What exactly is shadow work?
Have you heard the term ‘shadow work’ and wondered what people were talking about?
I’m sure you’ve had a guess at it and you probably aren’t far wrong, but let’s dive into it a little deeper to see what we can learn.
The parts we keep hidden
Shadow work is a term used for exploring the not so nice parts of ourselves. It’s the parts we want to keep hidden, and that we don’t admit to. It’s the nasty, mean girl or guy we have inside us - the one that holds grudges, hangs on to unhelpful emotions and lashes out at unexpected times. The shadow side of ourselves can include traits such as rudeness, victimhood, judging, sarcasm, vanity, dismissal, anger, hate, rejection, laziness, selfishness, negativity, loneliness - you get the picture.
We’ve been brought up to be good girls, or good boys, and to behave nicely, not to show these not so nice emotions such as anger and resentment. We learnt this at a very young age. Our shadow actually developed in our childhood when we were learning the ‘rules of society’. If we were told off for speaking up, or expressing our anger, we learnt that this was not an acceptable part of ourselves, so we tucked it away in a corner of our being and made sure it only very, very rarely came out (or not at all if we could help it). Likewise, if we were told we were being a showoff when we were just expressing who we truly were, then again, that’s going to be hidden away somewhere within us. There are all manner of ways in which the shadow sides of ourselves has developed.
Avoiding rejection
The reason why this side of ourselves becomes hidden is that we don’t want to be rejected. Initially we rely on our parents or caregivers for our survival. Being rejected by them would mean we wouldn’t survive, so we quickly learn what behaviour is acceptable and what we need to hide away in order to survive in this world. The trouble is, hidden traits don’t go away. They are still there, just not being expressed. This means, we are not being authentic to ourselves and expressing who we truly are to the world.
I’m not saying we should go around being vengeful and negative if thats part of our shadow side - not at all, and that certainly wouldn’t win you any friends, although it might help you to lose a few! But we do need to recognise that this aspect is a part of us and it does need acknowledgement. This then allows us to balance both aspects of ourselves out and find the point somewhere in the middle. We’ve all heard of the idea that overusing a strength becomes a weakness - well, this is exactly that. Not acknowledging our shadow side means we cannot utilise the strength and wisdom that comes from this aspect of ourself.
I can hear some of you muttering “I don’t have a shadow side, I’m a nice person” but actually you do. In fact we all do - every single one of us. We can’t not have a shadow side - it’s part of what makes us human. It was Carl Jung who popularised the idea of the shadow self but it’s not always known as the shadow self. It can also be known as self reflection, self examination or even bringing the unconscious to the conscious.
We are like an iceberg. Our conscious side is the little part above the waterline that we show to everyone else. Our unconscious side, or shadow side, is the 90% under the water that nobody else gets to see. And it is this part that actually rules the roost. It controls what we say, believe and do. Our ego, which is our conscious self, just likes to think it’s in control.
Doing the work
It doesn’t really matter what you call it, the important piece in this puzzle is to actually do the work and to utilise the strength and wisdom that comes from this side. When we do that everything can change. Fear can be transformed into courage, pain can be converted to strength and resilience, our aggressive side can be channeled into becoming a warrior for a good cause.
There are many different methods for exploring your shadow side. If you have deep trauma, I would recommend you seek a trained therapist to guide you through the process. This is hard work, really hard, and it’s not to be taken lightly. However, if you feel this is something you’d like to start exploring on your own, I have a few suggestions that might help. This is what worked for me, but it may not work for you. If it’s not feeling like a good fit for you, try Googling ‘shadow work’ and you’ll find many other ways that people have developed to explore this area of themselves.
I’m breaking it down into three steps for you:
Spot the trigger
Acknowledge and explore
Accept and integrate
Spot the trigger
The most common ways that our shadow side makes itself known is either when we react or are triggered by something or someone in our environment, or when we find ourselves projecting onto others. If we are triggered by someone or something in our environment, we tend to react rather than respond, say something we immediately regret, or we do something that is ‘unlike us’. It’s out of the norm - not something we would normally do.
If we are projecting onto others, we might make a nasty comment about someone, criticise them or the way they do something or be judgemental in some other way towards another. Basically we are projecting our own perceived flaws onto others, and magnifying them.
Acknowledge and explore
Now that we’ve noticed we have been triggered its time to stop and observe. Look at the reaction, without judgement, and ask the question “Why am I reacting like this?”. The answer to this question may take some time to reveal itself. The first thing that pops into our heads is usually our ego jumping in wanting to fill the gap and have the answer. We need to dig deeper, explore further.
It might go something like this:
“Why am I reacting like this?”
“I’m angry”
“Why am I angry?”
“Because xx said xx to me”
“Why did that make you angry?”
“Because it hurt”
“What was it that hurt you in what they said?”
“They said my work wasn’t up to standard”
”Why does that hurt you?”
”Because it makes me feel that I’m not good enough”
So the real issue here is not feeling good enough but it was disguised as being angry. Anger was the reaction, not the core issue. You can keep digging deeper and deeper using this type of questioning if you want to take it further and see if you can uncover the root cause of the issue - in this case finding out why you feel like you are not good enough. A great way to do this can be through journaling. You can simply write down your questions as we go through them, as I’ve done above, or you can start journaling from the point where we got to here - in this case the journal question would be “why do I feel that I’m not good enough?”
Accept and integrate
You have now identified that your outburst or projection was because you didn’t feel good enough, and you may have even worked out that this came from a specific event or comment made at a certain point in your life. It may have brought up unpleasant feelings and emotions, and that’s good, because that’s part of accepting this happened and that you have a part of you that feels this way. Let those emotions be felt. This is part of the process of healing the trigger, so it’s important you don’t push them away.
Now be compassionate with yourself. What would you say to others who don’t feel ‘enough’ in some way? Instead of saying it to someone else, say it to yourself. Be gentle. Move forward slowly - this is not the time to rush. It may take you a while to accept that this is part of you. Understanding where this feeling originally came from can be very helpful in accepting and integrating it. It’s much easier to be compassionate when you acknowledge that your 8 year old self was made to feel not enough by a specific comment from a person you trusted.
Accept that this is part of you. You can’t make it go away. It will always be there, but if you have acknowledged it and accepted it you can now integrate it into who you are outwardly. Knowing, for instance, that certain things make you feel ‘not enough’ mean you can take steps to improve your self esteem and self worth so that you DO feel enough. And this in turn will change your beliefs about yourself.
And that’s shadow work
Observing, acknowledging, exploring, accepting and integrating.
Definitely not easy, but worth the work because of the strength and wisdom that comes from exploring this side our ourselves.
If you are struggling with any aspect of this, please reach out to someone for support. This could be a close friend, a therapist or another trained expert that can guide you through the process. It can be very difficult doing this work on your own and it is a sign of strength and courage to acknowledge that a bit of support would be helpful.
I’m hoping this post has helped you to understand shadow work a bit more, and given you some ideas about how to approach it. If you have any questions about it, leave a comment below - I’ll always respond.
Karen
