The cave you fear to enter holds the treasure that you seek.
This is a brilliant quote from a man many revere as the Father of Mythology, Joseph Campbell. When I read all his books and studied The Power of Myth television series with Bill Moyers and Campbell, I knew that the alternative protocol I used in my work was on solid ground.
As a college student I was mesmerized by the teaching of Dr. Carl Jung, a Swiss psychoanalyst who gave the world the concept of the Shadow, the silent and invisible nature of “the other” within each of us. Jung believed that this Shadow is the partnership we must perfect before we can have a meaningful relationship and/or marriage.
The cave you fear to Campbell and to many of us is the dark side of ourselves when faced can liberate us from constantly transferring our negative qualities onto others. The path to freedom comes when we illumine them with honest confession and transmuting them into qualities that enhance rather than diminish the quality of our life.