Shadow working is a psychological term referring to aspects of ourselves that we are unaware of – parts of ourselves that we cannot see. Many of us exceed great lengths to keep ourselves away from vulnerability and go above and beyond to protect our self-image from anything that is unfamiliar to us. Thus, it is easier to spot shadow of another before coming to terms with our own.
Exploring your own shadow can take you to great lengths of understanding your own creativity, authenticity, and awakening your inner self. In retrospect, to reach a higher level of understanding and becoming fully aware of your shadow, it is important to begin to accept yourself, to accept your flaws, and to become emotionally mature.
What is the Shadow?
Essentially, the shadow is our flaws – parts of us that come out when triggered or when placed in a vulnerable state. It is basically the “dark side” of our personalities. It consists of negative emotions and impulsive states such as rage, jealousy, selfishness, desire, greed, striving for power to be seen, and narcissism. Every negative aspect of ourselves, whether it is noticeable or not, is hidden away deep inside us and becomes part of the “shadow”.
The shadow feeds off of negativity. When you are constantly complaining or have negative thoughts, you are feeding into the shadow and allowing it to stay and grow. In hindsight, the shadow grows when you refuse to accept your negative parts.
We tend to repress our negative unconscious side and try to hide it by being “fake positive”. When you truly do not feel a certain way towards someone, something, or yourself, you are still feeding your dark shadow.
Where Does the Shadow Come from?
When you are born into this world, you are unaware of your good and bad sides. We are not emotionally mature enough to comprehend what is bad and good as children. Every child is aware of happy emotions, kindness, and love. However, children are unaware when they are feeling angry or upset. They are not capable of understanding what these negative emotions are.
As children, we were always praised for doing “good” and rejected when we do “bad” things. Some grow up in a household where “bad” things are explained as to why they are “bad”, and some grow up in homes where they are completely neglected of their actions whether they are good or bad. This may cause a form of childhood trauma. As we get older, we adjust our behavior to our current environments and to gratify our need to the society around us.
What Happens When You Push Away Your Shadow?
When pushing our shadows and repressing them, we deny the qualities in ourselves that we see in others. This is called projection – when we project our negative sides onto others to satisfy our shadow. As such, projection can be seen in many ways. When someone does something we do not like, we tend to project our inner criticisms onto them, even though they have not done anything to hurt us. That happens because when you are repressing such negativity, it peaks when you see others achieve more effort than you, especially when you convince yourself that you are putting in the same effort as them and deserve praise when it is not given. However, this form of projection is seen when your shadow sees others achieving more as a threat and tends to create a negative bubble surrounding that person. Our egos play a huge role in projection. Our egos use projection as a coping mechanism to defend ourselves.
Projection creates a distortion of your reality, creating boundaries between the reality of how we perceive ourselves, as well as our actions towards others. In many scenarios, projection comes and goes. You may peak when you feel extremely offended and, some days, you may project your feelings onto others in a form of emotional abuse, especially if you are in an emotionally abusive relationship.
Working with the Shadow
To begin shadow work, you need to be able to have some capability for psychological mindedness, meaning you need to be able to dig deep inside yourself and point out key aspects that justify your own version of reality and your concept of reality that you “see” and allow yourself to think about what makes you feel threatened or defensive.
Shadow work can be tricky, because you will have days where you do not feel like you are living your exact reality and then you will have days that make you project negativity. It is an up-and-down process that you need to be emotionally mature for, ready, and capable. Working with your shadow to understand the history behind your emotions can take you into a spiraling hole of just wondering who you really are, and it can get emotionally draining and confusing. However, if you are mentally capable to tapping deeply into your inner child, you will be able to work with your shadow.
Key Tips of Shadow Working
- Journal your thoughts, first of all, by answering such as questions. “What was I like as a child?” “Would younger me be proud of me at the moment?” You can research shadow work journal questions to begin your journey.
- Begin to become aware of your shadow – your negative aspects in yourself.
- Do not shame your shadow. Once you start accepting your shadow, self-growth will begin.
- Use your triggers to help you understand your shadow. Triggers are messages to allow you to dig deep into unconscious thoughts. These triggers will help you understand what caused that reaction in you. Triggers are reflections of unresolved deep wounds that have been suppressed.
- Stop judging yourself. One of the biggest mistakes you can do is to allow your inner self-critic to blame you for feeling certain ways. Hence, you are rejecting and suppressing your emotions and triggers. This will only make the shadow grow.
Make peace with your shadow so you can find inner-self peace.