This will change how you look at villains

There is a test for how much of ourselves we have met, and it hides inside the stories we love.

Pick any film, myth, novel or fairy tale that has stayed with you.

Now name the figures you identify with. The hero, probably, along with the wise mentor, the brave one, the kind one, the one who sees clearly while everyone else is fooled.

We read ourselves into characters we admire, and we “other” the villains.

Let’s take The Lion King.

It’s easy to look up to Mufasa's wise leadership. We relate to Simba’s archetypal hero’s journey. We admire Nala’s loyalty.

But the story would be nothing without Scar.

And like all good movie villains, Scar is the one we don’t want to relate to.

But Scar lives in all of us.

So here is a test of how much shadow we have integrated:

Which characters have traits that you are sure don’t live in you? Which character would you be unable to say - “yes - that lives in me too”?

The parts of ourselves we cannot bear to own get assigned to other people, in our lives as in the stories we tell. We all have parts that can be cruel, parts that are hungry for power, parts that have the capacity to betray.

Villains show us the parts of ourselves we are pretending don’t live in us.

Projection turns the world into a replica of our own unknown face. The people we cannot stand are showing us that face.

We can choose to keep looking away, or we can do the harder and more interesting thing and turn towards and admit that Scar, Voldemort, Darth Vader, and, yes, Donald Trump live in us too.