What is my shadow and why do I have to embrace it?
When wades into the ocean of self-enquiry and gathering knowledge of one’s internal workings, one of the big things that come up is that you have to befriend you demons and embrace your shadow. That is all good and fine but what does that actually mean?
Shadow work was first developed by Carl Jung, the famous Swiss psychiatrist. When we talk about “our shadow”, we mean to refer to the parts of our psyche that are unexamined and often suppressed. The shadow contains the parts of ourselves that we don’t want to look at or admit that we have, for example when we have a jealous or cruel side to our personality. So often we hold an idea of ourselves in our minds of how we “should be and should behave”. This could refer to the characterisations our religion requires from us, or ideal behaviours we impose on ourselves. Think how some people find it impossible to say “no” to others’ requests – even to their own grave detriment.
So on the one hand, we hold front and centre this idealised version of ourselves – the side of us that faces our environment and the people in it. On the other side of this idealised face, are all the things we feel we should be hiding in order to make ourselves acceptable to others. It is useful to remember that on an instinctual level, it is imperative to our sense of survival that we be accepted and included by the tribe we live with / belong to. Rejection by the tribe means death, or at least abject suffering and we will do a lot of things to ensure that we are accepted.
The problem arises with the fact that one can only hold up this idealised mask up for so long until one of the unwanted behaviours creep out of the shadow and onto the front-facing side of our personality. Perhaps it is an outburst of anger, or a crippling bout of jealousy. Perhaps it is being blindsided by a firmly held judgement of another or a situation, or a shameless, unkind manipulation of the same. Even the most devout religionist could suddenly display a bout of behaviour that looks completely out of place for them. Often such a bout is followed by deep feelings of shame because “they should not have behaved in such a undesirable way”. Such an “unwanted behaviour” will have been triggered by something – an event, a remark by someone else or even an internal thought or feeling. Once a trigger awakens something slumbering in the shadows, the reaction can be fierce and very intense – mostly because when we try to suppress something inside of us, it gains energy and intensity. It doesn’t go away, it doesn’t fade, it does the opposite. Like a nuclear reaction building out of sight, waiting for something to trigger the valve…
So what can we do? It is not in anyone’s benefit to have outbursts of intense negative emotions – not for the recipients and not for the person displaying the behaviour. The person that had the explosion of anger may actually feel better for a little bit because a lot of tension will have been released and that brings relief. But it’s only a matter of time before the pressure builds again. This is why we embrace our shadow. This is why we examine the demons lurking in there – the behaviours that society and religion tell us are unwanted, unsociable, repugnant, bad. Ignoring and suppressing don’t work. What works is careful and compassionate examination. We have to study our internal workings like a zoologist studying a rare species of animal. We gather information on how we feel, how we react, what triggers us, which behaviours make us feel good about ourselves and which ones make us ashamed. We journal, we are honest to ourselves about what is going on inside of us. We get confused and we feel hopeless sometimes. Sometimes we get a guide that can help us on our journey to discovery in the form of a mentor or a counsellor. Sometimes there are deep traumas that need healing – in such cases it is definitely advisable to engage the services of a trained professional.
And eventually we find our way out of the labyrinth. It takes a strong will and a great deal of courage. One day one realises that there is nothing lurking in the shadows anymore, no more pressure cookers menacing in the background. Yes sure, anger still arises but in ways that are completely reasonable and manageable – no more devastating storms. Maybe feelings of e.g. jealousy still arise, but now one looks at them as one looks at a child playing . One is not consumed by them and one has compassion with why they once held so much power. But not any longer.
The outcome is that we can live our lives with so much clarity and delight. We don’t try to kid ourselves anymore, we don’t have to shame ourselves anymore. We can live and speak with integrity, without getting tripped up by hidden things that confuse us. Life becomes simpler and so much more joyful. All the demons have become friends, and like all good friends, they bring gifts. When we bring the shadows into the light, they lose their destructive power and make us more whole, more complete human beings. We can accept ourselves and also others. We stop sabotaging ourselves and start living more grounded, authentic lives.
It’s like having carried a heavy backpack all your life and then realising you can put it all down and walk through this world unencumbered and free.
Something that has been incredibly helpful to me in embracing my shadow self is engaging in parts work – the Internal Families System developed by Dr. Richard Schwartz. It is a superhelpful system to examine and integrate all parts of the self to bring one to place of equilibrium and joy.
