Shadow Work is What’s Missing in Your Life!

What is Shadow Work?

Essentially shadow work is a self reflective process where we look at all the parts of our self that we don’t like. Some of these characteristics we fear so much that we pushed them far from our conscious mind and we don’t even have access to these emotions or traits. This can leave many people feeling broken, stuck, lost, or like something is missing in their life. Well, something is missing, the parts of yourself that are hidden in your unconscious mind.

Through shadow work you can examine these characteristics that your ego judges as bad or negative. This is done by activating the awareness mind, where you take a step back and just watch the stories and judgements your ego comes up. By observing theses stories with an open and curious mind you can begin to question them and see that they may not be as true as you once thought.  

So we all have a shadow, why should I work on it?

We are in an interesting time where many people have the space to do personal development work. Self help book and workshops, weight management programs, and a wide variety of healing modalities tell us that this is something people are craving, they want to feel better. Many people, myself included, try many different things to “feel better”, and usually they are all external solutions. We have grown so accustomed to buying happiness or the pill the cures everything we don’t think to look inwards at our self imposed suffering. Sometimes these external solutions work, and sometimes they don’t, that is where shadow work come in.

The first half of life is devoted to forming a healthy ego. The second half is going inward and letting go of it – Carl Jung

Untangling your own shadow will allow you to regain aspects of yourself that you locked away. This will allow you to show up more confidently in life and more aligned to your true wants and needs, not those imposed on you by your ego or familial and cultural upbringing. If you never examine your inner world you will always be chasing external goals that are not aligned with your true desire. This is why when we achieve a goals we are often are not satisfied for long. We want more, or quickly move onto the next thing, chasing the next feel good goal.

Another great reason to do shadow work is to gain more empathy for yourself and others. Bringing awareness and understanding your patterns and conditioning is the first step in making any changes. When you can start to see why you keep engaging in toxic relationships or behaviours you can let go of shame and consciously choose to show up in a different way. Change is difficult because so many of your patterns and beliefs are set or conditioned when you were young and these patterns are set by emotions not logic. This is why you can know something but still not act on it, your emotional conditioning is keeping you stuck. By working with the emotions to tease apart your shadow you can gain a better understanding of yourself and see other ways forward. The more you understand yourself, the more you will be able to see through other people’s projection and not get triggered by their triggers.

How do you do shadow work?

Anything that causes you to pause and self reflect is shadow work; journaling, meditation, asking yourself specific questions, examining your triggers, and even doing art can all be forms of shadow work. Some of my favorite methods of shadow work are:

·         Sitting with a feeling – when an uncomfortable emotion or body sensation comes up, lean into it and listen to what is has to say. You can do this by activating the awareness mind you can stay curious and not get caught up in the stories. When you sit with the feeling for long enough new thoughts are able come to surface and show you what is underneath the ego fear.

·         Journal prompts – you can find lots of shadow work questions on the internet and in books. They are great places to start when journaling as they often force you to ask yourself questions you have never thought to ask yourself before. Sometimes they can make you uncomfortable just thinking about the questions, this is a trigger and a good place to start.

·         Examining a trigger – triggers are our teachers! We use other people as mirrors as a way to view our shadow traits. When you get irrationally emotional or uncomfortable about someone or a situation, you are being triggered. When you start to become aware of your triggers you can learn to sit with them and get curious, watching and questioning the trigger will allow you to get underneath the surface to find the root of the problem. Only then can you truly start to understand yourself and heal.

Everything that irritates us about others can lead us to an understanding of ourselves

– Carl Jung

What’s next?

The next step after doing some shadow work is integration. This is where you take the knowledge about yourself and put it into practice. Your shadow was formed by emotions when you are very young, so you will need the same emotions to work with your shadow and pull things back out. This is why knowing you need to stand up for yourself doesn’t allow you to be more confident or set better boundaries. You need to work with the feeling of being a bully/bossy/mean/etc. in order to be able to successfully set boundaries and stand up for yourself. The hard part is that you are an individual and only you can figure out how to integrate your shadow traits. Here are a few methods of integration my clients have found useful:

·         Journal about the shadow trait and look for patterns in your life where it has shown up before. Through journaling you can see how this shadow trait has kept you limited and allow you to see a new way forward.  

·         You can create art (paint, draw, dance, sculpt, etc.) while focusing on your shadow trait or a feeling. The unconscious mind communicates through symbols and metaphors and art is a great way to engage the unconscious mind. You don’t need to be good at art, you just need to be intentional about it.   

·         You can take an action on something that makes you uncomfortable, you may find out it was not as bad as you made it seem in your head. Where the frilly dress, ask for the promotion, set the boundary, ask for help, work with the feelings that come up when you do step outside of your comfort zone and notice if it gets easier every time you do it.

Shadow Work is not easy, but is it very rewarding. I should warn you this is a lifelong process as you have a personal shadow, a family shadow, and a cultural shadow. This is hard work with no short cuts and you will meet a lot of resistance along the way. Having a coach or a friend group to help you work through your shadow can be very beneficial. An objective observer is able to see when you are being too hard on yourself and others, they can push you into spaces you were trying to avoid and celebrate with you when you have breakthroughs. You may have to do this work on your own, but you don’t have to be alone while you do it.

Will you answer the call of the hero’s inner journey?