Everything You Need To Know About Shadow Work
“One does not become enlightened by imagining figures of light, but by making the darkness conscious.”
- Carl Jung
Shadow work has become increasingly popular for the last few years. Despite the fact that more and more people are talking about it, there continues to be a lot of confusion as to what shadow work actually is and why it’s such an incredible tool on your personal healing journey.
To help you clear up some of that confusion or simply to introduce you to the topic, this article is going to cover everything you need to know about shadow work.
We’ll answer:
What is the shadow?
Why do we have a shadow?
What happens when I repress my shadow?
What exactly is shadow work?
What are the benefits of shadow work?
What do I need to know before I start doing shadow work?
How can I get started doing my own shadow work?
Let’s dive right in!
What is the shadow?
The “shadow” is a psychological concept first coined by the renowned psychiatrist and psychoanalyst Carl Jung in the 20th century. According to Jung, the human psyche is split into a conscious and unconscious component and the shadow is the part of our unconscious where we store away all of our unwanted qualities and characteristics that we can’t bear to face.
Simply put, the shadow is what is commonly referred to as someone’s “dark side”, everything about ourselves that we have deemed unacceptable, shameful or even “evil”. This can include our unwanted impulses, desires and secrets we are too afraid to admit (even to ourselves) and repressed emotions such as anger, hatred, jealousy or greed.
The tricky thing about the shadow is that everybody has onebut most of us go through life telling ourselves that we don’t because we’ve repressed all of our shadow qualities into our unconscious.
Why do we have a shadow?
So how exactly does this creepy shadow-like thing come to be? It’s pretty simple actually.
Our shadow is commonly formed in childhood and is partly the product of natural development and partly the product of our social conditioning. As children, we are incredibly dependent on our parents, caretakers or any other people around us.
Because we need them for survival, we quickly get accustomed to their way of doing things and therefore do and behave in whatever way it takes to please them.
Even if we don’t consciously know this at the time, every behavior, feeling or desire that results in a negative reaction from someone in our environment is eventually labeled as unsafe. Over time, all these “bad” things then become buried within ourselves, deep underneath all the other “appropriate” behavior.
As we grow and mature, we continue to repress those aspects of ourselves that feel unsafe or unwanted. And that’s exactly what then becomes our shadow.
The good news is that even though the shadow is generally considered to contain all of our “negative” qualities (and it does contain those) - not everything that we’ve suppressed throughout our life is inherently bad.
Imagine growing up in a family that highly values and enforces scientific fact and rigor. While there is nothing wrong with that in general, a child who is by nature more creative might find that its creative impulses always lead to feeling judged by its parents. As an adult, they might have no idea that they have a very creative side because when they were growing up, they had to bury it deep within their shadow.
So in this case, the creative impulse that makes up the shadow quality isn’t inherently bad by nature, it was just perceived as bad by the individual who wasn’t allowed to show their creative side growing up.
So now that we’ve established what a shadow is and how it’s formed, you might be asking yourself “So what? Why does it matter that I have certain parts of myself that I’m not aware of?”
Let’s take a look at that!
What happens when we repress our shadow?
In a perfect world, we would have no negative consequences from repressing certain qualities into our shadow. In reality, however, this is of course very rarely the case.
Imagine your shadow self like a little child or even a puppy that desperately craves attention. Everything that rummages around in our unconscious yearns to be understood and integrated into our conscious ego personality. And the longer it remains repressed, the stronger it becomes and the more it will try to make itself known to us.
The most common way that our shadow qualities try to make themselves known is through projection.
What does that mean exactly?
Because it isn’t safe for us to admit that we carry a certain quality or desire within ourselves, we have to project that quality onto someone else in order to be able to deal with it.
When that happens, we might feel really angry and irrational. We might develop strong dislikes or even hatred toward these people for reasons that we just can’t explain to ourselves. In the most extreme cases, we might begin to turn people or groups into “enemies” and try to punish, criticize or even “destroy” them at all costs.
Sometimes, a projection can also make us unhealthily idolize and obsess over certain people that embody our shadow qualities because our unconscious deeply craves to be just like them. Similarly to the example above, we usually have no awareness that this is happening at all.
However, projection isn’t the only thing that can happen when we repress our shadow self.
Other issues could include:
Self-sabotage that we can’t understand or explain
Uncontrollable outbursts of emotion after certain triggers
Behavioral patterns that keep repeating themselves in our lives (despite the fact that we may actively be trying to change them)
Intense anxiety and depression (as well as other mental illnesses)
Inability to have authentic and strong relationships with others
Inability to stop lying (to others and ourselves)
Addictions to things that we deem as “bad”
Lack of self-worth and self-esteem (or even pure self-loathing)
A sense that something is “missing” from our lives but we can’t explain what it is
So what do we do to prevent these issues? That’s where shadow work comes in!
What exactly is shadow work?
Shadow work is an attempt to uncover the things that we have locked away in our unconscious. Instead of approaching the healing process by focusing on the positive aspects of ourselves, the idea of shadow work is to engage in different activities that can help us reveal what is hidden in our shadow.
Don’t get us wrong, focusing on loving yourself, self-confidence and happiness can and should be an important tool in any personal development journey. But often, it is the first step that we need to take in order to get to a place where we can inspect ourselves on a deeper and darker level.
Because only when we’re brave enough to face the uncomfortable inner work, can we learn to really free ourselves from any of the issues that arise from a repressed shadow.
What are the benefits of shadow work?
Engaging in shadow work can have a huge variety of benefits. Such as:
Compassion and understanding for those who you might have disliked
Deep acceptance and love for yourself
Better and more authentic relationships with others
Freedom from self-sabotage and addictions
Improved emotional regulation (with fewer triggers)
Improved mental and physical health
A sense of wholeness and connection to your Higher Self
And most importantly, you would be surprised at how many hidden gems can be found in our own shadow. If we are brave enough to look, we might realize all of the beautiful talents and strengths we didn’t know we had because we were taught to repress them over the years.
There is no way of knowing the depths of what could be hidden inside of us but it often includes gifts such as our creativity, our intuition, our sexuality or a deep connection to our spirituality.
What you need to know before starting shadow work
For many of us, the idea of starting shadow work can be intimidating, to the point where we just put it off because we don’t want to deal with the discomfort and we’re afraid of what we might find in our shadow.
The important thing to note is that even though there is so much fear and shame associated with our own shadow, once we are brave and mature enough to face these parts of ourselves, we often realize that it’s not even close to as bad as we feared.
To help you decide whether you are ready to embark on that journey, here are a few things to consider:
Have you cultivated enough self-awareness to understand that you are not your thoughts and your shadow fears are not always real (even if they feel like it)?
Have you cultivated enough self-love and self-compassion to be able to face your deepest insecurities without getting lost in them and feel even worse about yourself?
Do you feel safe enough to be honest with yourself, even when it’s uncomfortable?
Do you have enough time and energy to invest in taking this process seriously?
Do your current circumstances allow you to be calm, relaxed and present so that your shadow would feel safe enough to emerge?
If you’ve answered the majority of those questions with a “Yes”, then there should be nothing in your way to diving into the process of shadow work.
How do we get started? Let’s take a look!
How to get started with your own shadow work
There is no “one correct way” to engage in your own shadow work. The process of bringing your hidden shadow qualities into consciousness can take many different shapes and forms. Which ones will depend entirely on what works for you!
In general, there a few different techniques that people use to get familiar with their shadow:
Start paying attention to your strong emotional reactions: What belief inside of you is being triggered to cause this reaction?
Start looking at other people that you strongly dislike: Why do you dislike them so much and could it be that you are projecting?
Start expressing yourself through inner conversations or writing: If you start talking to your shadow, you’ll likely find that it will be eager to talk back.
Start expressing yourself artistically: Allowing yourself to create without any pressure or expectations. You’d be surprised at how much of our inner selves and darker parts can find our way into the art we create.
If you’d like to have guided support on your journey, our Self Care Space membership includes an entire month's worth of guided programming on shadow work.
The topic is broken down into four weeks, each focusing on one of the phases of shadow work:
Identifying our shadow
Outing our shadow
Owning our shadow
Learning how to integrate our shadow in a healthy way
Additionally, you’ll have access to guided shadow work meditations, regular check-ins as well as the rest of our membership features that include self-guided prompts and programs on self-love, healthy relationships, breaking free from the past and managing a healthy mindset. We also have countless guided meditations, healing visualizations as well as weekly live workshops and coaching sessions.
Are you curious about exploring your dark side? Sign up to join The Self Care Space now and start your shadow work journey today!
xoxo,
The Self Care Space
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