What is Shadow Work?

If I'm going to be writing a Shadow Work diary of sorts, then I should first define what Shadow Work is. And more specifically I will be focusing on what my own definition and view on it is, because I find it helpful to take the time to define things clearly and evaluate if my thoughts on a subject have changed since the last time I consciously thought about it. So keep that in mind, I am not giving 100% factual information here, this is from my own point of view.

The short definition of Shadow Work is it's working with the Unconscious and Subconscious Mind to recover and reintegrate the hidden parts of you, the parts of yourself that you have denied within yourself. It's looking at the things you are not allowing yourself to see.

And since the key word here is Unconscious and therefore hidden, you are not aware of it. You might be doing and saying things that you are completely unaware of, and if confronted about it by someone, you might think that the other person is imagining things, or you might not hear the other person at all. Or you might be doing and saying things that you are aware of, but you are not aware of why you are doing it.

Unconscious holds your repressed memories, feelings, unwanted behaviours, thoughts, deepest desires, even unseen gifts.

So why does something get pushed down into the Unconscious? It's to protect ourselves. Something happened that was too much for us to deal with in that moment. It might be a big traumatic event, or simply a wrong word or reaction from your parent.

There are parts of ourselves that we have pushed down to fit into this society, to fit into the roles we think we need to lead in order to be liked and accepted.

Why do we learn to conform to the "norm"? It has to do with how our body is wired, our autonomic nervous system. Back in the day when us homo sapiens were living in caves, our nervous system developed to keep us safe, and back then we needed the Tribe around us to survive. Being cast out meant you were without shelter, vulnerable to the elements. Therefore you needed to be accepted in order to survive. This is why it's encoded in our nervous system.

Difference is, back in the day humans were much more loving and open-minded than we are now. All aspects of Life were celebrated. People lived in communion with each other. You were not cast out because you wore the wrong brand of sneakers or held a different opinion to others. Today it's the age of logic and reason, of the individual, of the Ego quite literally. We are disconnected from Ourselves, from Others, from Nature, from the Divine. The outside world - with it's limited non-holistic views of life - tells us what is expected of us to be "cool", to be liked. Many of us follow along (usually without realizing it, subconsciously) because we fear being cast out, fear being rejected, fear being laughed at - because our nervous system doesn't know the difference between perceived threat and an actual threat. The nervous system doesn't know if it's dealing with fear of rejection or a wild animal running after you trying to eat you.

Already as I'm writing this, I understand that my thoughts on Shadow Work now are a lot more holistic than they used to be, and the term has expanded in meaning. I understand that I use the term very loosely and in some ways very much out of the original context (jungian psychology). Why I still use the term is simply because I really like it and it suits me - it sounds Witchy!

I think technically for me Shadow Work means anything where I am working to connect with my authentic self. Stripping back layers of societal programming and the Ego. And I am not bashing the Ego here, the Ego is our personality and obviously very important. But for me there is a difference between if you are letting your fears and traumas run the Ego, or if you are letting your Soul and Heart run the Ego.

A very simple example of how I work with myself, to give some more context to my rambling thoughts:

Let's say somebody said something that made me feel stupid. There are two ways it can go:

1. The feeling takes over me, I react (either I explode and start shouting, or I shut down and close up, or I leave the situation). Afterwards I ask myself why did I actually feel stupid? Because unless the other person was trying to deliberately hurt me (which most people are not trying to do), he most likely did not mean to make me feel stupid. Therefore something he said triggered something in my unconscious mind. I don't necessarily need to be able to pinpoint what it was in my unconscious that got triggered, as long as I recognise the fact that he did not mean to hurt me, and my reaction was because of my own interpretation of his words. Now I can take responsibility for my reaction and apologise for it if necessary. Then I can go onto do what I would do straight away in the second way this could go:

2. If I am able to catch myself in the moment before I react, I will stop myself and calm myself, and ask: "Hey, when you said X, did you mean it in this way? Because it made me feel stupid". This way everything is clear and there are no misunderstandings or misinterpretations that can linger in my mind causing resentment.

   
   

And let me tell you, most of the time we are reacting to our own interpretations of the situation instead of what it actually is. And not talking about it, just pushing it down in our minds will only make it bigger. I used to be a professional at avoiding any uncomfortable feeling that came my way, so in the past if I felt stupid I would get drunk or eat a bucket of ice cream while thinking about how evil the person was who made me feel stupid, letting similar situations happen again and again until the resentment I was carrying around was too much and exploded in some way... Damn I'm so proud of how I have grown. 💖

Actually I realized there is a third way this example situation could go, and that would be where I feel stupid, but don't necessarily realize it consciously at the specific moment it happens. Maybe my mind is busy and I'm distracted, and my feelings get pushed in the subconscious. Then I realize the next day or in a week what happened and how I felt. This happens to me a lot whenever I've stopped listening to Myself and my Body, distracting myself with unimportant things like social media or pointless work stress. I'm pretty sure this happens to most people with how the world today is designed to keep us distracted.

Another example of my Shadow Work is when I started this Blog, or whenever I post something personal. I feel fear, but I do it anyway, because I ask myself where the fear is coming from and I understand it's the fear of being misunderstood, fear of looking stupid, fear of being rejected. But do these things kill me or physically hurt me in some way? No. There is no real danger there.