Read an Excerpt from ONEING: A Living Tradition by Bestselling Author Elise Loehnen

ONEING: A Living Tradition, our Fall 2025 issue, points the reader towards living water. If you’re seeking spiritual transformation, our new issue of ONEING features essays and poems from diverse authors who can offer you a sense of hope.

In ONEING: A Living Tradition, contributors consider how challenges such as illness, personal recovery, and engaging with our shadow selves can become openings for meaningful change. Their insights encourage us to turn towards wonder and the gentleness of love.

We hope you enjoy this excerpt from ONEING: A Living Tradition.

“The Integration Is the Shadow” by Elise Loehnen

Elise Loehnen is the author of the New York Times bestseller, On Our Best Behavior, as well as the workbook companion, Choosing Wholeness Over Goodness. She’s the host of the podcast Pulling the Thread. She lives in Los Angeles with her husband and two sons.

In “The Integration is the Shadow,” she writes: “The term shadow comes from Swiss psychiatrist Carl Jung (1875–1961), who argued that the ego assumes the traits it wants and likes — often traits prioritized by culture — and relegates everything else to the ‘shadow’ of the unconscious. My therapist, himself a Jungian, doesn’t like the word shadow because of its associations with race, so he calls the shadow a blind spot, one that doggedly chases you through life, holding what you refuse to look at outside of conscious awareness. Your shadow, or blind spot, contains all the qualities that are a threat to your identity, or belief structures, or the parts of your psyche that you need to disavow and disown to self-protect.

For me, being perceived as unkind and therefore unlikable had not been something I could look at. It was too scary, particularly in our quick-to-cancel online world, so I told myself it was an impossibility. And to keep it as far away from me as possible, I spent a lot of energy trying to control people’s perceptions of me, which at times meant performing patience and kindness I didn’t feel or holding my tongue to conceal what I really thought — except, of course, for all the times when I forgot, or was misread, or let myself show up fully, without (self-) consciously holding myself back.

Because here’s the thing about shadow: While we can’t see our own, we can see everyone else’s. How often do you find yourself on the road, cursing out another driver for cutting you off, only to do the same thing a few miles later, justifying your action to yourself because you’re in a hurry or you’re the better driver? It’s a silly example, but it’s shadow in action: We hate in others what we refuse to accept in ourselves.”

About ONEING 

Established in 2013, ONEING is a journal of the Center for Action and Contemplation. Renowned for its diverse and deep exploration of mysticism and culture, ONEING is grounded in Richard Rohr’s teachings and wisdom lineage. Each issue features a themed collection of thoughtfully curated essays and critical perspectives from spiritual teachers, activists, modern mystics, and prophets of all religions.