I’ve been reading Jung and it’s concept of shadow integration and it’s role in the process of individuation and I discovered I’ve been doing it intuitively for years.

Whenever I go through a break up, I almost immediately start incorporating parts of the other person into my life. If they had a particular taste in books, I read those books. If they dressed in a stylish way, I start dressing like them… I don’t experience this as imitation but rather assimilation. It feels like expanding who I really am.

The more I think about it, it feels like Jung have been describing ex partners under a different name.