From the author: An essay on self-exploration, published on my website and in the space of the blogosphere. There is one good metaphorical story about a man who lost his keys on the street at night. Out of a completely natural desire, he immediately begins to look for them. But in the darkness, in the shadows cast by nearby houses, it quickly becomes alarming and unpleasant for him to look for them. So he heads to the nearest street lamp and, in the beam of light it casts on the ground, begins his search. Having searched several times already and still not found, he is faced with a choice: to continue his apparently fruitless search where there is light, or to go explore the shadow, a dark, unlit area. After some thought and torment, he continues his search in the rays of the lantern’s light. When you first read this story, the solution becomes almost immediately clear - the keys most likely lie somewhere in the shadows. And the person’s behavior seems completely ridiculous. But the truth of life is that searching in the light, even without a chance of success and spending a lot of energy on it, is much easier. Because in the light everything is visible quite well. But in the shadows, in the darkness, nothing is visible, and therefore searching there is very difficult. Difficult because going into the dark is alarming and scary. And many people often in life make a choice in favor of what is easy and simple, avoiding what is difficult. Now let’s imagine that such, here, Shadow (with a capital letter), such unlit, unknown, dark areas exist within ourselves. The way we don't know ourselves. Or we know, but we don’t want others to see us that way. It was this part of our unconscious personality that Carl Gustav Jung, the famous psychoanalyst and student of Freud, called the Shadow. The shadow is a part of the unconscious, where we repress everything that is considered unacceptable, incorrect and impermissible for us. And what is impermissible? And where does this come from? From early childhood, one of the basic needs of a child is to be able to earn the attention and approval of his parents (or other important figures who occupy the parental position). And to achieve this, a child, in principle, is capable of a lot. But every child has his own inner potential, a set of abilities, a predisposition to something. Someone is more impulsive and active, prone to mischief and pranks. Someone, on the contrary, is quiet and sedate, inclined to follow a certain routine. Some people have mathematical inclinations, while others gravitate more toward the humanities. And this can continue for a very long time. All children are different. But often in the parental family there is a certain unwritten set of rules. What a child in this family should be like. What is good for him and what is bad. What parents are ready to approve in a child and what they will not accept under any circumstances. The more flexible these rules are, the more parents are ready to meet the inner potential of their child, the more the child shows what he is naturally inclined to do. In fact, the more he allows himself to be who he is, because he knows that his parents will accept him as such. The more conservative and inflexible these rules and foundations are, the more firm the parents are in their expectations of the child, the more the child has to adapt himself to his parents. Essentially, becoming what they want him to be. And then everything else, what does not meet the parents’ expectations, the child suppresses in himself. Suppresses, pushing it into the unconscious, ceasing to remember about it, to be aware of it and somehow connect it with oneself. And it goes into the Shadow. And, as adults, we only know that this is how we would like others to see us. And then, no matter how we would under any circumstances want anyone to see us. And this is the very impermissible thing we started with. Now let’s imagine that the area of ​​impermissibility includes, for example, the ability to enjoy some simple things in life for no reason. Or the ability to afford in certain.