Sometimes the spiritual pathway can become one of beauty, glory and the mystical…. and nothing else. The unpleasant – and critical aspect of self-work is identifying and integrating those parts of ourselves which we don’t want to acknowledge or admit – even to ourselves.

What is this Shadow?

Growing up, certain aspects of our personality were shamed or beaten into hiding. These can be positive or negative qualities, but somewhere, subconsciously we learned that if we were to express these parts of ourselves, we will not be loved, accepted or cared for. Over time we judge these aspects in ourselves and others too, and depending on whether these are positive or negative qualities, either we come to worship these aspects in others, or despise and look down upon them.

In either case, these are abandoned aspects of ourselves, and the hardest to identify and re-integrate since we are blind to these sides of us.

Can my Shadow Hurt Me?

It always does. The aspects of you which are suppressed are always trying to come to the surface and grab your attention because deep down, you want to be whole and want to be loved for exactly who you are, warts and all.

So the shadow shows up in various ways. Either it can manifest as irrational, abusive behaviour on your part as you try to control life and situations so that your shadow remains hidden, it can manifest as addictions if this goes too far, and it also manifests as repetitive patterns in our life, where we attract over and over people who reflect our hidden aspects.

For example a person who ‘never gets angry’ might repeatedly attract friends or lovers with anger problems – here anger is the shadow and the person would need to get in touch with her own anger in order for this to heal and stop. Someone who keeps getting rejected and abandoned by loved ones over and over would need to delve deep within and face their own tendency to reject others on an emotional or energetic level.

Will I become ‘bad’ if I embrace my shadow?

One of the most common fears that come up in shadow work is ‘will I be comfortable with being a bad person?’. If I embrace my anger, will I be comfortable with shouting at people? If I embrace my desire to hurt people, will I be comfortable hurting others?

No, on the contrary, shadow work brings our darkness into the light and these tendencies lose their grip over us. When we work on ourselves properly and integrate these aspects, we can transmute them into strength and learn to channelise these aspects so that they work in our favour rather than against us.

Is it hard?

If you’ve never done shadow work before, it can certainly seem hard in the beginning. After all, most people don’t enjoy finding out that they’re two-faced, judgmental, mean, or other horrible things. Over time however, we start to see the benefit of bringing these aspects into our awareness and this work becomes exciting rather than scary because we are fully aware of the light this brings into our lives.

What do I gain through Shadow Work?

Healing and embracing our shadow shifts a lot of things around in our lives. For starters, relationships improve because healing the shadow lifts the veil from over our eyes and we can communicate more clearly and see and hear them for what they are in that moment instead of perceiving them through the filters of our past experiences. This clarity of perception also improves creativity and problem resolution skills. The continuous inner struggle to keep the shadow hidden takes up a lot of our energy, so dropping that leads to better energy and health as well.

How Do I Begin?

The most essential requirement for great inner work is the capacity to see non-judgmentally. For this I strongly recommend starting with Deep Listening.

Once we are able to see more clearly, we start slowly becoming more and more aware of our own inner motivations behind actions or inaction. This awareness slowly starts to shift the direction of our lives.

As we go deeper, we can start using the world as a mirror. We start realising that every single thing that upsets us about the world is nothing but a reflection of our own shadow. This however, is difficult for a beginner as the idea simply sounds ridiculous because one’s vision is still blurred and foggy. Once we’re at the point where this actually makes sense on a deep, fundamental level, then the work becomes much faster and easier.