A novel with a shadow: what to do if your life has become meaningless

In greeting cards and poems, the wish for a happy life is traditionally found. Even if the words are not a tribute to politeness, but sound absolutely sincere, not everyone and not always can explain what will be happiness for a particular person. Traditional "working husband, obedient children, house full bowl"? Life shows that not everything is so simple.





A life story

Here is a typical example: Ira is an ordinary girl from a good family. She graduated from high school with honors and entered the institute recommended by her parents for the prestigious specialty of economist. After university, under the patronage of his father, she got a job in a bank. Then there was a husband who received the full approval of his parents as a “promising businessman”, children were born.

Twenty years later, Irina Ivanovna occupies a certain position, her husband owns a business that brings not exorbitant, but stable income. Apartment, car, vacation abroad, children attached to prestigious universities.

This is happiness, but... For some reason life seems meaningless! Children live separately and do not often indulge in visits. I would like to spend the free time with my husband, but he is busy with business, and common topics for conversation are becoming less and less. The career ladder has reached the ceiling, the work is boring, monotonous and I want to quit, but what will colleagues, friends, parents think?

It was after the thought of “what will my dad think, who put me in this bank, if I take and quit,” Irina began to realize that something was wrong with her life. I began to recall that in school, even unloved subjects were crammed “perfectly well” so as not to upset my parents. The profession of an economist always seemed boring, but my mother insisted that it was money-making and prestigious.

With the future husband and that dad introduced. Of course, then she was young and stupid, and her parents - wise and wishing her only good and she is very grateful to them, but after all, the habit of looking at the opinions of others was also instilled in her parents. They created a template from which she was afraid to retreat all her life, so that something terrible and irreparable would not happen. Even the car she chose is not to his liking, and one that “will correspond to the status of a leading economist.”

But the most important question came later: “What to do now?” How to understand what in her life is dictated by the desire to meet the expectations and stereotypes of others, and what is real, what she really is, what she wants and what is the meaning and happiness in life?

"True" and "false" I

The story of Irina is quite typical, not only for our country, but for the whole world. Moreover, psychologists have long and comprehensively studied the versatility of human nature.

Carl Jung has a theory of the "shadow" personality, which includes primitive, socially condemned traits. Greed, envy, jealousy, anger, selfishness, eroticism, thirst for power – all this is usually denied, feared, outlived in yourself. However, these traits are an integral part of human nature and, according to Jung, you can either find a common language with your shadow or become its victim.

No less well-known psychologist Erikson is quite in solidarity with his Swiss colleague and puts forward the theory of “identity crisis”. According to her, “dark” aspirations are inherent in people by nature, they attract, but also frighten at the same time.

Growing up, we learn the rules of behavior in society, as well as adopt from parents their attitude to “bad” character traits. As a result, the effect of the “forbidden fruit” is created, the attractiveness of which is not always possible to resist, violation of the rules causes a sense of shame and destructively affects the integrity of the individual.

But perhaps the most understandable and detailed explanation of the “true” and “false” I give British pediatrician and psychoanalyst D. Winnicott. He concluded that From birth, a person at the level of unconditional reflexes forms protection from the environment (including psychologically) in the form of a reaction to a potential threat to comfort and well-being..

In children, it looks like this: if the child’s basic needs are not perceived by the parents, he concludes that they are not significant. This is the first substitution of concepts. Trying to get the attention of the people on whom he depends, the child learns to perceive their desires and try to conform to them, suppressing their natural aspirations.

He thinks that Inconsistency with parents’ self-image is a threat to their own well-being. To disappoint mom and dad is to lose their love and care. Given that adults often tend to self-actualize at the expense of children (I couldn’t, so let my son become a great hockey player), emotional lies only accumulate, instilling a habit of hiding their “true”. Me.

Instinct of self-defense is transformed into “false” The self, which over time is able to completely isolate the "true" self not only from others, but also from the carrier itself. As a result, the sense of identity begins to blur. This is what happened to our heroine. At some point, she couldn’t fool herself anymore and realized that she had to do something with her life so she wouldn’t lose herself.



Returning authenticityIt is worth noting that the most vivid acquisition of individual identity a person experiences in adolescence. agee (youthful maximalism), which does not mean that the shadow I will not be able to express myself at any time in my life (midlife crisis).

The thing is, The constant suppression of identity affects the integrity of the individual. Constant control over yourself and responding to the mood of others is hard, exhausting work, taking a lot of energy and leading to stress, depression. But restoring an oppressed identity is not easy. Many such experiences are perceived only negatively, which is fundamentally wrong.

Most often reunion with the “shadow” “I tried to remake myself, to become what others wanted me to be, not doing what I wanted to do, and missing the best moments in life.” And that's hard to argue with, but Keep in mind that respect for yourself is also a part of your personality.

So whatever life you have lived, it is yours, just as the life to come will be yours. Recognizing and comprehending your mistakes, you should not regret what has been lost, but look for strength for new achievements. The right attitude in finding your identity is a motivator for finding yourself, a source of energy for implementing new ideas, a way to give an impetus to the imagination and find the answer to the question of who a person is and who he really wants to become.

To be aware of a problem is to solve it halfway.

In the profile literature, you can find various ways and methods to acquire your identity. It is recommended to keep a diary, write letters to yourself, both in the future and in the past.

If you have a family, be sure to discuss feelings, fears and worries. Jointly seek solutions, gradually becoming like-minded again, helping both yourself and your partner to understand your and his inner world, to realize your life path, to outline milestones for the next road. “Expand” consciousness, learn to look at familiar things from the outside, rediscovering their essence. published

Author: Maria Kudryavtseva

P.S. And remember, just by changing your consciousness – together we change the world!

Source: maria-kudryavtseva.ru/roman-s-tenyu/