Facing What Unsettles Us
In 2005, I moved from the Big Island of Hawai’i to Rome, Italy. After settling in, I hoped I might meet Aldo Carotenuto, a psychoanalyst, prominent Jungian thinker, and Professor of Psychology at the University of Rome. I was disappointed to learn he had passed away earlier that year. His work, however, left a deep impression on me. I felt a strong resonance with the excerpt below, from his book Eros and Pathos. It helped me understand those moments when we are so intensely triggered by people or situations. We believe our reaction has to do with the outside. In truth, it reveals our own shadow. What unsettles us externally often mirrors what remains unresolved within ourselves. These encounters with our shadow are painful because they often reveal underdeveloped parts of ourselves.
Entering Uncharted Territory
On our way toward psychological maturity there is a crucial moment, a fork in the road where we must not leave our choice to chance. One can choose the route that looks more comfortable, represented by compromise and the avoidance of unease. Or one can take the rockier and more difficult road of self-authenticity. The first road promises a pleasant walk; the second, high adventure. Those who choose compromise will follow a guided tour along well-beaten paths in a domesticated landscape. Whoever chooses the second way sets out on a solitary expedition into unexplored country, commonly indicated on ancient maps with the warning, “Hic sunt leones” (Here be lions). The beast the intrepid voyager could run into is none other than the devil or, in other terms, his own shadow.
For those who choose the path of personal truth, violent encounters with the shadow are not only inevitable but also precious. In those moments, reason, which seemed to be our greatest defense, is weakened and the irrational steps in. When the intellect goes soft and fails us, we must force ourselves to witness our weaknesses, to become more alert and alive than ever. We must enter into dialogue with the irrational. In the awareness that logic alone does not lead to understanding, we become more human.
– Page 117 from Eros and Pathos: Shades of Love and Suffering by Aldo Carotenuto
Meeting the Shadow
The lions marked on ancient maps were not just warnings about wild beasts in distant lands. They represent what has not yet been revealed to us. In Carotenuto’s vision, the lions we encounter on the path of self-authenticity are aspects of our own shadow: the parts of ourselves we struggle to accept.
This is what Jung called individuation—the process of becoming who we truly are by integrating what we have rejected, hidden, or disowned in ourselves.
The shadow encompasses everything we deny in ourselves—our selfishness, aggression, insecurity, envy, shame, and contradictions. These aspects do not disappear when ignored. Instead, they emerge in our strongest and most emotionally charged reactions to others. When someone provokes a highly charged response in us, we may be encountering qualities in ourselves that we have rejected or denied.
These are the lions.
Integration: Beyond the Rational
What strikes me most about Carotenuto’s vision is his insistence that reason alone cannot complete this journey. When we meet our shadow, our intellectual defenses fail—and this failure is necessary. Pure logic can explain and defend, but it cannot integrate. To become whole, we must dialogue with the irrational parts of ourselves, acknowledging what we feel even when it contradicts who we think we should be. This integration—not elimination—of our darkness is what makes us genuinely human.
The Path of High Adventure
I knew that I had chosen the path of high adventure. It has been turbulent, at times solitary, but unmistakably one of growth. Transformation is born not from comfort or certainty. It comes from the courage to meet what we most fear within ourselves, and to emerge more whole, with all our contradictions intact.