A personal journey into the mirror of American politics and the glaring need for collective shadow work.
Donald Trump. The name alone stirs something deep in almost every American, signalling collective need for some serious shadow.work.
Maybe even every soul on the planet feels something when they hear the name. Pride. Disgust. Outrage. Hope. Confidence. Hopelessness. Anger. Inspiration. Discomfort. Security. Devotion. Dread. Curiosity. Defiance. Religious fervor. Spiritual crisis. Love for country. Shame for the country. Admiration. Revulsion.
No matter what you feel, you probably feel something strong when you hear his name. I can’t think of another word in modern language, not war, not God, not even love, that triggers so much, so quickly, in so many people.
Personally, I’ve always taken a little pride in staying calm through political conversation. I thought I had boundaries. I thought I could engage with the headlines and debates without being dragged into the chaos.
I was wrong.
To use a phrase I don’t love, I’m triggered by the man like no other. That bothers me. Someone who can trigger you can control you, you know. And honestly? I like to pretend I’m a little more spiritually evolved than that. This whole experience has certainly pushed me toward a deeper spiritual awakening.
Many of my relatives are strong Trump supporters. Their inability to see how harmful I believe he is, how destructive to our country, to women, and to the entire world, truly made me furious. I wanted to scream. To shake them. To smash their TV mid-Fox News segment and yell, “Don’t you see it?!”
My Voice in My Brother’s Words: A Catalyst for Personal Transformation
On the phone with my brother, I had an interesting epiphany. My brother is intelligent, thoughtful. We share many views on health, social issues, and such. But I heard the same tone in his voice. I heard the same disbelief, the same frustration as mine… only it was pointed in the opposite direction.
He was frustrated that people couldn’t see how necessary Trump is. How he’s disrupting a corrupt system. How we need him, now more than ever. All sentences echoed by my partner, a guy who is quite liberal in many of his beliefs but finds no home in either political party.
How could these men I so love and respect see the world so differently than I do? And not just men. I personally know many women who ardently support Trump despite his administration and supporters’ continuous attack on their very own rights.
Are they all just deeply brainwashed by Fox News? That’s the left’s narrative about them. But I see the critical thinking skills of many of my friends and family. Many are intelligent, quick women. How do they reconcile supporting someone whose policies seem to work against their own interests?
I lost track of the conversation as these thoughts swirled, and I have no idea what we talked about next. I was a million miles into my own head. Making a vague excuse, I set the phone down slowly.
For a long time, I just sat there. Not angry. Not even confused. Just… unsettled. In that moment, I didn’t feel superior or vindicated. I felt mirrored. My brother’s voice, his conviction, his frustration… they all sounded just like mine. Same energy. Different conclusions. Same fire. Opposite direction.
Slowly, it dawned on me: This wasn’t about Trump at all, it was about what he brings up in us. The heat, the judgment, the desperation to be right. The way we watch people cling to their narrative and feel certain we would never do that. The way we know we’re seeing things clearly… and anyone who disagrees must be blind, brainwashed, or beyond saving. This was a moment of profound personal transformation, leading me deeper into understanding my own shadow.
That wasn’t just politics I was hearing. It was ego. Mine and his, burning in parallel fires.
Trump as Our Nation’s Ego Amplifier: The Call for Shadow Work
I used to think ego only belonged to people like Trump. Loud people. Brash people. The kind who needed gold letters on everything just to feel important.
But ego is also seen in self-righteousness. Or a well-argued tweet. Or that moment I rehearse a comeback long after the conversation ends, not to understand, but to win. I’ve never really wanted to dominate a press room, but I’ve certainly wanted to dominate an argument. I’ve wanted to prove I was the one seeing clearly, loving rightly, knowing better. And underneath that need? Fear. The kind that whispers, “If they’re right, what does that make you?”
That’s the unhealed part of my ego I still live with. It doesn’t shout. It defends, quietly but relentlessly. And Trump? He’s like a spotlight for it. Not because we agree with him, but because, in resisting him, we expose the very parts of ourselves we’ve tried to rise above. This is the essence of integration of shadow work.
And this is where it gets uncomfortable. Because when we talk about Trump, we’re not just talking about a man. We’re talking about a mirror. When I say Trump is a mirror, I don’t mean that we all secretly agree with him. I don’t mean we all carry his beliefs or admire his behavior. I mean he shows us the parts of ourselves we don’t want to look at. The ones we’ve disowned. Rejected. Buried.
That’s how the shadow works. Not just in him. In us. My partner always tells me to, “Look at what people complain about the most and you’ll see it in them.” This has pretty much always held true. Likewise, Carl Jung observed: “Everything that irritates us about others can lead us to an understanding of ourselves.”
When someone triggers you that deeply, when you feel your body contract just hearing their name, it’s worth asking:
- What part of me is being activated?
- What am I defending?
- What do I still believe I have to prove?
Because if I’m honest, there have been moments where I’ve acted like him. Maybe not on a stage, not in a press conference. But in my own way… trying to win, trying to be right, refusing to back down when I was too ashamed to admit I’d missed something.
That’s the shadow. Trump’s brand of ego, loud, defensive, grandiose, is so obvious, it’s easy to spot in him. He’s not just embodying ego, he’s exaggerating it. A walking caricature of our most unflattering instincts. But the truth is we all carry some version of it.
And if we don’t make peace with our own inner ego, the one that hides under spiritual pride, political righteousness, or moral superiority… we’ll just keep projecting it onto the world around us. Onto our neighbors. Our family. Our enemies. That’s the danger of living in reaction. That’s how we become the very thing we claim to oppose. This is why active shadow work is so vital.
How Trump Functions as a Cultural Trickster: A Catalyst for Deeper Shadow Work
This realization reminded me of a conversation I’d had many years ago around a campfire with a friend who loved to read as much as me. We were on our second glass of wine when she said, “Every culture has a trickster. And nobody likes him when he shows up.”
I laughed. “Why would they? He sounds like an asshole.”
She smiled. “Exactly. That’s the point. The trickster’s job isn’t to be liked. It’s to shake things loose.”
At the time, I thought she meant stories and plot development. Loki, Coyote, the Fool pulling pranks and laughing from the shadows all created havoc for the hero to solve. But now? I wonder if she meant people too. The ones who barge into our polished world, knock over the narrative, and refuse to clean up the mess. The ones we label as chaos or bad because what they reveal is uncomfortable. This, in a way, feels like a spiritual rebellion against the status quo, pushing us into deeper shadow work.
Trump, in that light, becomes less of a politician and more of a force. Not because he’s enlightened. But because the structures we were clinging to were already rotting. He didn’t break our sense of civility. He exposed how fragile it always was. He didn’t invent corruption. He just took advantage of broken systems in ways that make it impossible to ignore.
The trickster doesn’t offer comfort. He offers clarity, but only after everything sacred has been thrown to the floor. And once the dust settles, we’re left standing in the wreckage, asking the only question that matters: “What now?”
Finding Radical Compassion in Political Division: Embracing Shadow Work Through Awakening
This is the part where some will resist. I get it, I do too. Because to suggest love in the same sentence as Trump feels… impossible. Irresponsible, even. Like letting something dangerous not just go unchecked, but encouraging it to destroy.
But I’m not talking about approval. I’m not talking about passivity. I’m talking about the kind of love that refuses to become what it hates. The mystics, the healers, the grounded spiritual teachers… they’ve all said some version of the same thing: “What you judge, you bind yourself to. What you hate, you strengthen.”
We don’t transform the world by screaming at its shadows. We transform it by refusing to meet darkness on its own terms. Loving Trump, or rather, loving what his presence reveals, doesn’t mean excusing harm. It means refusing to become hardened by it. It means standing rooted in something deeper than outrage. It means holding our center when the world wants to pull us apart. This whole process, for me, has been a journey of writing through awakening, deeply informed by shadow work.
Because if he’s the mirror, then we are the ones who get to decide what we do with what we see.
What Trump’s Presidency Reveals About Our Collective Shadow
Trump is not just a man. He’s a magnifier. A revealer. A spark in the powder keg of our collective consciousness. He exposes the ego, not just his own, but ours. He reveals the fragility of systems we thought were sacred. He amplifies the fears we pretend we don’t carry.
And in doing so, he offers us a brutal, necessary gift: A chance to see ourselves. A chance to choose something different. We don’t need more enemies. We need more mirrors and the courage to face them without flinching, especially as we engage in shadow work.
Because the revolution isn’t just out there, in the streets or the Senate. It’s in here… in the places we’re still triggered, still clinging, still convinced we’re the good ones.
To meet the moment with clarity, we must be willing to drop the armor. To meet it with wisdom, we must be willing to see clearly even when what we see is uncomfortable. And to meet it with power, we must be willing to love with a fierceness that doesn’t collapse into hate. This can feel like a profound sacred rage and revolution within, transforming how we engage and deepening our shadow work.
Trump may be the archetype we didn’t ask for. But he may also be the bitter medicine we needed to reveal what’s been hiding in plain sight.
And now that we’ve seen it, the question isn’t what will he do next? The question is: What will we choose?
He may trigger more than any name in modern memory. But maybe that’s how change begins… with the things we can no longer ignore.
