includes shortcomings that
we project onto movie characters with which we do notiden-
tify and to which we are at least partially blind. Since we dis-
like these traits in the film characters but do not recognize them
easily in ourselves, this kind of self-exploration might be a lit-
tle tricky at first.
To make it easier, I will first explain how the shadow self
or the dark sidedevelops in us. Later, I will also explain the
process and the consequences of projecting our not fully con-
scious, undesired parts on others.
In discussing this shadow self, the poet Robert Bly in his A
Little Book on the Human Shadowdevelops the metaphor of a
“long bag” that we drag behind us throughout our lives into
which we put our disowned and repressed parts.^1
Bly says that as children, we are born with 100 percent of
our energy, vitality, joy and creativity. We are in touch with our
native instinct and wisdom. He visualizes it as a “360-degree
personality,” a round globe of energy.
But quickly, this whole and complete child-self learns that
its parents do not accept or love all of its many parts. Growing
up we receive messages like: “Do not daydream — “idle hands“When an inner situation
is not made conscious, it
appears outside as fate.”
Carl Gustav
Jung144 E-Motion Picture Magic