Shadow Work

Shadow Work

Something that has recently found its way into pop culture jargon as of late, but what exactly is the Shadow and Shadow Work?

I’ll begin this entry by explaining just what the shadow is…..

The term “Shadow” is a concept coined by Carl G. Jung that describes aspects of the personality that we’ve repressed, disowned and rejected, and thus, have been pushed into our unconscious psyche. It’s an act of distancing ourselves from behaviors, thoughts and emotions that we’ve felt that we needed to hide in order to be accepted - either by ourselves, our family, and/or by society and culture. We bury in the shadows those qualities that don’t fit our self-image that we project to the world.

I also want to name the fact that there’s what Jung refers to as the “Golden Shadow”, which is the unfulfilled and untapped potential within us. They are the things that we fail to see or are afraid to own out of fear.

“People do their best to stay ignorant to their faults and weaknesses, in doing so, elements of their personality is relegated to the unconscious and make up the realm of the psyche Jung called the Shadow. The shadow exerts an active influence on our personality and affects our behavior in a myriad of unforseen ways. When we behave in a manner that is a product of our shadow, we take part in the phenomenon known as projection in order to avoid facing our shadow.”

There are many factors that play a role in forming our shadow, which ultimately determines what is permitted expression and what is not. Our environment, consisting of our family, teachers, peers etc., set the stage for what is considered acceptable behavior and what is unacceptable. It contains the undeveloped and unexpressed potentials of all kinds. Our shadow represents the characteristics of the conscious personality that the ego doesn’t want to acknowledge and express, therefore it becomes neglected, forgotten and buried within the realm of the unconscious only to bubble up in confrontations with others.

Each of us have a shadow, which is a collected assembly of those parts of ourselves that we’ve learned to keep out of sight over the course of our life. For either reasons of survival, safety, and/or acceptance, we learned to deny and bury our pain, shame and wounding. In our attempts to lock this unwanted material away, we assumed that this would keep us safe, loved, and accepted, however, they in turn arise in the form of projections or other upsetting ways, and rule us as invisible undercurrents.

It is for this reason, that we see and experience the shadow indirectly, in the traits and actions of others that we find to be unpleasant, or what we disagree with, but it is always out there, in a sphere where it is safer to observe and judge. When we react intensely to a quality or action in another person, it tends to be our shadow emerging as we project these qualities onto the other in an unconscious attempt to keep ourselves from seeing this within.

To quote Carl Jung, “the shadow is a moral problem that challenges the whole ego personality, for no one can become conscious of the shadow without considerable moral effort. To become conscious of it involves recognizing the dark aspects of the personality as present and real. This act is the essential condition for any kind of self-knowledge.”

In moments when we become overwhelmed and possessed by strong feelings of distaste, shame, or anger, the shadow is what is emerging, which causes us to shift into a state of denial, creating more space between ourselves and that which we find to be repulsive.

Our shadow contains the un-illuminated conditioning and programming - ways we think, act, feel and choose without knowing why. Emotions and feelings such as;
- Fear
- Anger & Agression
- Shame & Humiliation
- Empathy
- Resistance
- Our Inner Child
- Self-defeating behaviors
- Sexuality
- Grief
- Our biggness, capacity to take up space, and our beauty.

Why Do Shadow Work?

In meeting the shadow, this requires us to be brutally honest with ourselves, recognize that we do in fact have blind spots within our own psyches and locate them. It calls for us to slow down, listen to the cues of what our bodies may be whispering to us, allowing ourselves the time and space to digest and be with the cryptic messages that are coming forth from our hidden world.

The aim of meeting our shadow is to develop an on-going relationship with it in an effort to expand our sense of self by striving towards balance in the one-sided nature of our conscious attitudes with our unconscious tendencies/depths.

Other benefits to Shadow work include:

• Our unintegrated shadow manifests in the forms of projections onto others - this can hinder and distort relationships. When we work with our shadow, we heal our relationships.

• Freedom from our conditioning and ingrained programming - by working with and integrating the shadow, it ceases to control us and unconsciously dictate our lives.

• By coming into relationship with our shadow and being aware of it, we take back our power and it no longer unconsciously controls us and causes us to react.

• We learn to face ourselves and deepen our relationship with ourselves.

• Ability to work with our more difficult emotions.

• Not all shadow material is "bad", we also unconsciously deny positive aspects of our self, what Jung called the "Golden Shadow".

• Achieve genuine self-acceptance for it is through radical self acceptance that we can unconditionally love ourselves.

• Diffuse the negative emotions that spring forth.

• Free ourselves from the guilt & shame associated with our negative feelings, thoughts and actions.

• Recognize the projections that color our opinion of others.

• Through our personal shadow work, we also diminish the density of the collective shadow.

• By acknowledging and reclaiming the parts of ourselves that we've pushed into our unconscious, we can integrate them and thus, move towards wholeness.