"What is clear to me is that our shadow side is very difficult to see, quite simply because it is the side we not only want to hide from others, but the side that we want to hide from ourselves too. These are the traits that we dislike the most in others, the traits that we would feel embarrased to own, the traits that we are most ashamed of.

The shadow is the disowned self, the Id ... Carl Jung writes a lot on it. He said "One does not become enlightened by imagining figures of light but by making the darkness conscious"

Our shadow selves are often so well disguised, the more extreme a physical issue, the more deeply the shadow is hidden, making it near impossible for the self to see or accept it. It is only if one is able to fully trust anothers observation that some movement can occur.

The more extreme a physical issue, the more it hides the shadow that allows it to heal/balance. For example, someone who wears the shell of a tough guy is hiding the shadow of a vulnerable and sensitive person, or the over jolly person is masking the sad person inside.

Most people don't get very far unconcealing their shadows because they're unwilling to be totally honest with themselves. The ego doesn't like to lose control. The ego is always fearful of its own dealth and is forever trying to keep alive the fiction of its own existence."

Filled with a great deal of insight.  What I learn more and more, and over and over again (but it gets easier) is that when I find I don't like someone - it's something I'm seeing in them that I don't like in me.  When I judge others, I'm judging myself.  ("Judge not, lest ye be judged" is simply every time you judge someone you are really judging yourself.  Insight isn't something new.)  Also learning that in order to love others, one has to love one's self - which means, love, not doing everything for everyone else, but simply allowing them to be who and where they are while at the same time accepting of where I'm at.

Have read some of Jung, though don't know him real well.  Am currently going through "Am I Bad? Recovering from Abuse" by Heward Bruce Ewart, III, PhD.  He is talking about "true self" which he says is what comes out at birth and is covered up by abuse.  He also says that 98% of all families abuse their children, and what he is talking about is forcing children to think differently about themselves than they really are.  Healing to him is discovering that true self from birth.  I go back further.  We have memories from conception through to and including birth.  We also have memories far beyond that and that's what we bring in from past lives to work on.  We have teachers in this lifetime to light up those things we wish to work on in what you call the shadow side.  If we have been abused it is because that has been our choice and we chose that to work on and forgive our "abusers" - and most importantly, ourselves.

Learning about yourself as spirit is a wonderful way to turn within and discover all there is that's there.  The more you "unhide" the greater that life becomes and, it's a never ending process.  No one "has arrived" - not even the Eastern Gurus or the Pope or the greatest teacher on the planet.  Life is a journey, not a destination.

Nice post.  Thanks