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

There are certainly statistics which show that most people who become sociopaths, who become homicidal, who become child- abusers, have had a history of incredible suffering. This is what we call the transmission of family sin, in which these unconscious patterns get carried on for generations in a legacy of pain. When they are not brought to awareness and worked through, each generation just automatically enacts them.

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.

Shadow-making happens in families and makes us who we are. It leads to shadow-work, which makes us who we can become.

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.

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