What We Do Not Focus On Grows: The Unexamined Shadow’s Dark and Insatiable Appetite
America, look in the mirror. Are you afraid of what you see?
The shadow gathers all our repressed and dark impulses like hatred, aggression, sadism, selfishness, jealousy, and more. It represents that part of us that we sometimes feel compelled to hide out of shame — like our racism, sexism, homophobia etc.
However, when we hide our shadow side rather than confront and deal honestly with it, we project it onto others because we are loathe to admit it — there’s a racist, there’s a bigot, there’s a hater, there’s a liar, there’s a prejudiced person in all human beings. These traits typically emerge during a crisis. So we can’t accuse just one person of being racist, misogynistic, bigoted, vile, indifferent, prejudiced or full of hate.
With millions of voters across the country supporting Trump, he is a clear and exaggerated expression of something primitive in all of us — he is our collective shadow. He is the logical extension and embodiment of a problematic worldview that is at the root of all that is wrong in America. In this light, we have to thank Donald Trump for giving permission to the American public to expose the dark underbelly of who we are. And in a way, becoming aware of that and owning that Trump is who we are is the beginning of the healing process.
This is a hard pill to swallow, I know. But most of us are quick to distance ourselves from the qualities we don’t want to accept in ourselves and even quicker to point them out in someone else. But we cannot heal unless we are willing to face the truth of who we are — a country built on racism and White supremacy.
At this pivotal moment many of us are feeling an ancestral dread unraveling within. It thrashes like a serpent’s ancient tail, slimy with the memory of centuries — of chattel slavery, of witch hunts and burnings, of patriarchal violence, of women’s bodies claimed and traded like currency. This primal fear remembers every wound across time, every ownership — every defilement.
In response to the misogyny that is rippling through society, South Korea’s 4B movement goes viral. Young women refuse to marry, engage in sex or bear children, until they have their rights back. Margaret Atwood, author of the Handmaid’s Tale, posts on the Musk-owned X, “Despair is not an option. It helps no one.”
We toss around the word “patriarchy” easily, but spiritual platitudes and surface-level solutions will not forge a genuinely different path forward. The deeper challenge lies in our willingness to interrogate our own complicity. Are we truly ready to step away from our cushioned existence? How many of us will be willing to relinquish our “comfortable” way of life? How many of us will be willing to question and think deeply about personal and collective issues? How many of us are really willing to share our resources and live equally? And perhaps most crucially, are we prepared to move beyond rhetoric to action, to truly share what we have and live in authentic equality with others?
Angela Saini writes in The Patriarchs, How Men Came to Rule, patriarchy “is not ‘they;’ it’s all of us.” And changing it would mean losing many of the things many people cherish … to really radically create a completely equal society would mean fundamentally rethinking everything: marriage, childcare, how we structure societies … work, pay, worship, everything. It would mean challenging race, class, capitalism. We are not just creatures who want to live equally. We are also creatures who care about the cultures that we’re in — and challenging culture is really hard.
In the face of impermanence and uncertainty lies our greatest opening. This moment calls us to pivot away from worn out paths and reimagine our way forward. We stand at a threshold where the familiar falls away, inviting us to build anew in ways we may not yet envision. This feeling of groundlessness could become our ground, if we dare to create differently.
In an era when forced optimism and rigid positivity labor against life’s wild storms, she gently illuminates an essential truth — light and shadow, beginning and ending, bitter and sweet are eternally woven together in the fabric of existence.
As we stand collectively and personally at the threshold of this new era, we must recognize that this moment didn’t emerge from nowhere. The crises we face today — ecological, social, spiritual — are the culmination of centuries of colonization, exploitation, and a ruthless paradigm of dominance that has severed our connections to earth, to each other, and to our own deeper wisdom. The same forces that burned the witches, enslaved millions, and declared war on indigenous peoples and knowledge continue to shape our institutions and unconsciously guide many of our choices.
Let us dare to imagine beyond these inherited boundaries of what has been, calling forth visions of what could be. More importantly we must also face what lurks in our shadow sides– those unexamined parts of ourselves that keep us tethered to old patterns, stuck in cycles of harm, and physically, emotionally, and spiritually unwell. These shadows aren’t just personal — they’re historical — unprocessed trauma of generations, the unacknowledged debts of history, the collective grief we’ve never fully faced. When we refuse to acknowledge these darker impulses, our unconscious wounds, our hidden biases, they don’t disappear — they simply go underground, and emerge in ways that sabotage our deepest intentions and perpetuate even more collective suffering. When we find ourselves in the grips of blame and criticism — pointing at that man or those supporters of that man as the source of our suffering — let us remember that he (and they) are us.
Next time you’re in the the locker room or the board room and you hear someone make a crude, racist, sexist, homophobic remark — say something … do something. Trump becoming elected is a manifestation of standing by time after time and pretending that this is acceptable. It’s not acceptable, nor is it normal.
In these uncertain times, may we trust the deep knowing that pulses beneath our doubts — that ancient wisdom carried in our bodies, passed down through generations despite systematic attempts to erase it. Let our thinking minds, so practiced in worry and control, finally yield to our heart’s ancestral truth. For it is here, in this surrender to deeper wisdom, that we will find our way forward.
Now is the time to gather in circles of support, to share our truth(s) and our resources, to turn toward rather than away from each other. These practices of community and mutual care aren’t new — they’re as old as humanity itself, tested and proven through countless cycles of challenge and renewal. Now is the time to listen deeply — to the earth, to our bodies, to the whispered guidance that comes when we quiet our minds, and to each other. Let us step into this inception moment with courage and tenderness, knowing that while the path ahead may be uncertain, we do not walk it alone.
The call is clear: Open your heart. Trust your knowing. Reach out your hands. Face your shadows with compassion. Remember the wisdom of those who came before. The future is waiting to be born through us, if we have the radical courage to let it come.
With gratitude,
Dr. Paula
dr.paulamsmith@gmail.com
