If you run in any new age or spiritual circles, you have probably heard the term “shadow work” by now. There can be a really broody and sexy mystique around the way shadow work is being portrayed so I'd like to de-mystify and simplify the process. I'm also finding that there are several different interpretations, rituals and methods around this work so I wanted to weigh in and provide a down-to-earth approach. I’ll also explain why it's really important to find the right person to hold space for you when shadow work gets heavy and touches on past trauma. First, here’s what shadow work is…
In psychological terms, the shadow is any aspect of yourself that you cannot see. We all have “blind-spots” or things about us that we are somewhat unaware of. Additionally, most people care about their image and how they are perceived by others, so in order to fit in and look good, we may attempt to hide our shadows or "dark sides" from the world.
It’s not uncommon to be told as children to “be nice” and repress our less desirable emotions. As adults, we avoid talking about embarrassing feelings that naturally arise in the human experience like jealousy, greed, rage etc., for fear of judgement. Therefore, these parts of ourselves tend to hide in the shadows and when left unchecked, can result in habitual problems or patterns that come up in certain areas of your life.
Although it’s not exactly “cool” to admit that you are jealous of someone, this can also be an important part of shadow work. If we can see something in another, it also exists in ourselves. Therefore, envy of another can lead to discovering something laying dormant inside of us that we wish we were expressing more of in our own lives. Shadow doesn't indicate "bad" or "negative", it's simply what's hidden. Sometimes we repress positive aspects of ourselves in an attempt to hide or stay small. This is common in family dynamics where there was not enough room for everyone to be their biggest and best selves.
Shadow doesn’t always linger too far from the surface and can easily be looked at daily by asking yourself what or who annoyed or triggered you today? See? Not sexy at all. And it doesn't end there because if it were enough to point out other people’s perceived shadows, we would all be healed. This is because it's so much easier to see other people's faults rather than looking at our own. Here’s the kicker: we have to turn our attention inward and look at the parts of ourselves that we are seeing in others.
When I’m doing my daily shadow work, I ask myself these things:
Who/what annoyed or triggered me today?
How do I also exhibit this behavior, attitude or action in some way? If I can't currently relate...
Have I shown these traits somehow in the past?
When looking at these things, it’s not always an exact match in terms of behavior, but with willingness to look deeper, I can usually find a common theme. For example, you may never interrupt anyone and you find yourself completely aggravated at someone who chronically does. So, although you don’t identify with this exact behavior, maybe there were times in the past when you forcefully tried to get your point across at the expense of hearing another person's perspective. Here’s another one: you are always calm and collected on the road and your partner isn’t and it drives you crazy!! Even though you don’t have road rage, is there another area in your life where you feel controlling and impatient?
It doesn’t end there either…. because if it did, that would be depressing and unhelpful. The purpose of shadow work isn't to stay in the darkness, it's to eventually step into the light. Next, you want to accept and forgive your beautifully imperfect human self. You were doing the best you could when you acted whatever way you did. If you discover that you currently engaged in the exact behavior you are so annoyed at, GOOD FOR YOU for recognizing that. We’re all human and nobody is perfect. Have compassion for yourself.
When we know better, we can do better. Now that you have forgiven yourself for being human and have taken an honest look at your own behavior, you can be aware and hopefully have a chance to do things differently going forward. Be kind to yourself here, because it can take a while to change patterns and it doesn’t have to be perfect.
Maybe once you have made friends with your own lovable fallibility, you can also let the other person off the hook for their shortcomings too. You can even (silently, to yourself) thank them for showing you something that you needed to heal. Everyone gets to be free- YAY! So steps 4 & 5 of this method of shadow work are…
4. Accept and forgive yourself
5. Accept and forgive the other* **
*This doesn’t mean be best friends with the person.
** Sometimes if this is a really heavy situation tied to trauma, you may need some additional help or support, which I will get to below.
The whole point of shadow work is to integrate ALL aspects of yourself and we do this by first bringing it out into the light of day. It’s the repressed stuff that causes the most damage and we can all point to so many examples of this in our outer world.
Shadow work is…. work. Work that you do on yourself. It requires a willingness to look within at your own stuff and acknowledge/accept the fact that we are all flawed. Shadow work can feel vulnerable and a little embarrassing at first as you admit your faults to yourself and possibly another trusted friend. Remember that self-compassion is a big part of it and we ALL have work to do. This truth can really set you free to be your authentic self.
Shadow work, as I understand and practice it, is NOT:
* Self-indulgently rolling around in darkness and misery (if this is fun for you, cool, no judgement, but it’s not “shadow work”).
* Excusing your own bad behavior because you have a “dark side”.
* Staying trapped in past stories that don’t serve you and make you miserable.
* Trauma-bonding with no solution in a group led by an unqualified person.
The five steps that I described above for my daily “shadow work” practice are for things that come up regularly just being an active participant out there in the world. Usually what comes up these days are things I can easily see with some inquiry, talk to another person about, meditate on, pray about and let go of judgement and forgive. I learned how to do this stuff daily as a part of my sobriety process, which began around 8 years ago.
I also read “The Untethered Soul” by Michael singer around 10 years ago and have been using some of the transmutation techniques he talks about in that book to process energy. Here’s a shortcut to this technique in a video I made on the topic and here’s a short blog post that talks about a way to deal with and transmute energy that comes up.
I agree with Singer that things organically come up daily to teach us where we are still stuck and that we can work with the energy of these things to free ourselves from their grip. Based on this belief, I work specifically with energy and teach from a yogic perspective. I stay out of areas like trauma healing linked to a person’s story and background because that is not my area of interest or expertise.
Sometimes if I get stuck an issue, I get help from someone who can help me see things more clearly. If your shadow work becomes overwhelming, confusing, scary or traumatic, please get some help with a qualified person trained and experienced in trauma.
If you are just “checking yourself” everyday, like I described above and need someone to share your discoveries with, I would choose a friend or mentor who has done enough of this type of self-inquiry on themselves that they won’t judge you or share your personal information with anyone else.
To summarize, shadow work isn’t as sexy as it’s sometimes made out to be, but it is absolutely worth looking at your stuff to get free and ultimately be the most integrated and whole version of yourself possible. Living your life daily in awareness will show you where you still need to do some work. There are tons of practitioners out there doing cool things with shadow work but if you’ve got heavy trauma in your background, please seek out someone who has specialized training in holding space for that.
If you have any thoughts or feedback, I would LOVE to hear it. Feel free to comment below.
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