I remember when the Cold War ended, how quickly the United States was swept by a nationalistic fervor and turned against Saddam Hussein. As soon as we lost our age-old enemy, the Soviet Union, we instantly created a new one.

There is an enemy-maker in each of us. We make enemies of the people we love the most and the people we know the least.

Each of us wrestles with the dark giant in our own way.

As each layer of shadow is mined from the darkness, as each fear is faced and each projection reclaimed, the gold shines through.

The shadow disguises itself in our projections, when we react intensely to a trait in others that we fail to see in ourselves.

Once you uncover the history of this pattern and trace its roots, you will see that your reaction in the present moment is really a reaction from the past, a shadow character's attempt to protect you from reexperiencing an old emotional wound, which instead sabotages you in the present.

Unconscious of your story, you are in its grasp but with consciousness, an alchemical process begins: The solidity of the complex dissolves and you can open up to the arrival of a new archetype, the birth of a new cycle of life. In the shadow, then, lies our myth and our fate.

The rewards are profound. Shadow-work enables us to alter our self-sabotaging behavior so that we can achieve a more self-directed life.

To sin is to be off the mark, that is, to inhibit development, contracting backward into regression rather than expanding forward into growth.