Picture the scene: I’m out on a walk with my brilliant dog, Nanook. It’s one of those mid-September days—there’s a slight chill in the air, the leaves are just beginning to turn, and there’s that unmistakable crispness that tells you summer is fading. I’m listening to one of my favourite podcasts and feeling pretty content – not at all a scene reflecting irrational anger, quite the opposite really.

A few hundred metres ahead, I notice a woman walking her dog too. As I get closer, I see her dog crouched over, clearly in the middle of doing a poo on the pavement. I keep walking, watching as the dog finishes. But then, to my disbelief, the woman just keeps moving—no pause, no bag in hand. She’s leaving the poo behind.

I see red.

I speed up, with Nanook trotting quickly beside me to keep pace. As I approach the woman, I pull out a dog poo bag and, without hesitation, hand it to her, saying, ‘Here’s a bag to pick up your dog’s poo.’ She looks shocked at first, maybe even a little embarrassed, but that quickly turns into defensiveness. She starts explaining why she didn’t pick it up, but I’m too angry to listen. I cut her off, telling her how disgusting it is to leave dog poo behind, and before she can respond, I storm off, still fuming.

It’s only when I get home and start telling my wife about the whole situation that I begin to calm down. As the heat of the moment fades, I start to reflect. Why did such a seemingly small thing—a woman not picking up after her dog—spark such a huge reaction in me? What was really going on beneath the surface?

Lately, I’ve been reading a lot of Carl Jung’s work, particularly about the concept of The Shadow within us. Jung believed that the Shadow represents all the parts of ourselves we’re unaware of, deny, or even reject. It’s the side of us that contains everything we’d rather not see in ourselves—our flaws, insecurities, and the traits we criticise, judge and don’t like about other people.

The Shadow reminds us that what we might react negatively to in others can often be a reflection—and a projection—of something unresolved within ourselves. So when I found myself furious at this woman, was I really just reacting to her actions, or was I also confronting my own potential for carelessness or irresponsibility? Could this frustration be a projection of the parts of me that, at times, might cut corners or not do the “right” thing when no one’s watching?

Now, I know what you might be thinking: “Come on, Liz, she was wrong! She should have picked up her dog’s poo, and you were right to call her out!” And, honestly, I do half agree. There are times when we absolutely should hold people accountable. But here’s the thing: whenever we point fingers at someone for not taking responsibility or acting without integrity, it’s also an invitation to ask ourselves: When have I fallen short in those areas, too?

Can we use these moments of irritational anger and frustration to reflect on the parts of ourselves we’ve yet to accept? What if the behaviours and actions we dislike most in others are the very things we struggle to admit about ourselves? It’s a hard pill to swallow, but recognising this can be the first step towards real growth and compassion—both for ourselves and others.