The Shadow

Your Shadow Self

Shadow work is the process of facing the parts of ourselves that we’d rather not reveal to anyone, the aspect of ourselves that we’d rather shove in a closet for no one to see.  A major part of healing from past traumas and finding peace is by doing shadow work.

Carl Jung, a Swiss psychoanalyst, who created the term shadow self/work, stated that the shadow refers to our darker selves, our deepest wounds. The wounds that have us believing we're flawed, unlovable, and undeserving.

These wounds can come from childhood or can be developed in your adulthood.  When left unattended, these wounds fester, leading us to live from a place of dysfunction and/or deficiency.

Doing shadow work brings us out of the dark place and into a space of wholeness and light. It increases our vibrations and allows us to stop interpreting interactions with others from the lens of the wounded self and helps us to understand that most negative interactions are not about us, but about the people who are acting unconsciously from their own unhealed wounds. Hurt people hurt people. This practice expands our capacity for self-love, fulfilling relationships and the possibilities we see for our lives.

And that’s what I think Birdbox is about because that entity (monster) that they looked at and then they would all of a sudden become faced with all their fears and traumas then killed themselves. The reason why the insane were able to look at the “monster” was that they’ve already done their shadow work.  They’ve already faced their flaws and bad parts, and even their criminally insane parts, so the monster wasn’t a threat to them.  It was therapeutic for them to look at their dark selves.

Jung did not believe the shadow to be without purpose or merit; he felt that “where there is light, there must also be shadow”—which is to say that the shadow has an important role to play in balancing the overall psyche. Without a well-developed shadow side, a person can easily become shallow and extremely preoccupied with the opinions of others, a walking persona. Just as a conflict is necessary to advance the plot of any good novel, light and dark are necessary to our personal growth.

Jung believed that not wanting to look at their shadows directly, many people project them onto others, meaning that the qualities we often cannot stand in others, we have in ourselves and wish to not see. To truly grow as a person, one must cease such willful blindness to one’s shadow and attempt to balance it with the persona.

The Work

Coming to terms with your shadow is half the work.  The second half is giving the shadow a platform, a voice, and a productive outlet to work through the pain and trauma.  Once you have integrated your unconscious (shadow) with your conscious (higher self), you may even be able to further your personal development with some of your shadow traits. Some of your shadow traits can help with heightening your creativity, intuition, self-esteem and even physical health.

For me, shadow work is showing up in many different forms in my life.  My writing, my podcast, and my spirituality. I have been using these platforms to do my shadow work and I didn’t even realize it.  I just came to learn about shadow work a few months ago, but really didn’t get it at first but now that I have actually applied it to my life, I see where I’ve been harboring a lot of darkness and have seen a little bit of that darkness come into the light.

I feel like shadow work is a constant. Who is ever DONE with their shadow work?  That would mean you have reached an incredibly high sense of self, your vibrations are the highest they could possibly be and you are in complete love with yourself, you do and say everything with complete unconditional love.

Hard to imagine. But I guess its possible!