It is painfully unhelpful to go through life without meeting your Shadow- and arguably even more so if, after meeting it, you don’t offer it a big hug. I have a lot to say about the Shadow and integration, so this will likely be one of my longer blog entries. So, get comfy- or better yet, get uncomfy.

What is the Shadow?

Thanks to pop-psychology, and the emerging emphasis on emotional intelligence in our society, I’m sure many readers have heard of the Shadow before. Quite simply, the Shadow is defined as what we do not know about ourselves. Our Shadows are composed of all of the parts of ourselves that we have rejected, denied and ultimately repressed deep into our unconscious. The Shadow contains the parts of our personality that we have not been able to integrate into our current understanding of our ‘self’.

From early childhood we learn from our caregivers what parts of ourself are accepted, loved and worthy of praise. In the same vein, we also learn which parts are unacceptable and must remain dormant. As we exist amongst others within a society, it is developmentally appropriate to learn how we must ‘behave’ (otherwise understood as the development of the superego, if you’re into Freud). However, it is likely that some of our parts that were not accepted were not because they were morally unjust or harmful to society, but because our caregivers have their own vast emotional landscapes and in turn rejected aspects of us that they found troubling (see reference list bellow for further reading).

What does your Shadow look like?

The contents of everyone’s Shadow is unique, however there is a collective element to it, if you subscribe to the works of Carl Jung. The collective Shadow refers to the ‘darker’ aspects of human nature that are shared amongst a group, society or humanity as a collective, meaning there are elements of everyone’s individual Shadow that may likely be shared by others of similar background.

As I am not writing an essay, although the formatting of this does feel rather formal, I will share some aspects of what my Shadow looks like in hopes to connect with others.  From my experience, it is rather common for the unknown aspects of someone to directly contrary their known counterpart. For example, I consider myself to be kind and empathetic, and this is well integrated into my self-concept. I could list endless examples of where I exercised my empathy and kindness. On the other hand, I have found it difficult previously to list just as many times that I have been un-empathetic and unkind. You’re probably sensing where this is going- my difficulty in recalling instances when I acted contrary to my ‘self’ wasn’t because they didn’t exist, but because they weren’t in my conscious awareness, and to attempt to integrate them into that space was excruciating.

The pain of meeting your Shadow

Reflecting on my discovery of my Shadow and its contents, I believe I started exploring before I had the language for it. Being a curious, emotionally troubled teenager who journaled a lot and became a client of therapy at 16 meant I was terribly aware of the many things I found difficult about myself. I grew up with a parent who I felt was especially critical of me, and I often had this innate feeling of ‘badness’.

I struggled with this feeling of ‘badness’ throughout my late teens and young adulthood, as this is when you typically begin to understand more about how you impact others, and your social dynamics become more complex. I had become accustomed to my favourite, rather catholic, feelings of guilt and shame towards these parts of myself.

Being confronted with my lesser known dimensions was inexplicably gut wrenching. I tried to practice self-compassion alongside my discovery, encouraged by my psychotherapist, but the further I explored, the more I discovered I did not know, which was terrifying. I feared the more I became acquainted with this ‘darkness’ that I was my Shadow in totality.

Dark night of the soul

The phrase “dark night of the soul” describes a period of disorientation and darkness, which I feel I then began to enter sometime last year. I found my intentional Shadow work agonisingly lonely and confusing. I felt troubled that it was only me that had these ‘bad’ things about them, even if I logically understood this was not true, I hadn’t come across people who seemed to share as much ‘badness’ as I contained. I deeply craved for another to share their darkness with me, and I couldn’t seem to find anyone else who would (not that I did an extensive search).

I beat myself to a pulp, psychologically. I don’t think I can quite articulate any more about how gut wrenching this period in my life was- it was just shit. Super important, but felt super shit.

Integration of the Shadow

According to Jung, integrating the Shadow, or ‘making the unconscious, conscious’ is a crucial step toward individuation (becoming a whole, authentic person). Furthermore, it is proposed that integration is essential for psychological and societal wellbeing.

Identifying the aspects of your Shadow and understanding the origins of them is all well and good, but learning to live with the Shadow in harmony is challenging to say the least. I began to attempt to integrate the parts of me that challenged my self concept by offering my Shadow a big dose of love and acceptance. I did this by challenging the immediate critical voice in my head with kindness: I began to talk to my Shadow how I would talk to another.

I’ve often found it much easier to accept the difficult parts of others, yet when it comes to myself, this has always been a challenge. It is one of my principles to not condemn others, mostly because of my deep interest in others’ psyches, and with understanding comes compassion. Once I begin to understand another, I often discover that they couldn’t have acted differently to how they did in that moment. So why, then, is it so hard to extend this same compassionate reasoning to myself?

With this being said, I still struggle with softening my inner critic. Recently, I was with a dear friend of mine in her car and I began to confess the less socially acceptable parts of myself that I was struggling to hold with compassion. She offered me this brilliant analogy of giving my Shadow a hug when I see ‘her’, in fact she told me to envision myself actually doing it.

Peace…and love?

It has been a dream of mine to live harmoniously with all the parts of ‘me’. To be a balanced, psychologically well adjusted being, which I feel I really am at this stage of my life (at least comparatively) – and I have Shadow work to thank for a large portion of that. Shadow work feels somewhat never ending. Every day I am met with different parts of Amira, which I try to welcome and hold compassionately.

There’s no conclusion really, quite like Shadow work, wink-wink. I’ll leave you with a question:

What aspects of yourself have you been avoiding or suppressing, and how might acknowledging them lead to greater self-acceptance?

Further reading

Ego distortion in terms of true and false self (1960)
Winnicott, D. W. (1960). “Ego distortion in terms of true and false self.” The Maturational Processes and the Facilitating Environment. London: Hogarth Press.

The archetypes and the collective unconscious (1959)
Jung, C. G. (1959). The archetypes and the collective unconscious (R. F. C. Hull, Trans.). Princeton University Press. (Original work published 1954)

Memories, Dreams, Reflections (1962)
Jung, C. G. (1962). Memories, dreams, reflections (A. Jaffe, Ed.; R. & C. Winston, Trans.). Pantheon Books.

Aion: Researches into the Phenomenology of the Self (1951)
Jung, C. G. (1959). Aion: Researches into the phenomenology of the self (R. F. C. Hull, Trans.). Princeton University Press. (Original work published 1951)

The Practice of Psychotherapy (1954)
Jung, C. G. (1954). The practice of psychotherapy: Essays on the psychology of the transference and other subjects (R. F. C. Hull, Trans.). Princeton University

The Ego and the Id (1924)
Freud, S. (1923). The Ego and the Id. Standard Edition, Vol. 19. London: Hogarth Press.