Page 39 - Your Leader Within Introduction

As a result, we have developed defense mechanisms to keep our emotions from showing, even to ourselves.
The result is what Carl Jung called the shadow elements of the unconscious. These are repressed experiences, some positive and some negative. Parts of ourselves that we don’t accept.
We dissociate with these parts until they gather together and become separate and distinct personalities or, what Jung called, complexes.
The problem is that others will often experience that personality in us and we will not. We often see our shadow in others as well.
Anger is a great example. I was told not to show anger. I expressed anger as a child and told that it was not acceptable. So, it was not good to express anger.
Gradually, I moved the anger from the first person (I) to the second person (you) and on to the culture (it). See Chapter 6, The Integral Life.
I dissociated with my anger to the point where, as far as I was concerned, I was not angry, everyone else was. As I traveled in the car and people were rude, I convinced myself that “everyone is angry these days. People are really uptight.”
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