Shadow Work E-Book

Pat Divilly

• Herausgeber: Gill Books
• Kategorie: Ratgeber
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 417

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2025

Beschreibung

Shine a light on your shadows and illuminate your untapped potential. Unlock the secrets of your hidden self with this transformative guide to shadow work. Drawing on the work of Carl Jung, this book unpacks the concept of the 'shadow' – the place in our psyche where we bury difficult emotions (like anger, shame and grief), which are often rooted in childhood experiences and packed with the potential for self-transformation. Through simple exercises, Pat shows us that these suppressed emotions are not something to be feared or rejected – facing them can be a powerful step towards personal growth and self-awareness. With a gentle and accessible approach, Pat coaches us to understand of the parts of ourselves that we often reject and, in doing so, helps us to heal past pain, unlock our hidden power and transform our relationships.

Leseprobe

ShadowWork

A practical guideto embracingyour shadow side,tackling shameand transformingpain into power

Pat Divilly

GILL BOOKS

Contents

Cover

Title Page

Dedication

Foreword

How to Use this Book

CHAPTER ONE: Origins of Shadow

CHAPTER TWO: Shadow Activation

CHAPTER THREE: Who Did You Become?

CHAPTER FOUR: The Mind–Body Connection

CHAPTER FIVE: The Inner Child and Inner Teenager

CHAPTER SIX: Shame and the Inner Critic

CHAPTER SEVEN: Anger, Boundaries and Needs

CHAPTER EIGHT: Change, Loss and Grief

CHAPTER NINE: Facing Fear

CHAPTER TEN: Shadow in Relationship

Afterword and Integration

Acknowledgements

Copyright

About the Author

About Gill Books

Dedicated to my parents.The older I get, the more I realise just how much you did for us.You made it look easy, even in times I know it must have beenanything but. Thank you for everything.

Foreword

‘If only it were all so simple! If only there were evil people somewhere insidiously committing evil deeds, and it were necessary only to separate them from the rest of us and destroy them. But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who among us is willing to destroy a piece of their own heart?’ ALEKSANDR SOLZHENITSYN

‘Wisdom tends to grow in proportion to one’s awareness of one’s ignorance.’ ANTHONY DE MELLO

I cringe a little as it comes near my turn to answer.

I am sitting with a small group of fellow students as we approach the end of a 28-day yoga teacher training on the small island of Koh Phangan in Thailand. The question being asked of me: ‘Who are you?’

It’s an age-old question asked in spiritual circles – ‘Who am I?’ – serving as a form of meditation or self-inquiry to contemplate and ponder. It’s a question that philosophers, mystics and thinkers have sat with throughout time as an invitation to go beyond the surface level of the identity that we have created for ourselves.

When initially asked we might answer by sharing our name, though we could easily change our name in the morning and we’d still be the same person, and so we are more than our name.

Perhaps we might share what we do professionally, in an effort to explain who we are, but again we could change our career in the morning and still be ourselves, and so we are more than what we do.

I might have answered at that time that I was a 30-year-old Irish man, though now I am 36 and I am still the same person in a biologically older body, and so I am more than my name, my profession, my age and my body.

I pause before answering the question. I notice my judgements coming up about some of what the others have shared, in my head thinking, ‘You do a 28-day yoga teacher training and now suddenly you think you’re a wise philosopher with the perfect answer to the timeless question “Who am I?”’ I also notice a part of myself that wants to be impressive or wise in my response or contribution to the group, and another part that wants to numb out and avoid having to contemplate such a big question on our night off. ‘Can’t we just have a beer and relax?!’

Sensing some reluctance to share, the group eggs me on. And so I take a breath and respond …

‘I’m light and I’m dark. I’m good and I’m bad. I’m a nice guy and an asshole. I’m wise and I’m dumb. I am good and I am evil. I am the potential for all things.’

I feel a mix of relief and vulnerability after sharing, while I am met with silence and looks of confusion.

My answer is in contrast to some of the previous shares, which included:

‘I am a vessel for pure love and light.’

‘I am a beacon of compassion and positivity.’

‘I am a loving and caring mother.’

‘I am vehicle for peace and healing in the world.’

On the first night of the training, after the opening session, I walked into the kitchen and overheard one of my classmates say, ‘He said he’s only been to two yoga classes and can barely touch his toes. What is this guy doing at a teacher training?’ I’m sure at this point she in particular was unimpressed with my ‘non-spiritual’ answer to the question of ‘Who am I?’

With a few days left on the training, and not wanting to be alienated or exiled from the group after revealing that I’m light and I’m dark, I choose to elaborate and share a little more. ‘Of course I believe I have the potential for love and light, for being a positive force in the world and for being a good person. That’s what I try to be and hope to be … As part of that, though, I also believe it’s important to acknowledge my potential for being the opposite of all of those things, for me to acknowledge my humanity and the realities of the sadness, anger, grief, shame, judgements and fears that I frequently experience. Some might see spiritual or personal development work as being about removing or transcending these darker aspects of the human psyche.

‘To me, though, the real work in healing, growth or personal development is to acknowledge, get close to and understand all parts of ourselves, not just the pretty and positive aspects of who we believe ourselves to be. I am coming to learn that all parts of me have a purpose and hold hidden gifts. In cutting off or denying the parts that I have previously disowned or labelled as wrong, I cut off those hidden gifts and remain at war with myself.

‘I believe that only people who know their own capacity for cruelty, greed or evil can regulate those aspects of themselves and choose to show up from a place of compassion, love and care. People who deny those aspects of who they are don’t ever get rid of those parts: they just push them into the shadows, out of sight, to a place where they take on a life of their own. It is great to have aspirations of love and light, but I feel that to bring love and light to ourselves we have got to embrace the messiness of being human! When we reject parts of ourselves and project them onto others, we make others heroes and villains in an effort to ease the discomfort that comes with recognising that anything we see in others lives in us too. I think it’s true of any part of ourselves we try to deny. Those parts end up unconsciously running our lives.’

One or two of my international comrades nod approvingly as I explain, while others look uncomfortable and double down on their commitment to the path of love, light and positivity. I can’t blame them. In a world of social media highlight reels, filtered images and putting our best self out there, the idea of stepping into and owning our own darkness goes against the grain and might not sound very appealing or aspirational. Then going a step further and revealing that potential darkness to others brings a whole other layer of fear.

I know from my own experience, though, that I have spent long enough denying and rejecting parts of myself and long enough hiding how I really feel and what I am really experiencing. I also know that despite my best efforts to run from the parts of myself I didn’t like, I have never managed to. I have actually become further disconnected from myself in the process.

For many years now I have been fascinated by the stories we tell ourselves and how the beliefs that we form in early childhood go on to shape how we see ourselves, others and the world. I have been fascinated by what drives us, what stops us and what causes us to say we want one thing but then to do the complete opposite or unconsciously sabotage our own best efforts.

In my early teens I picked up a personal development book for the first time and for many years I read about how to set and achieve goals, how to be more productive and ultimately how to become ‘successful’. My interest and commitment to personal development supported me up to a certain point, but also unknowingly led me on a path of chasing goals and accomplishments outside myself in an effort to avoid the parts of myself that I had disowned or rejected in childhood. Whenever I bumped up against or came close to the darker parts of myself, I would try to figure out what I needed to achieve in order to find more of my light and quieten my inner critic for a while.

Sometimes the goal-setting worked great, though as much as I achieved in life, I ultimately sabotaged myself or acted out in ways that left me feeling like all of my efforts were in vain. At times my external results looked great on paper, but my internal reality did not reflect this.

I found it easy to be with myself and love myself when I was reaching my goals in life or receiving praise from those around me, but in the absence of achievement and validation, my loneliness, fear, grief and shame would show up, leading me to work more and work harder in an effort to outrun how I really felt about myself, or to turn to addictive tendencies to distract myself from my authentic feelings. Rather than being driven by a sense of self-worth and seeing myself as being ‘enough’ just as I was, I was largely driven by wounding, a deep-seated belief that I was inherently flawed, but that if I achieved all the goals I set outside myself I would eventually come to feel like I was enough and I was lovable.

We all come into the world with pure potential and authentic expression, though as we get a little older and become socialised we begin to take on messages about what and who we need to be to maintain the love and approval of those around us. We learn to look outward and seek feedback from our environment as to what wins us love, praise and approval and what leads to the withdrawal of love, praise and approval.

Influenced by our family and friends, our teachers and peers and the culture we grow up in, we develop a ‘persona’ – a mask that we present to the world, made up of all of the parts of ourselves that we have learned garner praise and approval. Our persona reflects all parts of ourselves that we are proud of: the light, the aspects deemed attractive or admirable by our environment.

This persona supports us in having our needs met by the people and environment around us at a time in our lives where we can’t meet those needs for ourselves. Being a ‘good boy’ or ‘good girl’ ensures we do not stand out in a way that might threaten our safety, comfort or needs.

As we develop this mask, persona or self-image, we also unconsciously develop what Swiss psychiatrist Carl Jung called the ‘shadow’, which becomes the storage container for all of the parts of ourselves we fear might attract judgement or criticism. If I am celebrated for my work ethic, I perhaps reject my laziness (which upon closer inspection might actually be my need for rest) and push it into the shadows. If celebrated for my strength, I perhaps place my weakness (which with closer inspection may be the vulnerability that allows me to connect with others) into shadow. When I am judged, shamed or ridiculed by others in childhood, to avoid future pain I will unconsciously repress the emotions, behaviours or beliefs that caused the pain into the shadows. They do not disappear, but instead take on a life of their own, accumulating energy and often playing out in unhealthy or unhelpful ways in our lives. Hidden outside our conscious awareness, our shadow often appears in explosive reactivity or ‘out-of-character’ moments.

Although we all mature biologically, at times we get stuck psychologically. I am 36 years old at the time of writing this book, though at times in which I feel shame or fear, unless I ‘wake up’ and see my patterns, I can easily find myself reverting back to defence strategies or reactions learned in childhood or during my teens in times of shame or fear. Many of us tried to cut off from certain aspects of ourselves in our earliest years and now, decades later, remain fragmented as we continue to deny those darker aspects that were once shamed or ridiculed.

The purpose of working with and moving toward our shadow is to allow ourselves to outgrow outdated defence strategies and ‘grow up’ psychologically, so that we can show up to life from a grounded and clear place and not a reactive place based on our past conditioning.

When we push emotions like fear, anger, grief and others into shadow, we not only lose touch with these feelings but also severely limit our capacity to experience the fullness of life. It’s like locking certain rooms of our mind, believing they are too painful to enter, not knowing that within each of these locked rooms are gifts that will be required to live a life that is truly authentic and meaningful to us. The smaller and more conditional we are with the content of our inner worlds, the smaller our outer world becomes, as we cut off from the emotions that are needed to support us on our journey.

When we disown our fear, we confine ourselves within the boundaries of a very safe and ‘secure’ existence, avoiding situations that might expose our vulnerabilities and limiting us to the predictability of our comfort zone. In being disowned, our fear doesn’t disappear but instead operates unconsciously from the shadows. The result is a life lived with a need for certainty and control, missing out on the adventures and growth that come with exploring the wider world beyond the comfort zone of our current experience. Paradoxically, trying to deny or avoid our fear leads to a life controlled by it. The same is true of all shadow material. ‘What we resist will persist.’

Disowning our anger restricts our ability to assert ourselves and set healthy boundaries. We become people-pleasers, often sacrificing our own needs to maintain harmony. In overlooking or sacrificing our own needs and muting our own voice, we do not cut off from that anger but instead see it play out in shadowy ways, perhaps taking the form of resentment, passive aggression, mocking sarcasm or self-destructive behaviour.

Grief, when disowned, keeps us trapped in a state of numbness, unable to fully engage with life. We avoid the pain of loss by shutting down emotionally, which prevents us from fully experiencing joy and love. This is like someone who, after a significant loss, refuses to form new relationships, living a life devoid of close connections to avoid the potential for more pain. A willingness to grieve and let go is actually what allows us to live and love fully.

When we disown our sexuality, we cut off from a vital connection to a core aspect of our identity. Sexuality is not just about physical intimacy; it includes our sense of self, our desires and how we relate to others. Efforts to cut off from our sexuality will often lead to shame, repression and unfulfilled desires, affecting our relationships and personal wellbeing. Integrating our sexual shadow offers self-acceptance, empowerment, healthier relationships and a pathway to personal growth and fulfilment.

Other emotions like shame and suppressed desires also trap us within narrow confines of self-perception and behaviour. Disowning these parts of ourselves keeps us stuck in cycles of perfectionism, addiction or emotional repression. This can lead us to constantly strive for perfection, never feeling good enough and turning to addictive behaviours as a way to cope with the pressure.

Through shadow work, we take these hidden aspects out of the dark, shining light on them and transforming them into sources of strength and self-acceptance. This process is like opening the doors to those locked rooms of our mind, discovering that they are not filled with monsters but with aspects of ourselves that hold the key to our growth. It enables us to live more authentically and freely, embracing the full spectrum of human experience.

By integrating these disowned parts, we become whole. It is not that we reclaim our anger and become violent bullies, or that we make friends with our grief, thus falling into a pit of sadness we can’t ever climb out of.

It is the opposite, in fact.

Anthony de Mello, a spiritual teacher, once said, ‘What you are aware of you are in control of. What you are not aware of is in control of you.’ This is how I think of shadow. What’s left in the darkness out of sight controls us. When it is brought out into the light we take back some control.

We often hear of the importance of living an ‘authentic life’ or of being ‘authentically ourselves’. ‘Individuation’ is the name given to the process of becoming our true selves by embracing all parts of ourselves, including our hidden or neglected aspects. The individuation process is about living fully and authentically, finding balance and wholeness by embracing both our dark and our light, our shadow and persona.

Making the brave commitment to meeting all parts of ourselves allows us to see both the strengths and drawbacks of each trait, emotion or behaviour and allows us to choose how we show up in the world. Getting to know and understand our fear allows us to embrace more uncertainty and adventure in our lives, to embrace the new and move past old patterns, habits and routines. Getting closer to our anger allows us to set healthy boundaries, express ourselves authentically and protect what is important to us. Befriending our grief can allow us to reclaim the energy that keeps us stuck in the past and unable to open our hearts again to the fullness of life.

In essence, in working with shadow we can come to transform the parts of ourselves we have shamed or shunned into strengths and allies.

This book is not about self-improvement; it is about self-understanding. You may be surprised as you come to see how much of our potential, creativity and authenticity lives in our hidden parts and how, by changing how we relate to them, we awaken new energy, new life and new possibilities. Shadow work is not an easy path. It is confronting, often messy, non-linear and never-ending. But when embraced and integrated, the ideas and exercises shared in this book can change the way you see yourself and others forever.

The rewards that come with this path are fruitful – reclaiming authenticity and full expression, moving beyond cycles of addiction and self-sabotage, and progressing from a life limited by childhood conditioning to one inspired by creativity and an authentic personal vision. Embarking on this journey is choosing the brave path of leaning toward your uncomfortable edges, meeting your disowned parts with acceptance and compassion and allowing yourself to reclaim and be all of who you are, moving from a conditional state of loving yourself toward unconditional love and acceptance.

Some avoid this type of self-inquiry all their lives, while others jump in with two feet and become consumed by it. I encourage you to find a healthy middle ground, allowing a little time every day for self-reflection and understanding. Let’s approach this work from a space of curiosity and compassion. You are not broken and so there is nothing to fix! I hope that I can be a gentle and supportive guide on your journey.

Thank you for joining me and for committing to meet yourself in this way.

Grá mór,

Pat

How to Use this Book

Shadow work is not about getting rid of any parts of yourself or getting rid of certain emotions, but instead about changing how you relate to them so that they can be integrated in a way that allows you to become more of yourself.

In each chapter you’ll find some prompts and exercises intended to help you consider how the themes show up in your own life. You will also find a number of practical exercises shared to help create a bridge between the content of the book and your own lived experience.

If you have a lot going on in your life right now or are in the midst of some big changes or transitions, it may be more supportive for you to stick to reading the book and not dive too deeply into the exercises until things settle down for you. Reading the book can in itself spark awareness and insight, while actively engaging with your own shadow material through the exercises provided can deepen the realisations and contribute to lasting transformation.

These exercises focus on both the body and the mind with a recognition of the strong connection between the two. Much of the personal development, mental wellness and popular psychology work we have seen over the last number of decades has focused on a largely cognitive approach, with an emphasis on exploring and challenging the disempowering thoughts or beliefs someone might hold. In more recent times it has become clear that equal merit must be given to the role of the body in developing improved mental and emotional health. Only when we feel safe in our bodies can we access perspective, compassion and curiosity.

Sometimes, unbeknownst to ourselves, we are walking through life with a body holding chronic tension that does not feel safe, and so we are unconsciously perceiving our environment as a threatening or unfriendly place (we’ll dive deeper into the mind–body connection in Chapter Four).

So, alongside the cognitive exercises shared throughout the book, you will find body- and breath-based practices shared to help develop greater emotional awareness, authentic expression and capacity for emotional regulation and self-soothing.

You might read the book all the way through and then come back to the exercises, or allow it to be an 11-week journey in which you complete the exercises on a weekly basis, beginning with those shared at the end of this section, before moving to the next chapter. Whatever you choose to do, go gently, be curious and seek out support if and when you need it.

   Best Practices and Self-Care   

Knowing Your Anchors

In stepping into any form of inner work that involves reflecting on or exploring our thoughts, emotions and patterns, it is important that we are engaged in self-care and are well resourced with anchors that provide us with a sense of stability. This means ensuring we have the support systems, practices and tools in place to nurture and sustain ourselves through the process.

Our anchors are the resources – practices, tools, environments and people – that help us to remain grounded and help us stay centred during times of change, uncertainty or emotional turbulence. Self-care helps to create a stable foundation, allowing us to delve into challenging areas with resilience and compassion. Being well resourced might include anchors like having trusted friends, mentors or a therapist to talk to, engaging in a regular form of physical activity that you enjoy, practising breathwork or meditation, or setting aside time for rest and relaxation. Without adequate self-care, the work can become overwhelming, heavy and isolating. I am of the belief that the deeper the level of change or challenge we are experiencing in our lives, the more essential these anchors and support systems become.

Compassion for Self and Others

As you learn more about the shadow self you will come to see that the parts of yourself that you have disowned, rejected or tried to push away were exiled because at some point they were made wrong – that is, shamed or judged negatively. You learned somewhere along the line, probably in childhood, that it wasn’t safe to show or express those parts of yourself. In response you will have consciously or unconsciously pushed those parts into the darkness (the shadow). Much of the shadow is made up of emotions like anger, fear and sadness that may have previously been deemed bad or wrong. In truth, there are no wrong emotions. Every feeling we have is natural and part of the human experience. The problem comes when we label certain emotions as unacceptable and try to push them away. Instead of rejecting or vilifying certain emotions, with this work we can learn to understand and accept them all. As you go through the practices and exercises in this book, you will undoubtedly meet some of your shadow and shine light on the dark for the purpose of better self-understanding and acceptance. As you bring light to your rejected or exiled parts, it is essential that you meet yourself and your shadow parts with compassion.

As you will come to see as you read through the book, all of your parts and emotions, even the ones that seem to want to sabotage your best efforts, are doing their best to protect and support you. In working with our shadow, our mission is to change how we relate to these parts and to find acceptance and understanding of their origins, roles, strengths and fears.

Alongside this self-compassion it is important that we extend compassion to others in our lives. In exploring the early influences of our family of origin, our community and our culture, we are not doing so in order to point fingers or blame. Instead, this exploration is to allow us to recognise that these early influences shape our perceptions and behaviours, often without our conscious awareness.

By examining our past, we can gain insight into the parts of ourselves we’ve hidden away, not to assign fault, but to understand the complexities of our identity.

Lean in and Find Your Own Edge

Shadow work involves leaning in rather than leaning away. It is important with this type of work to find your own edge. Only you can know where that edge is, a little outside your comfort zone but not so much that you become overwhelmed. It is the space in which discomfort and growth meet.

You cannot heal your emotional or psychological wounds overnight, rush through it or do it on a timeline that feels convenient to you. Equally, the healing will not happen by avoiding discomfort or challenges, and so it is essential to lean in and commit to the journey.

In the fitness world the concept of progressive overload is among the most important. Put simply, progressive overload involves gradually increasing the amount of stress placed on the body during exercise over time. There is an understanding that for the body to adapt and change it must be given a new stimulus to adapt to. Sometimes that means adding a little more weight to the barbell, or running a little further, or completing an extra few repetitions of an exercise. If there isn’t new stress placed on the body it has no reason to adapt, though to place too much stress on the body too quickly is likely to lead to injury. Thus progressive overload promotes small marginal gains over time that allow the body just enough stress to respond and adapt positively to the new stimulus.

Similarly, with the exploration of shadow the wisdom of leaning in and honouring your own edge marries the eagerness to explore the unknown with the patience to navigate the complexities within.

Responsibility and Empowerment

In recent years, terms like ‘narcissist’, ‘boundaries’, ‘avoidant or anxiously attached’ and ‘gaslighting’ have become common in conversations around personal growth and relationships. While these labels can be valuable in certain contexts, there is a risk in using them too casually or flippantly. Sometimes these words are thrown around to avoid personal responsibility, to place the blame on others, or to create a narrative that absolves us of responsibility for our own behaviour.

This book is not about diagnosing or labelling others, nor is it about placing the blame on external factors. While much of our shadow was formed in childhood, shaped by the environment we grew up in and the people we loved, this is not a book about blaming parents, caregivers or anyone else in our past. Instead, it’s an invitation to explore our own inner world with curiosity and compassion. This journey is about personal responsibility and empowerment, not about finding others to blame. While there is certainly space for understanding how certain behaviours or dynamics affect us, the focus here is on how we can take charge of our own healing.

And now, as we begin our journey, let’s prepare with a few of the exercises that you will use throughout the book. Work through the exercises at a pace that feels manageable for you. There is not any rush with this work, though I would suggest blocking off a little time at least a few days a week on a consistent basis to reaffirm your commitment to yourself in prioritising your self-understanding.

   Incomplete Sentences   

Sentence completion provides a powerful means of connecting to the unconscious and gaining deep wisdom and self-understanding beyond what can be accessed from the conscious everyday mind. Each chapter concludes with a number of these incomplete sentences. It is suggested you read them aloud and complete the sentences with your first response, no thinking, just trust the first response that comes to you. A response of ‘I don’t know’ can be a sign of resistance, and so be patient with yourself and try to trust yourself in your responses.

As we will discuss at length, we have all formed a strong identity, an ego that looks to keep us safe by strongly protecting how we see ourselves and keeping us within the constraints of the identity or self-image we created long ago. Sometimes the immediate response when completing an incomplete sentence conflicts with the ego’s self-image and our need for control, thus showing us that we are more than we thought we were. Again, trust yourself and allow curiosity around your first response.

I hide parts of me because …The place where I feel I need to hide the most is …Knowing I hide in that area makes me feel …Fully embracing myself means accepting and facing my …As a child, I hid my …I get triggered by other people when …A hidden part of me I would like to better understand is …I am ready for …

   Journalling Prompts   

After the incomplete sentences you will find a number of journalling prompts to support you in exploring the themes discussed. These prompts will play a key role in helping you illuminate your shadow, bringing the book to life and allowing you to capture new insights to support you in your day-to-day life.

Let your mind ask the question and your heart answer it.

This requires letting go of any aspirations of ‘getting it right’ when journalling on the prompts offered. These prompts serve as a tool for self-exploration and so you cannot ‘get it wrong’. Taking adequate time with the prompts is important. Given five minutes to write about a given topic you will likely write a lot of what you’re already aware of, but take 15–20 minutes to write about the same topic and you’ll likely access lots of new insight and awareness.

So much of modern life can be spent looking outward or having our attention pulled away from ourselves toward the abundance of noise, stimulus and distraction in our worlds. Committing to a journalling practice is a commitment to going within and really prioritising your inner world, which promises an exciting and often surprising adventure. I would suggest getting a specific journal to capture all your reflections in one place. I am confident that, in time, when you look back over your notes, you will be amazed at the changes you see in your life as a result of what emerges from your journalling practice.

Reflect on moments in your life when you’ve felt a sense of hiding or suppressing parts of yourself. Describe these instances and consider why you might have kept these aspects hidden from others.Think about aspects of yourself that you might have neglected or not fully acknowledged. What are these traits or behaviours? How do you feel about exploring these aspects further?Consider recurring reactions or emotions you experience in certain situations or around specific people. Write about these patterns and any hidden motivations behind your reactions.Recollect moments from your childhood when you felt encouraged to express or repress certain traits or emotions. How might these experiences have influenced what you show or hide about yourself today?Identify traits or behaviours in others that trigger strong reactions or judgements within you. Explore why these traits evoke such responses and if they might reflect hidden aspects of yourself.

   Embodiment Practices   

Shadow work is not solely a cognitive endeavour; in fact in many ways we can think about our body as being our shadow self. It is in the body that we feel our reactiveness, our emotional triggers and our resistance. It is our body that holds the tension or armour around emotions that we do not want to or do not feel safe to feel.

Working with our body and breath and not just our mind can help us access greater insight into our shadow self, allowing us a much greater capacity for self-understanding. Building self-trust requires a willingness to begin listening to the signs of our body and not push past its feedback. One of the fastest ways of shining light on unconscious beliefs, fears and patterns is to begin to pay more attention to the body and its reactions to certain situations or environments.

Through consistent embodiment practice you will develop the capacity to be with intense sensations and emotions, expanding your window of tolerance without becoming overwhelmed and going to autopilot reactivity, defensiveness or shutdown. The embodiment practices shared throughout the book aim to help you deepen your connection between body and mind, allowing you to become more aware of your emotional state at any given time so that you can come from a place of responsiveness and presence in life and not a place of reacting from old emotional wounds. Body movements, breath techniques and expressive activities are designed to release stored tension in the body and restore a healthy flow of energy.

Thinking to Feeling

Our first embodiment exercise is a practice of moving from stories to sensations and from thinking to feeling.

Find a quiet space where you won’t be disturbed, and sit comfortably, either on a chair with your feet flat on the ground or on the floor with your legs crossed. Gently close your eyes and take a few deep breaths, inhaling through your nose and allowing your belly to expand, then exhaling through your mouth to release any tension.Start by bringing your awareness to your head, noticing any sensations like tension or warmth, and slowly scan your body from head to toe. As you focus on each area – neck, shoulders, arms, chest, abdomen, back, hips, legs and feet – simply observe any sensations without judgement. If your mind begins to wander back to thoughts or stories, gently guide your focus back to the sensations, using reminders like ‘I’m here,’ or ‘I feel.’Once you’ve identified areas of sensation, take a deep breath and imagine sending your breath into those areas, visualising it as warm, soothing light that brings comfort and relaxation. After a few minutes, slowly bring your awareness back to the room, wiggling your fingers and toes, and gently open your eyes when you feel ready.After completing the exercise, notice how it felt to focus on your body rather than your thoughts – and jot down any insights in a journal.

This exercise can be practised anytime you feel overwhelmed by thoughts or emotions, helping you cultivate a deeper connection to your body and promoting a sense of grounding in the present moment.

CHAPTER ONE

Origins of Shadow

‘One does not become enlightened by imagining figures of light, but by making the darkness conscious. The latter procedure, however, is disagreeable and therefore not popular.’ CARL JUNG

‘The role of the artist is exactly the same as the role of the lover. If I love you, I have to make you conscious of the things you don’t see.’ JAMES BALDWIN

   Authentic Expression   

Many of us have changes we would like to make in our lives, maybe patterns or cycles we would like to move past, addictions or habits we’d like to overcome or relationship dynamics we would like to outgrow. On paper the changes don’t look too challenging and ‘should’ be manageable. In practice, though, we can often find ourselves looping back to old patterns, frustrated by our struggles to make those changes stick.

And so we try and try again, sometimes caught in cycles for years or decades. Each time we commit to change, we try to be more positive, more disciplined or ‘better’. Despite these best efforts, something keeps us in old patterns and stuck in our past. Sometimes we may achieve temporary superficial changes in our external world, but when our internal self-view remains unchanged, we generally return to familiar habits and old behaviours. This disconnect between our external efforts and internal beliefs is what keeps us in cycles of self-sabotage. I am going to suggest that these cycles of self-sabotage are a result of us denying the shadow self.

To break free from old unhelpful patterns, it’s essential to address and transform the underlying self-concept and deeply ingrained beliefs that drive our actions by exploring and integrating the shadow self, rather than rejecting or denying those aspects that long ago we labelled as ‘bad’ or ‘wrong’.

We are all born into the world unique and hopefully get to experience the freedom to express ourselves authentically in our earliest months and years. It is not uncommon to see a baby cry hysterically for a few moments and then quickly shift into laughing hysterically with just as much enthusiasm and ease. There aren’t yet any judgements on what emotions or behaviours are ‘good’ or ‘bad’ and so the baby and (hopefully) the baby’s caregivers are unconditional in their love and acceptance of whatever wants to be expressed. There is a freedom, a purity and an emotional range and flexibility to the young child, a natural flow of energy, without obstruction. Emotions are ‘digested’ in real time, not seen as something to deny or avoid, but simply experienced as a movement of energy in the body. Rather than an emotional outburst being judged, it is generally acknowledged as a call for attention. If in response to the call for attention, the baby’s needs are gratified by their parent or care-giver, the baby builds trust, knowing that their needs will be met. If the baby’s needs go unmet, they experience emotional distress and the pain of separation. This pain leads to a sense of disconnection or abandonment. As a result the baby can experience feelings of loneliness, insecurity, and the belief that their emotions or needs are not valid or worthy of attention.

As the baby grows into a toddler or young child the socialisation process begins. During this time they learn what behaviours, emotions and beliefs are celebrated by those around them. They learn what is welcomed and appreciated as well as what behaviours, emotions and beliefs are unacceptable, unwanted or unlovable.

   From Authentic to Adaptive   

This socialisation process is an essential time for developing important social skills and understanding societal norms. It helps children learn how to interact with others, navigate social situations and build relationships. As the child takes on countless messages from family, community and culture, they begin to learn who they need to become in order to stay safe and maintain love in the world.

It is at this stage that a split begins to occur.

The child develops a sense of who they are and who they are not. Emotions, now labelled ‘good’ or ‘bad’, are no longer seen as a neutral and natural expression of energy but instead as something to pursue or avoid. While coming into contact with others, the young child’s personality forms, and the aspects of the self that are not deemed acceptable are pushed away, hidden, denied and repressed in the shadow. In blocking or hiding certain emotions, the freedom of energy in the child diminishes and the authentic expression begins to become dulled. The child moves from freely expressing what they are feeling in their body to going to their head to figure out how they ‘should’ express or present themselves.

The more is pushed into shadow, the more conditional the child becomes with themselves, desperately seeking to demonstrate the ‘good’ aspects of themselves while avoiding or hiding the ‘bad’. It is as though they unknowingly push themselves into a smaller and smaller box over time in order to ensure they stay within the range of what is acceptable in their different environments.

So much of the child’s authentic expression, emotion and desire gets hidden away over time that as an adult, they can be left feeling lost, disconnected or at war with themselves.

Adapting to meet the expectations of those who support and protect us in our early years is a genius survival strategy. But after years of editing what we allow ourselves to show or share from our inner world based on what the outer world has welcomed or rejected, it isn’t surprising that we might feel estranged from our authentic selves and caught looking outward for the answers rather than looking inward at the aspects of ourselves we have abandoned. It is also unsurprising that we might be stuck in repetitive cycles or patterns, as we have confined ourselves to a limited range of emotions, behaviours and beliefs.

Many of those traits, emotions and aspects of ourselves that were pushed into shadow have lain outside of our conscious awareness for years or probably decades now. When we find ourselves struggling as adults, we can often try to be ‘better’ or more positive, unaware that what we relegated to the shadows didn’t ever disappear, but instead gathered energy and took on a life of its own and is now acting out in the background in unconscious and unhelpful ways. It is as though the parts of ourselves that we tried to cut ourselves off from, and those parts that were denied expression or acknowledgment, came to their own way of being and gathered strength in the background. They are now determined to undermine our conscious efforts toward health, wealth and happiness. As a result of denying our shadow selves we can find ourselves tiptoeing through life in adulthood, hoping to avoid any of the emotions or situations that make us feel uncomfortable or unsure of ourselves.

Until we get to know our shadow, we might question why we often say we want one thing but end up doing the complete opposite. We might wonder why we can’t move past our addictions, or overcome destructive cycles or patterns we find ourselves in. We might be confused, frustrated or even angry at the self-sabotage that seems to be omnipresent. We might notice the same interpersonal dynamics repeating themselves despite our commitments to creating something different.

Throughout life we go to great lengths to try desperately to hide the shameful parts of ourselves that we fear might make us unlovable to those who get close. The problem with concealing what we are ashamed of is that it often leads to a cycle of increasing shame. Our shame can drive us to engage in behaviours that temporarily alleviate our discomfort but ultimately reinforce our feelings of unworthiness. As we continue to hide our shame, we create a vicious cycle where our actions feed into the very shame we are trying to escape, making it even harder to break free and heal.

Rather than lean toward the discomfort of the content of the shadow self, many of us have been conditioned to look externally in order to numb, hide or avoid. The knee-jerk reaction of looking externally for solutions to internal discomfort only further disconnects us from ourselves. Media, news outlets and marketing companies prey on this tendency, bombarding us with messages that offer and encourage external solutions to our internal struggles.

By leaning into the discomfort and facing our shadow self with compassion and courage, we can break free from the cycle of avoidance and truly reconnect with ourselves and the life that we are inspired to live.

   What is the Shadow?   

It was the Swiss psychiatrist Carl Jung who first presented the idea of the shadow in the Western world, though the concept appears across many cultures and can be seen in religious texts long before Jung’s time. Jung proposed that within each of us there are two parts that make up the whole. There is the idealised self – the person we want to be – and then there are the parts of us that go against this idealised vision of self: the shadow.

The shadow often encompasses the feelings, urges and desires that we experience but do not want to acknowledge or admit to. Jung suggested that because we are often unaware of the aspects of ourselves that we have rejected, we tend to distance ourselves from these aspects rather than confronting them.

Whatever is labelled good in us tends to become a part of our ‘persona’, derived from the Latin word for ‘mask’. Meanwhile, our shadow self forms as we reject or disown emotions, traits or beliefs that have been shamed by the people around us. Disconnection is a painful experience and so we learn that to stay in connection and avoid the pain of separation it is important that we hide the parts that seem unlovable. From childhood onwards, the shadow becomes the container for all of the parts of ourselves that we reject, deny or want to abandon. This can also include painful memories and experiences.

American psychologist John Welwood once likened it to being born into an incredible castle with 1,000 rooms, each room representing an aspect of our being – our thoughts, emotions, desires and potential. At first we explore and appreciate the complexity and richness of the castle, but then as we grow older we meet others who place judgements and expectations on us, telling us which rooms should not be entered and instead need to be locked up and avoided at all costs. ‘You’re too emotional,’ they tell us, or ‘too loud’, or ‘too needy’, and so slowly, little by little, we begin to shame and dismiss the parts deemed unworthy until one day we wake up and find ourselves living in a cramped, dimly lit corner of the castle, a tiny fraction of the potential that once was. We may even have forgotten that the rest of the castle exists at all.

Shadow work is about going back into the neglected or forbidden locked rooms and exploring the untapped gifts they hold so that we can integrate these forgotten aspects of ourselves and become more whole. In unlocking these forgotten rooms or parts of ourselves, we get to remember and reconnect to the complexity and richness of our authentic selves.

We’ll go deeper into these questions in the coming chapters, but I want first to address two common queries that emerge with those new to this type of work: Why would I want to acknowledge or welcome the negative parts of me? Shouldn’t we just focus on being more positive and better?

Many of the traits made ‘bad’ or ‘wrong’ were done so in childhood, at a time when we did not have the context or capacity for nuance. All traits have value in the right context but when buried or rejected will generally play out in unhealthy or unconscious ways. A young boy may see emotional expression as bad after being teased for showing his feelings, in response pushing his sensitivity and authentic expression into shadow, opting instead to be stoic, ‘tough’ and shut down emotionally. Though this may be a good survival strategy for the youngster in the short term and in the given context, if the situation is left unaddressed he will later become a man who has no idea how to express and communicate his emotions, leading to recurring challenges in his life and relationships.

In essence, shadow work involves going beyond the ‘black’ or ‘white’, ‘good’ or ‘bad’ labels we have given to certain emotions or traits and finding the grey. Shining light on all our traits is an essential step in gaining a greater understanding of ourselves, our fears, insecurities and unresolved issues.

Consider that every trait we view as negative, such as envy, anger, pride or stubbornness, might have a beneficial role or be a gift in certain situations; disconnecting from the trait that we have labelled ‘bad’ cuts us off from that potentially beneficial role or gift. For example, envy could serve as the motivating force that pushes you to strive for success in a certain field, turning it into a source of inspiration. Anger, which is often seen as a ‘negative’ emotion, can be the fuel for positive personal or cultural change, providing the energy and determination to confront unjust individual dynamics or societal oppressive regimes. Stubbornness might be what keeps you rooted in your beliefs when facing opposition or criticism. Pride, meanwhile, which is often viewed negatively, can lead an individual to strive for excellence or mastery in their work.