Our self-concept often excludes painful awareness of the polarities within us.
We prefer to think of ourselves as bright rather than dull, as kind rather than cruel, as loving rather than unloving, and as sensitive rather than indifferent.
Typically, we may resist “seeing” in ourselves those parts that we don’t want to accept as being part of who we are.
Although we can recognize the altruistic side of ourselves, we might have trouble coming to terms with our self-centered nature.
Ideally, as we move closer to becoming psychologically mature and healthy, we are aware of most of the polarities within ourselves, including those thoughts and feelings that society does not sanction.
As we become more tolerant of the complexities and seeming contradictions within us, there is less of a tendency to expend energy on fighting to disown those parts of our nature that we don’t want to accept.