Shadow Work 101: What Is Your Shadow and How To Integrate It
Your shadow is essentially the denied aspects of your self: the parts of yourself that you do not accept.
They can be the things you are ashamed of (those are generally more obvious), but they also exist in a very subtle way, as a part of the duality of all things.
For example, you may volunteer— which is considered a socially “good” thing to do. The ‘shadow’ of giving back is the (sometimes very very subtle) sensation of superiority you feel as a result. You may be a naturopath, a medical doctor, or a shaman, dedicating your life to healing others— and the shadow of that may be the subtle high you get from having power over other, the superiority, the sensations of ‘knowing’ the answers that others do not. The sort of spiritual ego that we develop when we’re perceived as a ‘good’ person.
Shadow work is quite confronting, because it entails looking at all these ways, some more obvious than others, that we navigate in the world. And the ‘work’ refers to integrating (or accepting) them, as a part of who we are.
In regards to the photo above:
I’m not a therapist, I haven’t studied this stuff, it’s purely my way of understanding and approaching this type of work. And I can tell you from experience that exploring the subject with this type of understanding has led me to a type of liberation that I didn’t know to be possible in a human body.
This article deals mostly with the “I am bad” thoughts and all the other negative things that lurk in the “shadow” part of us. Some of them are clear (where we feel shame and guilt) some of them are more sneaky. But it’s useful to take a step back and look at the bigger picture: that whether your thoughts are good or bad, they are not who you are. A big part of shadow work requires creating distance between the observer and the experience (ie. the one listening to you think vs. the things you think). But we’ll get back to that a little bit later on.
THE STORIES OF DUALITY AND THE MAINSTREAM NARRATIVE OF RIGHT VS. WRONG
From the time most of us were very young, we were taught the concepts of ‘right’ and ‘wrong’. Many of us experienced the constant grooming of being to be a ‘good girl’ or a ‘good boy’, given rewards to reinforce good behaviour and punished for bad behaviour. Now this isn’t to say that navigating the world in a compassionate and loving way isn’t valuable, it is. But the way we learn to be ‘good’ is by essentially being trained like dogs (or actors).
These Pavlovian responses that we learn to reinforce society’s ideal of ‘good’ and likewise the punishments to deter us of ‘bad’ things are very much priming us to be disconnected from our intuition, and force us to suppress many of our very natural states of being.
The problem with priming us to thing that we are either ‘good’ or ‘bad’ is that in suppressing these natural urges we fail to honour the innately cyclical ways in which we operate, based on an array of things both natural and nurtured. Things that may influence our way of navigating the world:
Transgenerational trauma
Direct trauma
Second hand trauma
Karmas
Fear
“Disability" (I use the word because it is understood culturally, but I don’t actually like that label nor to I even believe in labels like that)
Cultural narratives and ideals
Astrology
Socioeconomic status
Religious upbringing
On top of the fact that there are many many ways in which we may think, speak, or do things that are “bad”, is that “bad” itself is a social construct. Everyone draws the line somewhere different, when it comes to acceptable and unacceptable behaviour. Our man made laws are in place to create ‘order’ but their interpretation is varied, and is always situational.
One may have the rigid belief that ‘lying is always bad’; which in principle may be a valuable principle to hold. But if you are taken back to Nazi Germany, and put in the position of a homeowner who opens the door to a German guard asking if there are any Jews hiding your home, knowing that there is a small Jewish child hiding under your bed that will be taken to a concentration camp if you say ‘yes’— do you lie? The concept of Truth is not black and white anymore, when we introduce the many scenarios influenced by the bullet point list above.
The narrative of ‘right’ and ‘wrong’ as permanent fixed things is not natural, it is not realistic. Situations are contextual, the nature of right/ wrong ebbs and flows depending on our perspective, as does our own character: ever changing depending on the situation. Things deemed acceptable in one generation are deemed wrong in the next. And beyond all the sociocultural and economic contexts of ‘right’ vs. ‘wrong’ the ultimate truth is that we are all capable of and do behave in less conventionally good ways: jealous, greedy, cold, selfish, unkind, angry, violent, aggressive, dismissive, passive aggressive, rude. We may be more or less of these things that the next person, but there is no denying that even in the most microscopic ways we all embody the totality of the human experience, for better or worse.
“The line separating good and evil passes not through states, nor between classes, nor between political parties either — but right through every human heart — and through all human hearts. This line shifts. Inside us, it oscillates with the years. And even within hearts overwhelmed by evil, one small bridgehead of good is retained.”
— ALEXANDER SOLZHENITSYN IN GULAG ARCHIPELAGO
When we pigeon hole certain behaviours as good or bad, right or wrong, we’re trapped. We’re trapped because life isn’t black and white, and the only constant is change. Impermanence is built into all things, the coming and going of everything means that if we cling to good situations or try and repel bad ones, we are inevitably going to be miserable. Because neither of them are here to stay forever. Which relates back to the fact that our thoughts, words, and actions do not define us as people (the true eternal “I Am” that exists independent of your behaviour).
IMPERMANENCE AND EQUANIMITY AND CLINGING TO A SENSE OF SELF
Equanimity refers to the balanced state of mind that doesn’t engage with craving or aversion. In Buddhism, equanimity is understood as one of the four sublime attitudes and is considered neither a thought nor an emotion, but rather the steady conscious realization of reality's transience. It is the ground for wisdom and freedom and the protector of compassion and love. It is tapping into this state of the “observer”, the one who watches without judgement as things unfold.
Misery is bred from craving or aversion: the needing of something or the dislike of another. Be it a sensation, a thought, a smell, a noise, a person, or a situation of any kind: if there is desire for something to be or not to be, misery is guaranteed because impermanence is the only guarantee in life. It is from this concept that the concept that ‘this too shall pass’ was born: that whether you’re in good times or bad times, it too will come and go… so don’t get attached to either.
This impermanence exists everywhere, including our own minds. Our thoughts are transient like the clouds, they come and go. Clinging to them: to the beliefs, the stories, that run through our mind ensure misery because they too, like all things, come and go. This is where meditation comes in: to cultivate distance between who we are (our eternal higher Self, the observer) and the things that we think, say, and do (the impermanent, transient smaller self).
The ego hates this, because the ego clings to thoughts, words, and actions to give “it” life. It’s not even that it clings to anything truly, because the ego only exists by believing the thoughts that we think. It is not an entity in of itself, it is the construct that we create by believing that thoughts, words, and actions are who we are.
When we think a good thing, oh we are such a good person. When we volunteer or donate or help someone, ohhhhhh the ego just loves being a good girl or boy, like it was primed to strive for since childhood. Now I’m not saying that you should never do kind things because there is no such thing as right vs. wrong, no not at all. The key here is acting from an authentic place, knowing that you are the observer of those actions, not the doer. The key word here is authenticity, which requires living in the moment, from action, not as an actor.
“Everybody is born in freedom, but dies in bondage. The beginning of life is totally loose and natural, but then society enters; then rules and regulations enter, morality, discipline, and many sorts of trainings, and the looseness and the naturalness and the spontaneous being is lost. One starts to gather around oneself a sort of armor. One starts becoming more and more rigid. The inner softness is no longer apparent.
On the boundary of one’s being one creates a fort-like phenomenon, in order to defend, not be vulnerable, to react, for security, safety; and the freedom of being is lost. One start’s looking at other’s eyes; their approval, their denials, their condemnations. Appreciation becomes more and more valuable. The others become the criterion, and one starts to imitate and follow others because one has to live with others.
....
A religious man [Osho uses this term as someone who is living in the moment, as their higher self/ the observer] us neither revolutionary nor reactionary. A religious man is simply loose and natural; he is neither for something nor against it, he is simply himself. He has no rules to follow and no rules to deny, he simply has no rules. A religious man is free in his own being; he has no modeling of habits and conditioning. He has grown in his awareness and doesn’t need any rules, he has transcended rules. He is truthful not because is it the rule to be truthful; being loose and natural he simply is truthful, it happens to be truthful. He has compassion not because he follows it as a precept: Be compassionate. No. Being loose and natural he simply feels compassion flowing all around. There is nothing to do on his part; it is just a byproduct of his growing awareness.
”
— OSHO, IN TANTRA THE SUPREME UNDERSTANDING (CHAPTER 10)
ACTION VS. ACTING AND THE NATURE OF GOODNESS
Don’t get me wrong: doing kind, loving, and compassionate things is very much our true nature when we peel back all the layers of the onion. But arriving to this place of unconditional flowing love requires first honoring the shadow, and all the ways in which we may show up less favorably in the world. The key is action, not acting.
Peeling back the layers of your onion self will reveal unconditional love: but the key is true action, awareness, and integration of the self over simply acting like a good person in order to be perceived as a good person (by yourself and/ or by others).
When we act like actors, were playing out the narrative we think we should be, based on a lifetime of being told what is right and what is wrong. It’s the act of donating to a charity because you “should” not because you feel a natural impulse to give back. It’s staying small and apologizing to your boss even though all you want to do is yell, because you’ve been conditioned to be a people pleaser. It’s essentially behaving on auto-pilot, based on a cultural narrative of how you should behave.
Action is just the opposite in terms of intention: it is your absolutely most natural way of navigating in the world. Totally not premeditated in anyway. Simply going with the flow and showing up authentically in each situation, in whatever way it may be. Sometimes it may look like donating to the charity, sometimes it might be saying no to the donation. But either way, there is no guilt, no shame (“I should have donated”, or “I should have donated more”). Sometimes it may look like backing down from an escalating situation and sometimes it may look like showing your ‘darker’ side and lashing out. Essentially action is showing up in the present moment, without filtering yourself to fit the traditional narrative of how one should behave. There is no guilt or shame, only self reflection.
This self reflection is the ‘work’ (which we will explore a little bit later), of cultivating the awareness that you are the observer, not the doer. And using every thought, word, and action as a way to observe your way of operating in the world without judgement.
Now this may sound like a terrible idea, “if I show up in action, I would probably lose my job and all my friends” I can hear some of you think… and well, the reality is that actually allowing yourself to be loose and natural in this world is actually one of the keys to accessing the realms of unconditional love and compassion that dwell in our higher self.
Our natural state is unconditional love and compassion, but this flows naturally only when we first see beyond the duality of right and wrong. Once we can see that everyone is doing the best that they can, that everyone is struggling, that everyone is suffering, that there is no difference between you and me: the compassion flows endlessly. The bad habits simply fall away. The addictions simply fall away. The Self is at peace, without needing to prove anything or be anything. The armor is taken off.
THE PARADOX OF INTEGRATION AS A WAY TO LET GO
Spiritual growth is fraught with paradox. For example, those seeking to lose weight because they don’t like themselves will often find that if they are able to love themselves the way that they are, weight loss occurs as a side effect. Similarly, the aspects that we deny in ourselves, try to hide, or reject are only amplified when we do so. By welcoming them in with open arms, sitting with them, and accepting the totality of our self, these less favorable inclinations often fade away.
Once we can see past the duality of people as being good or bad, right or wrong; once we can acknowledge the impermanent and transient nature of our own small self and all the ways in which we are capable of all things (“good” or “bad”) we can finally understand unconditional love and unconditional compassion. We actually create a bridge between us and all people, we can empathize with the struggle that oscillates within us, between our light and shadow.
The concept of light and shadow, goodness and evil, right and wrong, as two sides of the same coin permeate so many teachings, from Carl Jung’s psychology, to Osho and Tilopa’s tantric teachings, to Marcus Aurelius’ Stoicism, to Byron Katie’s work: an awareness of and integration of our shadow side is absolute crucial if you want to transcend suffering and learn true love.
SELF-LOVE AND SHADOW
The self-love movement is for the most part so dang superficial. Although bubble baths and massages feel nice, they are like minuscule band aids when it comes to truly loving your self. Self-love at its core is not just about feeling good or pampering yourself, because those things are so transient. If you have to feel good or look good or be happy to love yourself, you end up clinging to these states of being in a way that breeds self-hatred and misery anytime you aren’t blissful, relaxed, or smiling.
Life is not always blissful, relaxing, or smiley! If you want to find true self-love and inner peace, try loving the parts of yourself that you’re ashamed of, the parts you don’t want others to see, the perceived flaws that lurk in the depths of your shadow. Now that is where the work lies. When you can find love for all the parts of you, “good” or “bad”— then you know the true meaning of self-love. Then you can step into the world with clear eyes, able to see people for who they truly are, imperfectly perfect, and you can start cultivating true relationships where both parties can show up authentically whole. Accepted for their entire selves: light and shadow. Knowing that the true Self, is eternal and equanimous: it simply watches, it doesn’t engage in anything at all.
EGO, SHADOW, AND HIGHER SELF
There is a deep connection here, when it comes to ego work. The ego is essentially the mental constructs you have created about your identity. It is your smaller self (ie. the fluctuating idea you have about who you are in the world). There is often talk about ‘killing the ego’ but when we really examine what that entails, it becomes clear that there is no way to kill something that is not real. The ego is a construct, it is not something you can simply destroy willfully. Osho makes the connection between ego and darkness in that there is no way to get rid of darkness other than bringing in the light. In the same way that there is no way to kill the ego other than bringing in Self (higher self) awareness.
Your higher Self is the true you, it’s the one constant, it’s the ‘observer’, its the essence that hears your thoughts. You think, say, and do, and your higher self is the one aware of it all. This is the purpose of meditation: creating space between your big and small self (ie. your higher self and the ego.)
The ego contains all the stories you tell yourself, and so the first step is shadow work: to honour and integrate all that you perceive. It is actually even more dangerous to think that you have ‘killed’ your ego, because that leads to a very subtle spiritual ego, the kind that is a master of spiritual bypassing and is extremely self-deluded. Once you learn to honour all that you are (small self): good and bad, then you can quite easily start to step away from the ego, by simply observing it.
FINDING YOUR SHADOW SELF: BRINGING IT TO THE SURFACE OF AWARENESS AND HOW TO DO THE WORK
It’s two parted:
Examining all the aspects of your small self (the things you think, do, and say), and allowing them to be without judgment, shame, guilt. Anything you feel the need to hide away needs to be integrated and accepted.
To do #1 requires a practice that helps bring you back to the ‘observer’: the one who watches the thoughts, words, and actions, without actually participating in any of it. The more you realize that you are your higher Self (the watcher), the less identified you become with the small self, and so you can more easily approach the shadow parts and accept them; because they are not “you”. Remember that we cultivate many of our shadow stuff as result of trauma, pain, and fear— and as coping mechanisms, we can often pick up various habits and beliefs that no longer serve us. By doing work on various planes we can slowly take off our armor and heal.
There are oh so many ways to find your shadow self. Some parts you may already be very aware of and actually may have consciously or unknowingly already integrated. Generally, the things we need to integrate and work on are the things that trigger us or the things we try to hide from others (feel shame about). Here are a few tools to bring our shadow self to the surface/ cultivate an awareness of them:
EXERCISE 1: YOUR TRIGGERS ARE YOUR TEACHERS
Make a list of all the things you can remember from childhood to the present day that upset you or triggered you ‘negatively’. To start off, stick to times you saw someone else behave in a way you didn’t approve of or like. First, list out the thing itself, and then write out the associated judgment you felt either towards you or towards the other.
Some examples:
Getting cut off in traffic: they are selfish, they are impatient
Getting broken up within a romantic relationship: they are unkind, they are hurtful, they are heartless
Being bullied as a child — Judgement: they are unkind, they are mean
Now take the word itself, and list out as many ways as possible that YOU have been that thing in the past (even in microscopic ways).
For example:
Selfish: I didn’t replace the toilet paper roll, I haven’t donated my time or money in years, etc
Impatient: I closed the door on someone who was running towards the elevator because I was late; I cut someone off in traffic; I speed to get to work; I get annoyed when the barista messes up my order, etc
Unkind: I know my auntie is having a rough time and haven’t called her, I yelled at my daughter for spilling her drink by accident in the new car, etc
Hurtful: I said some really mean things to my husband when we were arguing because I knew it would get to him in the heat of the moment, etc
Mean: I snapped at the woman who accidentally bumped into me on the subway, I yelled at the dog for peeing inside the house, etc.
This simple exercise can help us see the ways in which we, in many ways, are the thing that we “hate”. We have the capacity to be all things, because good and evil runs through every human heart. Our brainwashed sense that we are always good creates separation when others do wrong by us, and by reacting in a triggered way we fail to find compassion for them and for ourselves, whom are both imperfectly walking this earth trying to find our way home.
EXERCISE 2: GOING DEEPER
Seeing our triggers as teachers is one way to peel off some layers of the onion, and another way to go deeper is to actually ask loved ones what your shortcomings are. Now to be totally honest this requires you to be grounded in yourself and in the relationship. If you’re going to get majorly triggered by this i suggest doing more healing first, to avoid completely ruining your relationships.
When you do feel ready to hear these aspects of yourself in the name of growth and transcendence: go for it.
Steps:
Ask loved ones (a romantic partner, a good friend, or a family member) what aspects of yourself are self-sabotaging, hurtful, negative, or bad. Explain to them that these words aren’t necessarily you 24/7, but simply things that they have experienced you as, at times. Ask them for one word, and you could give them a list of examples like: cold, selfish, unkind, annoying, mean, loud, too much, aggressive, etc. note: the caveate here is that their perception of you doesn’t actually matter. What matters is if they tell you something that you “are” (according to them), and it hurts you. If there’s pain or denial or an unwillingness to explore it: odds are it’s an unintegrated, denied aspect of your self.
With these words, find the ways in which you have embodied those things in the past, even in microscopic ways. Like in the last exercise, find how you are cold, selfish, unkind, annoying, mean, loud, too much, and/ or aggressive. Try laughing at the irony here, of how easy it is to judge your neighbor for the ways in which you too can operate.
Try to link the ways in which you behave ‘sub optimally’ to your childhood: either in ways this behavior was modeled to you, or how it may actually have been cultivated as a coping mechanism for trauma. For example: often people with short attention spans get distracted easily because they witnessed a lot of fighting in their childhood homes. Getting distracted was a coping mechanism for the fear and pain associated with arguing parents. Another example: you grew up in a very loud Italian family but now are living in a small countryside hippy town where everyone is mellow, your fire comes naturally but you get triggered by being called loud because you have abandonment issues are fear not being accepted. note: you don’t need a psychology degree to make connections on coping mechanisms and ways in which you cultivated certain aspects of yourself to fit in, or be loved, or feel safe. We’re actually so capable of connecting dots in our life, and journalling is a great way to let the words flow naturally.
Mirror work. Now this one may seem silly but it is very powerful: look at yourself in the mirror and repeat “I am *insert trigger word*” until it begins to lose power over you. It may happen in one day, it may take a week or two, but the more you can actually own the fact that you are unapologetically all things, the more they actually fade away completely.
EXERCISE 3: WATCH THE EGO (BE THE OBSERVER)
Tapping into your observe self is imperative in all of this because it creates space for grace. When you realize that you are not the doer, it helps soften the edges of your shadow and you can see how the things you think, say, and do are so often your armor: the face you put up to protect yourself in the world. When we react, when we snap back, when were rude or angry, it’s generally a coping mechanism. And by cultivating a practice of meditation, you can find that space to have compassion for your small self, the one who is doing the best that s/he can.
This exercise is meditation. Meditation doesn’t have to be complicated, and I suggest you listen to my episode 6 of the Becoming Fully Human podcast to learn more about “meeting yourself where you are” in your practice. In episode 5 you can also hear Geraldine Matus and I speak about shadow work, and “inviting all the guests to the dinner party”.
I also highly recommend Osho’s Book of Secrets: 112 Meditations to Discover the Mystery Within.
Look, there are literally thousands of exercises here when it comes to cultivating equanimity, and shadow integration. These are a start, but there are many other layers of healing that you may need to examine in order to reach the depths of your shadow. Inner child healing work for example is very important because so often we generate massive blind spots, based on trauma. Trauma can be anything that your body or mind didn’t know how to process at the time. Coping mechanism can blind us from seeing the ways in which were operating in the world, and so working with someone or working through a type of inner child healing course can be so so so useful.
Some of the inner child healing work I have done includes:
Byron Katie’s “The Work” which you can explore in her book “Loving What Is” as a foundation
The ‘re-parent’ and ‘shadow’ workshops by Lacy Phillips on The Pathway (I recorded a whole podcast on this modality)
Reading, lots of reading (books like John Bradshaw’s Homecoming)
Cultivating a forgiveness practice (journaling helps)
An ongoing relationship with my mentor Geraldine Matus (who is a depths psychotherapist); you can connect with her as a client at gpcmatusphd@gmail.com. You can listen to her, and me talk on a handful of episodes of the Becoming Fully Human podcast.
2023 article update:
This is a podcast I recorded with Geraldine recently. My ‘work’ in the realm of coming home to my whole self is really an ever-evolving one. This podcast should be supportive in the area of shadow work, because defensiveness is a great thread to pull on to see what beliefs dwell in the shadow.
HOW DO I KNOW WHEN MY SHADOW IS INTEGRATED?
Easy: there is no more shame, guilt, or need to hide it (hide it from yourself, hide it from others). When you’ve sat with your darker aspects long enough that you’ve actually welcomed them in and given them a seat at the table, they actually lose their grip over you. You take their power away and just watch as they ironically start to fade away completely. When someone can accuse you of being selfish and you can say, “you know what, I can be selfish sometimes,”— that’s when you know the work is working.
FINAL WORDS…
It’s easy to recognize when you’ve integrated hidden parts of you (the shame and triggers disappear) but I want to emphasize: this work is not easy. By it’s very nature we hide things because they are too much to face all at once, and so be patient, go slow. The perfectionism that believes you will be finally worthy or lovable when your shadow is “integrated” is a wound, not a reality. Self-love, shadow work, healing, equanimity: it’s not a place you attain. It’s an ongoing practice of self-discovery and unpeeling layers of conditioning, fears, stories, and mental constructs that prevent you from being completely at peace from moment to moment. Don’t think too much about this long-term endeavor, whenever you feel overwhelmed just bring it back to the moment. Because as my wise mama once said:
“Life is hard, but moment to moment is easy.”
— MY MOM
The more work you do, the less it becomes work. The more it becomes a state of being. The goal: to just be. Which ironically, you are already doing anyways. It’s not a destination; it’s a remembering.
