Carl Jung & The Psychology of Self-Sabotage (feat. Emerald)

Consciousness succumbs all too easily to unconscious influences, and these are often truer and wiser than our conscious thinking. Also, it frequently happens that unconscious motives overrule our conscious decisions, especially in matters of vital importance.

— Carl Jung

Many people tend to undermine their own agendas. To their frustration and bewilderment, they find themselves making irrational decisions, experiencing mental blocks, and even physical ailments that cripple their plans. It’s like a mysterious force takes over control, steering them away from the goals they’ve determined to accomplish. And thus, plagued by continuous self-sabotage, these people never seem to get where they want to be.

But why do we self-sabotage? How come that we wreck our own plans without any good reason? Swiss psychiatrist Carl Jung discovered plausible answers to these questions as he became aware of a part of the psyche that he called the Shadow. We can see the Shadow as a psychological container within the realm of the unconscious. In this dark place, where the light of our conscious awareness does not reach, we store our undesirable traits.

There could be various reasons why we sweep certain unwanted aspects of ourselves under the carpet. Our parents may not like them, or they may not fit the societal ideal. Or life taught us that they lead us to suffer. And so, we repress these traits by banishing them into the bowels of the psyche, as if they aren’t part of us. But they are.

And according to Jung, the repression of unwanted aspects of ourselves will not solve the problem. In fact, it can have disastrous consequences, as these aspects take on a life of their own, operating in obscurity. And this is where the self-sabotage begins—the repressed parts of the personality revolt against our conscious minds from the deepness of the Shadow. And so, we are at war with ourselves, without even knowing who we are fighting.

Luckily, there are ways to stop this self-sabotage. Instead of repressing what’s in the Shadow, Jung urged us to integrate it into our personality. And we can only do this by making the unconscious conscious and discovering what’s hiding underneath. Let us explore the psychology of self-sabotage (and how to overcome it) based on the works of Carl Jung.

This video is a product of a collaboration with Emerald from The Diamond Net. There is a common misconception about the Shadow that leads to a lot of confusion and misunderstandings about the role of the Shadow and how to integrate what’s been repressed. It is often thought that the Shadow is simply the dark and negative side of the personality. Because of the issues it can cause, it’s often thought of as the part of ourselves that holds all our negative impulses.

And because of this, the Shadow as a psychological concept is often depicted symbolically as a Shadowy figure, suggesting an ominous “other self” that exists outside of our awareness. But the Shadow actually refers to something fundamentally different. The Shadow is actually more like a dark place than it is like a dark and shadowy figure.

So, we could think of the Shadow as being like a dark closet in the human psyche where the light of consciousness doesn’t shine. And this dark closet is where we lock away all the repressed parts of the personality that we are unwilling and/or unable to face with or reintegrate at the moment, which can happen for a variety of reasons such as trauma or unmet needs to name a couple.

So, when we talk about doing Shadow Work and integrating the Shadow, we’re not actually integrating the Shadow itself. We’re actually integrating the contents of the Shadow. And when I say ‘the contents of the Shadow’ what I’m referring to are all the repressed parts of the personality. These are the parts of the self that inhabit the ‘dark place’ that is the Shadow.

So, in the same way that you could put objects in a dark closet and it becomes shrouded in Shadow, you could also take those same objects out of that dark closet and into the sunlight and they’d no longer be shrouded in Shadow. And this is also true of the parts of the personality that inhabit the Shadow. There is nothing inherently Shadowy or negative about them. It’s just that they’ve been put in a Shadowy place and are operating outside of our conscious awareness… and are often causing problems for us because of this disconnect.

Now, an important thing to realize here is that, when these parts of the personality become repressed, it isn’t like you just have some free-floating traits repressed into the Shadow. So, it wouldn’t be entirely accurate to say something like “I repressed my greed” or “I repressed my joy” because both greed and joy are free-floating qualities. In order to repress a quality like greed or joy or anything else, you would have to repress an entire personality fragment that’s attached to those qualities.

Now, these personality fragments which are split off from the conscious awareness, that are often referred to as Shadow Aspects, are actually more like “mini-personalities.” And each of these mini-personalities are all 100% you because they are fragments of your personality. And when these mini-personalities get split off from your conscious awareness and put into the dark closet of the Shadow, they become separate and autonomous from your Conscious Personality, which is the ego and the part of yourself that is in the light of consciousness that you refer to as “me” or “I.”

So, in the same way that our Conscious Personality or Ego has its own perspectives, needs, and agendas, each of our Shadow Aspects that inhabit the Shadow also have their own perspectives, needs, and agendas. And the agendas of any given Shadow Aspect may or may not conflict with our Conscious Personality’s agendas.

And so, when your Conscious Personality’s agenda clashes with the agenda of one or more of your Shadow Aspects, this may cause quite a bit of inner turmoil and a feeling of resisting or fighting with yourself. So you may notice your Shadow Aspects and their agendas at work when you’re engaging in procrastination and self-sabotaging behavior that keeps you struggling to make positive changes in your life.

So, let’s discuss an example of how Shadow-based Self-Sabotage can show up in someone’s life and thwart their plans. Suppose a woman identifies strongly with being a loner. Her goal is to run a successful online business and live in the countryside because that mode of living minimizes interaction with and dependence on other people, which she consciously believes is what she ultimately wants.

Even though the idea of self-sufficiency is practicable, she repeatedly undermines the progress she makes. For example, she gets offered an opportunity to purchase a piece of farmland in the wilderness for an amicable price, but she declines over a flimsy reason. Or she manages to attract a considerable following on her lifestyle blog (which has a lot of earning potential). Still, she decides to quit posting without being able to explain her decision with solid arguments.

From the ego’s perspective - the way she consciously perceives herself and determines what she wants and needs - her choices are without reason. After all, she strongly identifies as the lone maverick. She has dreamt for years about being self-sufficient, independent, and far removed from the herd. But as soon as her dreams come true, she throws a spanner in the works. She cannot explain why.

It’s like something or someone is sabotaging her. As if an unwanted guest is hiding in the shadows of her soul, unsupervised, outside of her conscious authority. And that this individual swiftly takes over the wheel without consultation, destroys what the ego’s efforts have achieved, and then goes off, nowhere to be found. Just like any form of sound reasoning to support her self-sabotage, the mysterious guest remains elusive.

She knows that something fishy is going on in the darkness, but she can’t put the finger on it as it’s beyond her conscious reach. And as long as she fails to shine a light on what’s lurking in the shade, it will govern her like a puppeteer from behind the curtain.

As Jungian analyst Dr. Murray Stein stated, and I quote: "…any autonomous complex not subject to the conscious will exerts a possessive effect on consciousness proportional to its strength and limits the latter’s freedom." End quote. When our Shadow Aspects take matters into their own hands, destructive consequences may follow.

Unexplainable desires and emotions could arise from nowhere and whenever they feel like, without permission, overriding our authority and dwarfing our strength of will. They influence and even sabotage our conscious agendas as they pull the strings from behind the scenes, leaving us puzzled about our irrational behavior.

Dr. Murray Stein wrote the following about the sabotaging nature of (what Jung called) complexes, and I quote: "Complexes function to stall the individuation process by bullying a person into emotional dead ends. One can easily fall victim, for instance, to an implacable need for revenge and an unforgiving rage at wounds inflicted in childhood, or slip into the bottomless abyss of nostalgia. The complex has a will of its own that is often stronger than the ego’s capacity to resist." End quote.

The complex, or “mini-personality,” hiding in the woman’s shadow represents a repressed characteristic: the desire for human connection. Because of past hurts, she had disowned it. And she’s unaware that this unwanted aspect of herself has turned into a shadow government that tries to undermine the actions of a fearful isolationist disguised as a lover of solitude and independence but who, unknowingly, deeply craves kinship.

From the background of her psyche, this repressed personality plays a paradoxical game. On the one hand, this Shadow-aspect wants to be part of her conscious awareness. She wants her motivations heard, her desires felt, her needs met. So, it sabotages the staunch individualism of the conscious personality and all her efforts towards independence.

Consequently, she continues carpooling to go to work, living with roommates, and doing her laundry at a public laundromat (where she sees many people). This situation might seem inconvenient and undesirable from the perspective of her conscious personality, but it’s precisely where the Shadow-aspect wants her to be.

On the other hand, the Shadow-aspect doesn’t want to be illuminated. And her elusiveness is understandable, as she not only represents what’s unwanted but also rebels against the person who disowned her. If she finds her, she will lose her sovereignty.

So as long as she remains in the shadows, she maintains the power to autonomously troll, sabotage, and destroy. She remains a personality of her own and, above all, safe. But by doing so, she will forever be in conflict with her host.

There are a couple of different reasons why self-sabotage can happen. But in the example with the woman, the self-sabotage is coming from a Shadow Aspect responding to a need that could potentially go unmet, which is the need for connection.

From this Shadow Aspect’s perspective, the conscious personality’s agenda to go towards extreme independence is totally antithetical to that need. Deep down, this “mini personality” knows that, if and when her host becomes financially successful, she will have enough money to have her own home with no roommates, and she’ll have her own vehicle, so she won’t have to carpool with others to go to work.

And she’ll have her own washer and dryer, and so she’ll no longer be going to the laundromat where she has a lot of social interaction. The Shadow Aspect also realizes that having more money means that she has more of a capacity to neglect and ignore its need for connection and socialization.

And so, in a desperate attempt to preserve what little connection to other people that this Shadow Aspect gets, it sabotages her financial success and manipulates the conscious personality into procrastinating and avoiding financial success by making inexplicably unwise business decisions.

On top of that, it might also create different rationalizations and mental blocks about success. And maybe every time she wants to work on her blog, she suddenly feels overwhelmingly tired and just wants to take a nap, when she was perfectly energized and awake before.

Now the solution to self-sabotage that comes from a Shadow Aspect having an unmet need is actually quite straightforward. The first step is to recognize the needs and agendas of your Conscious Personality and the needs of each of your Shadow Aspects. And this requires observation and brutal honesty.

If this woman in the example is very honest with herself, there will be many hints throughout the day that she actually does value connection and belonging. She just has to be willing to notice these things and admit them to herself.

Then, once she becomes aware of this need, it is her role as the Conscious Personality to weave this Shadow Aspect’s need for connection into her Conscious Personality’s agenda for financial success and to make the necessary changes to meet that need.

So, instead of imagining herself becoming totally independent when she becomes financially successful, she can imagine herself having more time and freedom because of the money she makes, and using that time and freedom to spend socializing and connecting with friends and loved ones.

So, the solution would be to meet her Shadow Aspect’s needs. That way, the Shadow Aspect doesn’t have to sabotage her Conscious Personality’s goals and dreams to ensure that those needs get met.

If you’re interested in more content about the Shadow, Jungian psychology, and many other related topics, I’d highly recommend you check out Emerald’s channel The Diamond Net. She is also a conscious work facilitator and life coach who offers 1-on-1 sessions and group classes to help people along with their inner work.

Below the video, you'll find my affiliate link to Emerald's free Shadow Integration Masterclass | 6 Simple Steps to Shadow Integration, and a link to her playlist about the Shadow. Thank you for watching.