SAY HELLO TO YOUR SHADOW

Empowering Yourself Through Choices

What is the Shadow?

The shadow self, also known as shadow aspect, or shadow archetype, is a concept that was first coined by Swiss psychologist Carl Jung. Jung maintained the shadow includes all the parts of ourselves we deny, reject, or hide. These aspects lie in your unconscious and are the deeply buried and unknown parts of yourself, and, if not investigated, will often cause trouble at some point in life.

To paraphrase Jung, “If you keep your shadow buried in the subconscious, it will drive your behavior to result in fate, and you’ll never know your destiny.”

For the most part, shadow aspects are comprised of all the undesirable beliefs and thoughts we learned in early childhood. As children, we did not choose to accept these beliefs; we were indoctrinated with them. We were like a blank sheet of paper, and there was nothing with which to compare them. This is how the process of indoctrination begins. 

Eventually, we tossed everything we deemed unacceptable into a box where they remain hidden beneath our conscious awareness. We simply couldn’t or didn’t want to deal with these parts, even though they also included positive aspects of ourselves.

Opening your box, even slightly, is a brave act. It is the first step toward change. It takes courage and empowering choices to embark on the journey in front of you, and I commend you for that. I hope you retain this fortitude as you continue ahead on the healing path of shadow work and self-discovery.

Here are several situations that you may or may not have experienced to one degree or another.

Perhaps you were yelled at and punished for making a mess with your crayons, coloring books, or toys as a child, or were told you were bad, worthless, and could do nothing right. What happened? You grew up with feelings of not being perfect, judged, and inadequate, and were harsh on yourself. You set high expectations or became a people-pleaser.

Maybe you were confronted with death or divorce at an early age, and no one asked how you felt about it. Your grief was incomplete, causing you to become angry and explode, fear loss, or turn to addictive behaviors. You may have become apathetic and numb, even depressed.

It’s possible you suffered abuse or sexual trauma as a child and felt guilty and full of shame, believing it was your fault. As a victim of abuse, you may have exhibited signs of unhealthy sexual practices or turned to drugs and alcohol, or have withdrawn socially, becoming depressed or anxious. Or find you have perpetuated the cycle of abuse.

And today, you see these character flaws in other people, not in yourself, and wonder why you were triggered into judging someone for being a perfectionist or having an outburst.

These are a few cases in point of how the shadow controls your behavior and drives your life, and you aren’t even conscious of it. And it depicts the current state of your reality. If you don’t like your reality, pause for a moment and ask yourself, “Am I where I want to be in life today|?”

Please print out the downloadable list of Shadow Aspects next. Then we will take a more in-depth look at one of the situations I just described in the following lecture.