Discovering Your Shadow Self (Part 1)

It's Important to love your shadow self? without loving shadow self its difficult to love yourself because in self love you love all about yourself. No parts left behind or neglected or repressed.

 

Let's explore our shadow self  and how to bring them to integration meaning 

back to home, to soul.

Shadow Self: Embracing Your Inner Darkness

If you’re truly honest about self-exploration during your soul work journey, you will come across many aspects and traits about yourself that you will find difficult – if not completely disturbing – to accept. 

The Birth of the Shadow Self

So what exactly is the “Persona” and “Shadow Self”?  Well the Persona, according to Jung, defines what we would like to be and how we wish to be seen by the world.  The word “persona” is derived from a Latin word that literally means “mask”, however in this instance, the word can be applied metaphorically, representing all of the different social masks that we wear among different groups of people and situations.

On the other hand, the Shadow Self is an archetype that forms part of the unconscious mind and is composed of repressed ideas, instincts, impulses, weaknesses, desires, perversions and embarrassing fears.  This archetype is often described as the darker side of the psyche, representing wildness, chaos and the unknown. Jung believed that these latent dispositions are present in all of us, in many instances forming a strong source of creative energy.

We are all born pure, like blank canvases.  But at some point during our childhood development, we learn knowledge that teaches us to separate things into good and evil. The moment we eat from this tree of knowledge, our shadows are born and we begin to divide ourselves.  Furthermore, in our cultural ‘socialization’ process, we begin to sort out those traits within us that are acceptable in society, and those unacceptable traits that aren’t (which are later hidden away).

Thus, the dark shadow traits that we all possess accumulate in the corners of our unconscious minds, never becoming adequately integrated into our conscious minds because we never see our split state in the first place. And so we continue on accumulating these dark desires, motivations and fears.

This can be dangerous. Through observing many soulwork students for example, we’ve come across certain individuals who have allowed their Shadow Selves to accumulate for so long that they’ve erupted and overpowered the person through depression or an unconscious accident that ended up manifesting their inner “Monsters“.  This can lead to physical, emotional, psychological and interpersonal consequences that can last for a very long time.

It’s understandable that our civilizing process requires us to repress aspects of ourselves that do not fit in with the structured ideal of our society.  We are born whole and complete, but slowly we learn to live fractioned lives, accepting some parts of our nature but rejecting and ignoring other parts.

Basically, the repression of our negative traits or emotions in society is one of the biggest barriers in any persons journey towards Self-Love and living authentically.  How can you completely and wholeheartedly accept who you are if there are sides of yourself that you’re too afraid to explore?

Don’t get us wrong, the idea of the “Shadow Self” doesn’t only apply to psychology. 

So, apart from modern day society’s ideas of acceptable and non-acceptable behavior, what else causes such a great repression of the Shadow Self?  In truth, a lot of it actually comes from the endless cornucopia of “feel good” motivational teachings out there.  If you notice, a lot of modern spiritual and religious work revolves around moving towards the “light”, accepting the “light” and seeking for the “light”.  Yet by doing so, we ignore the entirety of what it is to be human! 

 In fact, many of the spiritual and new age teachings out there provide an escape for those who do not want to be responsible for the entirety of themselves and their lives.  Understandably the “light” energies are usually represented with noble values such as love, peace, joy, harmony, compassion, entirely ignoring the darker elements within us such as anger, vengeance, control, fear, shame, competitiveness, jealousy, lust, etc.  Because these darker characteristics are associated with ‘negativity’, they’re avoided out of fear.

Interestingly, many seekers of spiritual growth think that somehow all of the negative qualities within themselves will eventually be transcended.  Yet embracing your inner darkness allows for the creation of a psychological and spiritual balance, an integrated whole – whereas denying it creates chaos and disharmony.

The keyword here is “integrate”, which comes from the Latin word integratus, meaning to ‘make whole’.  To integrate an inner quality is to take ownership and responsibility for it, rather than rejecting or denying it.  The benefits are many; sanity, healing, and wholeness are all found in integration.  On the other hand, the opposite of integration is to ‘disintegrate’ – or to be fragmented and divided into pieces.  A person that ‘breaks down’ or ‘falls apart’ for instance, is someone who has been unable to handle stress and who has ignored too many of their personality traits, especially Shadow Self traits.  In reality, a fragmented person can never handle adversity because they have no whole center, and they’re always handling life from the corners of their personality parts.

These days, the “right-handed path” is what most of us understand to be the pursuit for positive things such as overcoming personal flaws and limitations, purifying our sins and anything else that helps us connect to our “higher selves”.  The left-handed path, however, is associated with parts within us that are typically fought against, rejected, denied, feared, and thus it becomes our biggest inner hindrance, but at the same time, the key to our liberation. 

The truth is that we have both hands, not just one, and we must learn to use them in a balanced way if we seek to live a balanced life.  The Right hand seeks to improve the personal self, overcome its flaws, but the Left hand seeks investigation, seeks to be ‘selfish’ in its pursuit of Self-Love.  Just like in the Yin and Yang, when you reach a deep balance, suddenly the dichotomy of right and left will disappear.

First there was darkness.  Unlike light, darkness is infinite.  Under every rock, you will find darkness, but light and darkness need each other to come into existence.  Unless you learn to first embrace that darkness within yourself, you can never pursue the light of Self-Love in a balanced way.

Unless the foundation of your home is solid and stable, no matter how beautifully you decorate and work on the house itself, sooner or later your house will collapse and crumble down. 

Embracing the Shadow Self

Our journey of Self-Exploration is a beautiful experience.  Before making our way out of “hell” we must walk through the depths of our inner darkness.

When you are embracing or integrating your shadow self, It doesn't mean to indulge in any desire that arises within you.  Indulging your anger, for instance, will simply result in more anger.  By embracing your inner darkness means that it is necessary for you to “accept” it.  Accepting your darkness will allow you to take responsibility for yourself, and once you truly acknowledge one of these dark traits instead of avoiding them, suddenly, they will stop having control over you.  

By being honest with ourselves and accepting our shadow elements, it frees us up to truly witness the uncharted areas of our minds, allowing us to see that we are not these elements, but simply possess thoughts, feelings and drives that come and go.  You cannot simply go “beyond hatred” if first you don’t admit to yourself that you do in fact possess hateful feelings. 

To completely experience Self-Love we must learn to experience our Shadow Selves, and voyage into the dark, murky waters of the unknown courageously.  Otherwise, every time we condemn other people for their shadow traits, we’re in essence condemning our hypocritical selves in the process.

A whole and balanced self is a reconciliation of all parts, an inner unification.  It is not an indulgence of the darker parts of our natures, but an acceptance and direct experience of them in the light of mindful awareness and deep honesty.  This is the entire opposite of many self-denying traditional spiritual methods of subduing, denying, or ascetically disciplining the self. And in order to be authentic we have to embrace our inner selves – that which is culturally uncommon or bizarre.

It’s astounding to realize that often the mundane characteristics in people are the ones that are socially acceptable. In essence, any “primitive” traits within us get sent to our Shadow Selves, but at the same time, any creative, unique, innovative and different ideas also get sent to our Shadow Selves because they’re not socially acceptable.

Exploring your darkness is not necessarily all doom and gloom.  In fact, you may be surprised by the endless array of creative and interesting ‘things’ you find that have been secretively stored away. To accept and embrace your Shadow Self is to go back and become “whole” again.

Illuminative Ways to Encounter Your Shadow Self
  
Light cannot be made without corresponding darkness, which is precisely why creative activities are the best ways to encounter your Shadow Self. Here are few examples regarding how this connection with your Shadow Self can be achieved.

Draw or Paint

Art is the highest form of self-expression and also a great way to allow your shadow to manifest itself.  In Psychology, an effective way to better understand a child patient is to give them paper and crayons and allow them to draw whatever comes to mind.

In adults expressing our inner selves is a bit more difficult, as that shadow has been repressed a lot more deeply and for a longer period of time.  However, if you allow yourself to feel any of these darker emotions, without fearing judgment from yourself while drawing or painting for example, you’ll begin to gain insight into your Shadow Self and reveal more about your obscure inner half.

Build

One of Jung’s greatest insights was that the Ego and the Shadow come from the same source, and balance each other exactly.  This is quite prevalent in life, and we are all aware of the suicidal creative geniuses or the eccentric lives of artists that exist in life.

Creativity, as St. Augustine said, is the antithesis of our Shadows.  Limited creativity means a limited Shadow, while great creativity comes with a heavier Shadow.  Examples include the descent into madness from Nietzsche and Schumann to Van Gogh, who all possessed heavy Shadows.

Whether woodwork, clay sculpting or composing music, the act of creation provides space for your darker elements to emerge and manifest themselves through impatience, anger, frustration while also feeling fulfillment and joy at the same time.  Being Self-Aware and using Self-Exploration mindfully during this experience will reap deeper insights into your darkness.

Write

Featuring the meeting of an Ego and his Shadow Self.  His story details the life of a Professor who becomes so separated and overwhelmed by his Shadow elements that he comes to the verge of suicide, only to realize that the redemption of the ego is solely possible if the Shadow is redeemed at the same time.

Writing a story where you project your Shadow elements onto the characters is a great way to learn more about your inner darkness.  If stories aren’t your thing, keeping a journal or diary every day for a few weeks where you record both good and bad emotions can shine a light on the darker elements of your nature.  Reading through these emotions can help you recover the balance you need in your life, and accept both light and dark emotions within you.

Projection

Unless you consciously work on your Shadow through some of the above techniques, you’ll begin to find that your shadow is unconsciously projected onto someone or something else, so as to avoid responsibility for it.

This, however, can become another way of exploring your Shadow by becoming mindful and conscious of what it is we unconsciously choose to project our Shadows onto.  What’s interesting and hard to understand is that we not only project our negative traits and elements onto others but our good ones as well.  It’s as if we unconsciously refuse to embrace our noble elements because the Ego is afraid that these positive elements will change and upset our current personality structure.

When becoming consciously aware of what you’re projecting your shadow onto, you simply have to observe what it is you secretly like or don’t like.  For instance, current movies and television shows reflect our deep interest in the darker aspects of ourselves. Why else would we have such fascination with this constant battle between good and evil forces?  Superhero, fantasy or action films depict the Heroes vs. Villains dichotomy, while we also fall in love with charming characters that embrace their dark sides such as Dexter, The Joker or Walter White (Breaking Bad).

Often our noblest traits are projected onto the people we like, admire or fall in love with.  The opposite is also true, and the most defenseless of beings can become the carriers of your projected Shadow Self.  Children, for example, provide the perfect outlet to our anger, frustration and all other negative emotions.  The smallest of accidents or naughty actions can be punished with disproportionately destructive wrath’s.  Projection for many of us is always easier than assimilation.

Projection, no matter whether light or dark is always something detrimental.  You not only burden another person with your dark elements or pressures of idolization, but you also avoid responsibility for your Shadow and lose the opportunity of finding a state of ecstatic wholeness.

Our right eye sees one thing, our left eye sees another, but when these two eyes meet a third eye is formed, the single eye, and that shall fill you with light.
 

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