Healing with the hermit: Jungian Shadow Work
Knowing the shadow within each of us.
Dear Hermit,
How often do we truly know ourselves? Like most people out there, you already have a good idea about your beliefs, values, desires, and opinions are. And probably also carry around a personal code or a manifesto that would define whether you are a "good" or a "bad" person. If there is any subject that would make you an expert in knowing, surely it would be an expert about yourself.
What if you are wrong about who you thought you were? What if much of what you had believed about yourself is untrue and is not an accurate reflection of who you truly are?
Before you get defensive and reject what I had said altogether, you probably also had thoughts like this: "Hey! You do not know much about me! You do not know about my life and what I had been through! Do not gaslight me by telling me that I do not know myself well enough!".
All of us carry demons inside of us.
Have you said or done something that felt shitty, mostly on impulse, and came to regret it later? An example would be a Freudian slip, saying something unintentionally hurtful to the other person? After the damage was done and the other person involved got hurt, you felt shame and frustration about your actions, beating yourself over it. Have you ever asked questions like "Why did I say that?" or "Why did I do that?".
Despite the reasons you may try to justify to yourself on the lack of self-control over what you had done or said, it felt like you betrayed the very existence of the different person lurking underneath you, that is your carefully constructed idea and persona of who you are. And this person underneath us who occasionally slips out of our control is the shadow. It is the parts of ourselves that were repressed and made oblivious. Most of us would go to great lengths to protect our self-image from anything unfamiliar or unflattering that would tarnish it.
It is always easier to observe the shadow of others and their "bad" side, how often do we acknowledge our own shadow.
Today, we'll be exploring this shadow by becoming conscious of it and shining a light on it. Exploring your shadows and owning them can lead to greater authenticity, creativity, energy, and personal awakening in our lives. This introspection process is therefore essential for reaching mature adulthood.
What is the shadow?
According to Swiss psychiatrist Carl Jung, the shadow represents the unknown part and the "dark side" of our personality with aspects of it that we choose to reject and repress in the past. We all have parts of ourselves that we don't like or we may have thought that society would reject and not like about us. So we push those parts down into our unconscious psyches which eventually constitutes our shadow self.
The shadow is not bad, it is just hidden from us. Because it is hidden, it often runs in our lives on autopilot subconsciously without our supervision, which often causes damage and pain in your life. Often, the shadow may manifest negatively in the form of rage, jealousy, hatred, greed, and selfishness which would affect every aspect of your life. This mainly consists of our primitive, negative human emotions and impulses. However, our shadow need not always constitute the bad parts of our personality, there are good aspects of ourselves that are hidden too.
The personal shadow is also known as the disowned self. This shadow self represents the parts of us we no longer claim to be our own, including inherent positive qualities. However, when we bring these shadow aspects of ourselves into the light, it no longer has power over us. It liberates us from becoming our nemesis who is ourselves.
“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.” - Carl Jung
How our shadow is formed?
Our shadow is formed during our childhood and is a byproduct of the natural ego development and social conditioning or socialization. Socialization is the process in which we learn about the mannerisms and behaviours which are acceptable to the society that we lived in.
We each are born full of potential within us. Every young child knows kindness, love, and generosity, but also expresses anger, selfishness, and greed. These emotions are part of our shared humanity. As time goes on while we each grow up, something happens and we learn more and more to become a certain type of person. Developing the Shadow Self is a natural byproduct of our development at the same time, you may form an alter ego due to social conditioning, i.e. your parents, family members, teachers, friends, and society at large all contributed to your Shadow.
While growing up, due to our circumstances and preferences, we started to adopt certain character traits and reject others. We pick up traits that would associate ourselves with qualities that would label us as "being good" which are accepted, and "being bad" which are rejected.
Well here’s the thing: a polite society operates under certain rules. In other words, certain behaviors and characteristics are approved of, while others are shunned. Take anger for example. Anger is an emotion that is commonly punished while growing up. Throwing tantrums, swearing, and destroying things was frowned upon by our parents and teachers. Therefore, many of us learned that expressing anger was not “OK.” Instead of being taught healthy ways to express our anger, we were punished sometimes physically (with smacks or being grounded), and often emotionally (withdrawal of love and affection) for it. While growing up as children, we would express certain parts of ourselves to communicate our basic human needs such as physiological, safety, and our need for belonging to our caretakers when we received negative cues for the environment we were in. Whenever these needs aren't met and neglected, it gets trapped in the shadow.
There are countless behaviors, emotions, and beliefs that are rejected in society, and thus, we reject them ourselves too. To fit in, be accepted, approved, and loved, we learned to act a certain way. We adopted a role that would ensure our mental, emotional, and physical survival. But at the same time, wearing a mask has its consequences.
Through time as we grow older, we learn to both enjoy, and despise, our socially-approved egos because, on the one hand, they make us feel good and “lovable,” but on the other hand, they feel phony and inhibited.
What happened to all the authentic, wild, socially taboo, or challenging parts of ourselves? They get trapped in our Shadow.
"Wholeness for humans depends on the ability to own their own shadow" - Carl Jung
What is shadow work?
Shadow work is a form of self-examination that requires us to look at the dark side of unconscious personality. It is the process of exploring the inner darkness or the Shadow Self that is already within us. As the Shadow Self is the unconscious aspect of our personality. It constitutes the qualities that we had rejected and repressed in the past where we felt ashamed thinking and feeling about it like the impulses, desires, fear, and the repressed ideas we used to have. Often we "locked away" and masked these parts of ourselves from society as a way of keeping ourselves tame and in check to be likable and "civilized" in the eyes of others.
Shadow work is the attempt to uncover everything we have had hidden about every part of us that we disowned and rejected within our Shadow Selves. By being oblivious and blind to the hidden parts of ourselves, we remained burdened with problems such as anger, guilt, shame, disgust, and grief. Hiding our shadow self hurts us. Whenever you hide your shadow self, keeping it suppressed in your subconscious, it eventually comes to the surface in ways you don’t want that are unpleasant. It lashes out like a wounded animal or an angry toddler. It keeps you from reaching your fullest potential and also suppresses parts of you that could make life better like passion and creativity.
All throughout the history of mankind Shadow Work has played a powerful yet mysterious and occult role in helping us discover what is causing us mental illness, physical dis-ease, and even insanity resulting in crimes of all kinds.
"The shadow is a living part of the personality and therefore wants to live with it in some form. It cannot be argued out of existence or rationalized into harmlessness. This problem is exceedingly difficult, because it not only challenges the whole man, but reminds him at the same time of his helplessness and ineffectuality." – Carl Jung
Recognizing the Shadow Self
As the shadow self is deeply hidden within ourselves, it can be hard to identify if you don't know what cues and signs to look for. To know how to do shadow work, let us first identify the traits of ourselves that constitute the shadow and how it could show up in our lives without us being conscious about it.
Our shadow self may portray itself in many forms, often it looks like the following:
Fear
Negative Thoughts
Operating from Ego
Judgment of others and self
Anger
Insecurity
Lack of Accountability
Lack of Self Awareness
Attachment to “Victim Mentality”
Feeling Superior to Others
Having a “God Complex”
Being Biased
Being overly guarded against other people
Playing Small
Hiding Your Gifts
Not trusting yourself
Not being able to admit you are wrong
Allowing triggers to derail you or your life
These are just a few ways our shadow selves may show up. Believe me that there are many other ways it could show up as. When we recognize the traits of ours that stem from our shadow self, true healing and awakening begin.
Essentially, the shadow aspect of ourselves is the inner “darkness” we hide from the world. It can be the past trauma we had experiences, limiting beliefs that we were conditioned, a wounded inner child, or the negative voice in your head that runs rampant for too long. These traits and the examples above are all side effects of needing to examine our shadow and perhaps do some shadow work.
The compilation of traits, qualities, memories, and experiences that have hurt us and may have been repressed is our shadow self. All the parts of ourselves that we try to ignore and bury within us, our "dark" side, and the parts that we hide from the world are part of our shadow. Until we accept and address our shadow self, it ultimately can run the show and hijack our life without us being conscious about it.
Benefits of shadow work
Shadow work is necessary if you wish to grow spiritually and personally. It will help you better understand yourself, your traumas, and the old wounds you are carrying. Not to mention, help you better understand other people.
Other benefits include:
Help find your purpose in life.
More courage to face the unknown.
More confidence to be your true self.
Deeper love, acceptance, and understanding of yourself.
Improved relationships with others.
Increased empathy and compassion.
Better mental and psychical health.
A clearer perception of the world.
Increased creativity.
Awareness of toxic patterns you are repeating, so you can change them.
Help you find the root cause of your problems and traumas.
Things to note before starting shadow work.
Before you begin Shadow Work, you would need to assess whether you’re ready to embark on this journey. It's not all sunshine and rainbows. Since we are going to explore the shadow self, it's quite the treacherous pit to fall into. The truth is harsh, ugly, and most of the time hard to swallow.
Not everyone is prepared for this deep work, and that’s fine. We’re all at different stages in life. So pay attention to the following questions and try to answer them honestly:
In this part, I would need you to be brutally honest with yourself.
Have you developed a strong sense of self-worth and self-love?
If not, I suggest you begin there instead. Shadow work can be too overwhelming, triggering, and challenging for you. Shadow work should not be attempted if you do not have a strong sense of self-worth or struggle with self-loathing. In other words: if you struggle with severely low self-esteem, please do not attempt Shadow Work. I emphatically warn you against doing it. Why? Exploring your shadows will make you feel ten times worse about yourself than when you began with. I advise you to establish a strong and healthy self-image first before initiating shadow work.
Are you looking to feel validated or to find the truth?
This may sound harsh, but many people are not ready to face the truth that resides in the depth of their shadows. As you probably know by now, Shadow Work isn’t about making you feel special. It's not sunshine and rainbows like your other typical spiritual paths which are focused on the feel-good. No, Shadow Work can be brutal and extremely confronting if you are not grounded or centered. You have to come from a neutral and open space. Regardless of if strong emotions come up or not, you should be in a place where you feel confident to accept the root of your triggers and your challenges. Honor the truth that lies within your shadow self. This is a path for the brave souls who are truth seekers and not those who are seeking to be validated.
Understand that you are neither your emotions nor your thoughts.
To realize that you are not your thoughts for Shadow Work is essential for it to be healing and liberating. Having a solid understanding that though you may deeply feel and experience specific thoughts or emotions, you are neither of those things and negative experiences do not define you. These negative thoughts that arise are not true not they should define who you are. You would want to be an observer of both your emotions and thoughts by being aware and non-judgemental about them should they arise. By holding them in awareness, you will see them clearly for what they are, realizing that they don't ultimately define you.
Practicing self-compassion.
It is of paramount importance to incorporate compassion and self-acceptance into your Shadow Work practice. Without showing love and understanding to yourself, it is easy for Shadow Work to backfire and make you feel terrible. So focus on generating self-love and compassion, and you will be able to release any shame and embrace your humanity.
Journaling
I recommend having a dedicated journal or a personal diary in which you write down, or draw, your discoveries. Recording your dreams, observations, and analysis will help you learn more and grow more effectively. Having a journal also serves as a progress tracker to reflect upon and also make important connections.
Techniques on how to do shadow work?
#1. Observe Emotional Reactions.
In this practice, you'll learn that what you give power to has power over you. In other words, what we place importance on, whether it's good or bad, says a lot about us.
The reality is that what we react to, or what makes us angry and distressed, reveals extremely important information to us about ourselves. We tend to project our disowned parts onto other people.
One of the best ways to identify your shadow is to have self-awareness of your emotional reactions toward other people. Surely, you may have a colleague who might be aggressive, arrogant, inconsiderate, or impatient with characteristics that you may dislike. You won't have a strong reaction to their behaviour if you don't have those same qualities which you despised within you.
How do I pay attention to my Emotional Responses?
1. Having self-awareness
To be conscious and aware of what you are doing, you first have to direct your awareness to be in the present moment. You would want to also position your awareness in a third person's perspective as an observer of yourself, to be detached from your emotions, and be the present observer who is observing you without any judgment.
2. Adopt an open mindset
Likely, while doing shadow work, you will discover common patterns that constantly emerged in your life. You may get to witness your demons and the undesirable traits that you had repressed in the past. Some of it may disturb, shock, infuriate and terrifies you. You will need to have the courage and the willingness to observe everything uncomfortable that you had placed importance on, and ask "Why?".
For example, you might be outraged or triggered by a scenario or a particular action that was displayed by others or done to you. Or you may have a particular fear or aversion towards certain ideas, places, people, etc. I would want you to explore those triggers and work your way back to their origin. Perhaps it may be childhood trauma or an experience you had encountered in the past. There are many endless possibilities out there, and I encourage you to go slowly on this process. Take your time on this and work on those issues and trigger one at a time.
Often, our strong emotional reaction to a particular moment or scenario leaves a clue to where and what needs healing within us. Observe your responses and listen to what your Shadow is trying to teach you.
#2 Recreate your dreams
This practice would require you to write down and journal your dreams from the night whenever you would wake up each morning. Try to recall as much as possible the details inside the dream, including the characters inside of it, colors, scents, sounds, emotions, situations, and so on. The more you could recall, the better.
Then you should enter into an imaginary dialogue with the most important characters from the dream. Speak to the characters in the first person, and then respond like yourself.
The idea of this practice is to become aware of the repressed part of ourselves. In our dreams, we encounter many unpleasant aspects and dark characters from life, which we may avoid in real life. The dark and unpleasant characters can be a direct representation of our shadow self, the side of ourselves that we won't acknowledge. In other words, the monster in your dream is a version of you!
#3 Reviewing your childhood
This practice would require you to review your childhood. It is an important step because most of your undesirable traits and behaviours stem from it, and from the relationship patterns that you witnessed at home.
When reviewing your childhood, try to be as honest as possible to yourself, even if this means that you would have to admit some painful truths.
To understand your childhood and how it shaped you, try to honestly answer the following questions:
What were the general mental and emotional states in my home? Did I grow up in a generally loving environment, or a hostile environment? How is that impacting me today?
Who was there for me when I needed it the most?
Who did I love the most and why?
How was the relationship between my parents?
How was my mother behaving towards me?
How was my father behaving towards me?
Did I have all the financial resources needed to grow and develop? If not, how is that impacting me today?
Did I have all the emotional resources, such as unconditional love, acceptance, and patience needed to fully develop emotionally? If not, how is that impacting me today?
Did my parents have high expectations? Did I receive punishments? How is that impacting me today?
How were my caregivers/parents reacting when I expressed my emotions? Did I have the freedom of self-expression? If not, how is that impacting me today?
There might be other relevant questions for you to ask yourself to review your childhood, but these are the main ones that will help you understand how your shadow was born. If you can truly ask all these questions, you’ve just built the foundation of a successful shadow work process.
#4 Healing your Inner Child
In this practice, doing inner child work is a great way of healing your shadow because a lot of the traumas and unpleasant thoughts and emotions that shaped your shadow happened during your childhood. Maybe not all of them, but the events that took place in childhood have a huge impact on how our entire personality is formed – the persona, the anima/animus, the self, and the shadow.
There are a lot of techniques to how you can heal your inner child, or “re-parenting” him/her. All of them are based on releasing those negative emotions and thinking–behaving patterns acquired in childhood. This is done by connecting to the past version of you – who you were as a child. Inner child work is based on the idea that the child that you once were, still lives somewhere inside you, carrying all the emotions and thoughts he had back then, and imprinting them into your present thoughts and behaviors. The purpose of re-parenting your inner child is to connect to the past version of you – the child you once were, all the love, acceptance, and support it never received. This way, the dysfunctional patterns can be broken and then replaced with healthy ones.
Read more: Healing Series: The inner child within us
Exercise #5: The 3-2-1 Shadow Process
If you want a step-by-step method for working with your shadow, try the 3-2-1 Shadow Process developed by integral philosophy Ken Wilber in Integral Life Practice.
Here are the basic steps:
Step 1: Choose what you want to work with. It’s often easier to begin with a person with whom you have difficulty (e.g., partner, relative, boss).
This person may irritate, disturb, annoy, or upset you. Or maybe you feel attracted to, obsessed with, infatuated with, or possessive about this person.
Choose someone with whom you have a strong emotional charge, whether positive or negative.
Step 2: Face it: Now, imagine this person. Describe those qualities that most upset you, or the characteristics you are most attracted to using 3rd-person language (he, she, it).
Talk about them out loud or write it down in a journal. Express your feelings.
Don’t calculate say the right thing. There is no need to be nice. The person you are describing will never see this.
Step 3: Talk to it: Dialogue with this person in your imagination. Speak in the 2nd person to this person (using “you” language).
Talk directly to this person as if he or she was there. Tell them what bothers you about them.
Ask them questions such as:
Why are you doing this to me?
What do you want from me?
What are you trying to show me?
What do you have to teach me?
Imagine their response to these questions. Speak that imaginary response out loud. Record the conversation in your journal if you like.
Step 4: Be it: Become this person. Take on the qualities that either annoy or fascinate you.
Embody the traits you described in step 2. Use 1st-person language ( I, me, mine).
This may feel awkward, and it should. The traits you are taking on are the exact traits you have been denying in yourself.
Use statements such as:
I am angry.
I am jealous.
I am radiant.
Fill in the blank with whatever qualities you are working with: “I am __________.”
Step 5: Notice these disowned qualities in yourself.
Experience the part of you that is this trait. Avoid making the process abstract or conceptual: just BE it.
Now you can re-own and integrate this quality in yourself.
Final Thoughts
Shadow work is about finding those scared parts of yourself in the dark and loving them back out into the light. It is gentle and patient work.
It is not digging up past wrongdoings to further victimize or blame but to free your heart from the bondage that has felt safe for so long.
It requires a level of courage and willingness to look into the dark aspects of one's self to come out on the other side more enlightened, authentic, and connected to self.
You can heal without therapy if you choose. That's what I chose because shadow work for me is immensely personal and private, so it's not something I can easily do even with a trusted therapist. To each have their own opinion and preference about this. However, shadow work is not a replacement for therapy if you find yourself in need of professional help. Do visit a professional therapist if needed.
The idea here is that you are capable of doing your shadow work, and in fact, it will come quite easily if your desire is strong to transcend. All it takes is some reflection, honesty with and trust in yourself, and a plan for moving forward.
Do share your thoughts about doing shadow work with us.
Love you all & Stay High Vibe,
The woke Hermit.
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