The Symbol and the Self: Embracing Light and Dark Without Shame

You Were Never Meant to Be Simple

We spend much of our lives trying to be good. Good partners. Good children. Good people. We strive to be kind, appropriate, and acceptable; often without pausing to ask who taught us what those words should mean. But what happens to the parts of us that don’t fit the mold? The ones that are too angry, too intense, too proud, too tender, or too wild?

Most of us learn to bury them.

But buried isn’t gone.

Carl Jung called this the shadow; the parts of the psyche we exile in order to be loved, accepted, or safe. He believed that true psychological growth could never happen without integrating the shadow; not erasing it, not fighting it, but welcoming it as a necessary part of the whole self.

One symbol of this integrative journey is Abraxas; a mythic figure found in early Gnostic texts and later explored by Jung in The Seven Sermons to the Dead, as well as by Hermann Hesse in Demian. Abraxas is a god of paradox, holding within himself both good and evil, light and dark, creation and destruction; not as enemies, but as interdependent forces.

To Jung, Abraxas was not simply a symbol of contradiction, but a representation of the total psyche; the conscious and the unconscious, the sacred and the shameful, the divine and the destructive. He reminds us that: 

Wholeness is not the absence of conflict, but the ability to hold it without fragmentation.

This is the work of integration. Not perfection. Not purity. But the courage to sit in the tension of opposites and remain whole. Below are a series of reflective invitations to support you in beginning (or continuing) this deeply personal, often disorienting, always liberating, work.

Integration: The Courage to Hold Contradiction

You can long for connection and fear intimacy. 

You can crave freedom and cling to structure. 

You can want to be seen and feel terrified of visibility.

Jung taught that the psyche is not linear or consistent; it is symbolic, layered, and often contradictory. Trying to “resolve” that contradiction often leads to self-rejection.

What would shift if you stopped choosing sides within yourself? If instead of asking which part is “right,” you asked: “What are both trying to protect”, “What are both trying to offer”?

Prompt: “If Abraxas symbolizes the union of your conflicting inner forces, what contradictions within yourself are you avoiding or resisting? How would your life look if you embraced these fully?”

Shadow Work: Reclaiming the Parts You Buried

To Jung, the shadow wasn’t just the dark or dangerous; it was anything repressed or unacknowledged. This could be rage, desire, ambition, sensuality; or even joy, softness, or creativity, depending on what your environment allowed you to express.

By writing to these parts of you with compassion, you begin a process Jung called individuation: the lifelong task of integrating all aspects of the self, including the ones that have been hidden, rejected, or misunderstood.

The goal isn’t to act on every impulse. The goal is to bring what’s unconscious into awareness, so you can choose with clarity, not react from repression.

Prompt: “Identify one quality or desire you've labeled as negative, wrong, or shameful. Write a compassionate letter to this part of you from the perspective of Abraxas, who embodies full acceptance of opposites.”

Self-Exploration: Whose Rules Are You Still Living By?

Jung warned against what he called the persona—the mask we wear to fit social expectations. It helps us navigate the world, but it can also become a prison if we believe it’s all we are.

What roles are you still performing? Which parts of yourself have you minimized, denied, or distorted to maintain acceptance?

This is not about abandoning your values. It’s about making sure they are truly yours.

Prompt: “Abraxas calls you to move beyond conventional morality and binaries. In what ways does traditional morality or rigid thinking restrict your authentic expression? Who might you become if you integrated your dualities?”

Existential Reflection: What Are You Ready to Let Go Of?

Jung believed that the process of individuation often required a symbolic death; a letting go of outdated identities, belief systems, or protective patterns that once served us but now confine us.

What are you still holding onto to avoid discomfort, rejection, or change? What illusion of safety is preventing you from becoming more fully yourself?

You don’t need to destroy your essence; only the version of yourself that was shaped by fear rather than truth.

Prompt: “Reflect on the phrase: “Who would be born must destroy a world”. ― Hermann Hesse, Demian. What worlds or illusions within yourself are you ready to destroy to fully embrace your authenticity and psychological growth?” 

Future-Self Visualization: A Year of Integration

Jung said, “Until you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life and you will call it fate.”

Let this visualization be a practice in consciousness; one that allows you to see yourself not as someone who must be fixed, but as someone who is becoming more fully and honestly who you’ve always been.

What does that version of you look like? How does it feel to live without exiling any part of yourself?

Not perfect. Not finished. Just more integrated. More aware. More whole.

Prompt: “Imagine yourself one year from now, having fully integrated one duality you're struggling with today. Describe in detail your behaviors, thoughts, emotions, and relationships in this integrated future.”

Wholeness Is the Work

Jung’s psychology reminds us that healing is not about becoming good. It’s about becoming whole.

Abraxas is not an answer. He is a mirror. He reflects back to us the paradoxes we carry, the parts we’ve hidden, and the complexity we were never meant to reduce to something neat or simple. When we reject our darkness, we don’t eliminate it; we abandon it. When we embrace it with intention, we integrate it. And through integration, we reclaim our agency, our authenticity, and our humanity.

You were never meant to be divided.

You were meant to be whole.

You are allowed to begin; messy, unsure, and exactly as you are.

If you would like to explore this kind of integrative, depth-oriented work in therapy, I’d be honored to walk alongside you. Reach out when you’re ready.