For some people this subject will be completely new, some will have heard about the shadow before or might have read about it, and yet others might have done shadow work themselves. But what is the shadow exactly?
The shadow, is comprised of all the unwanted and undesired parts of ourselves, our hurt and wounded parts, and all the darkest and evil parts of ourselves. These parts are then hidden, repressed, cut off, split off, denied and pushed into our shadow or our unconscious. Here they seem to be hidden from the outside world and from ourselves. And to cover up these parts that our ego does not accept, we develop a persona, an identity or a mask. Through this mask we then relate to others and the world and try to portray a certain image. When the shadow has not been integrated, we might have the experience of being one sided, or have a sense of not being whole and complete. And deep down to be whole is our true wish. So it’s not about getting rid of certain aspects or parts of ourselves. It’s about becoming aware of these unwanted parts, accepting them, forgiving oneself and integrating or aligning all our parts into one congruent and cohesive Self.
Here we will go into three main aspects of the shadow. Our unwanted and undesired parts, our hurt and wounded parts, and the darkest and most evil parts of ourselves.
What are our unwanted and undesired parts?
The unwanted and undesired parts of ourselves, are the parts that were not allowed as a child, growing up with our parents or caretakers, but also later in life as we adjust to society. All aspects of the self that could possibly cause the child or grown up later in life, to be rejected, or left out. Anything that would endanger us fitting in, being accepted, being loved, belonging, and being supported and taken care off. All these parts are then labeled by the psyche as undesirable and unwanted, and therefore pushed into the shadow. These parts, can be both positive as well as negative traits. For instance, if your parents or caretakers didn’t approve of you laughing a lot or being extrovert and playful, you might repress these parts to your shadow, and live your life in a contained way, where these parts are not freely expressed. Or maybe it was not accepted for you to say your ‘no’ in your household, again repressing this to your shadow. This could then possibly cause you difficulty in asserting yourself in life or to say no to people, you might feel the urge to comply all the time. Which in turn causes an unbalance in yourself.
What are our hurt and wounded parts?
Our hurt and wounded parts, are the parts that we experienced as so intensely painful, mainly in our childhood, that it was unbearable for us to cope. Maybe we were so small that we had no clue how to deal with the pain and hurt that we experienced. So to protect us from the suffering we pushed these hurts and wounded parts into our shadow, to no longer have to feel the intense pain and suffering. These could be certain trauma’s, childhood wounds or any kind of distortion that was simply to much for our infantile system to cope with at that moment.
What are our darkest and evil parts?
Our most darkest and evil parts, are the parts of ourselves that we want to keep hidden from others at all cost. These are the parts we don’t want others to know about, or they could be even completely unconscious to us and disowned and denied by ourselves. Think of traits like, hate, shame, guilt, selfishness, vengefulness, vindictiveness, anger, jealousy, greed, lust etc. These are parts that our ego and made up persona do not accept, which are then covered up with a mask to show the world a good face.
When we speak of truly evil parts you can think of a sociopath, a criminal, a psychopath, a murderer, narcissism, borderline, a psychotic and everything in between. In fact we all have these tendencies within us to some degree, some of us will have tendencies, and some will have a pathological structure. But we all have these aspects within ourselves. Isn’t that frightening? It is so frightening that we need to push these parts to our shadow, or project them unto others.
What is projection?
Projection, is to project our disowned parts of ourselves onto others and the world around us. When we deny these parts in ourselves, we experience so called blind spots, we are then unconscious of these parts. And through projection, these unconscious and denied parts of ourselves are then projected outwards unto others and the world we experience. For instance you might have grown up being conditioned that anger or aggression is prohibited, from this moment onwards you will then deny any kind of aggression or anger in yourself and project this unto the world. Maybe even saying something like ‘people are so angry, I’m never angry.’ Or in an other instance, you might have learned to always share and to never be greedy. You will then deny any sense of greediness in you and project it outwards unto others.
While in fact we all have these unwanted, undesired, wounded, and even evil parts within us. We are all one ocean of consciousness, so in each of our cells we will find the whole universe in its entirety. Which means that all the dark and light is both within us. And if we would own all these parts in ourselves, we would no longer need for a scapegoat outside of ourselves to project upon, we will no longer experience this split. Meaning we will no longer have wars, terrorists or someone like Hitler, we will simply no longer need them as a scapegoat to project upon. We will have owned and forgiven these parts in ourselves. This in turn which unifies all of our parts into one cohesive Self.
Why should we integrate our shadow?
You might think to yourself, why on earth would I want to integrate these undesirable, wounded and evil parts? That’s a good question. You could say, without integrating these parts we can never be whole, we can never be a genuine, a total, and a true human being. We will always be in denial to some degree and project on others the darkness we don’t want to own in ourselves, this in turn keeping the wheel of karma and the torture of the world ongoing. In this way, dimming our light and full potential. And our path of enlightenment or fulfillment can not be completed without us integrating, accepting and loving all of ourselves, including our shadow side.
Besides this, in our shadow there are also certain qualities and powers which we disconnect from when we deny these parts. For instance, if you deny all aggression and anger in yourself and you deny your ‘no’, when you then encounter a situation where someone attacks you or wants to take advantage of you, you will not be able to defend yourself or say no. And you might find yourself in dangerous situations. When we have integrated our shadow we will be able to reach that instinctive and very natural part of ourselves, that will instinctively defend and protect us from harm.
How do we integrate our shadow?
We integrate our shadow by becoming aware of all our parts, our unwanted, wounded and evil parts. By bringing them to the conscious mind and then aligning them into one cohesive and congruent Self. This can be done in numerous ways, for example through self reflection, meditation, sharing, through inquiry of our shadow side, through study, and therapy work. For this we need radical honesty, transparency and a lot of courage. Also it will be helpful to be aware in our relationships, friendships, colleague relationships, and all kinds of relating, as the shadow will always appear, sometimes unwanted, sipping out in our interactions. Look closely at others, as others will reflect to us our shadow parts, what do we dislike or even hate in others? These could be aspects of our own shadow that we deny in ourselves and then project outwards unto others. It will be necessary to become aware of these parts which we have split off, and try to reintegrate and accept these parts in ourselves.
A very important aspect of integrating the shadow is containment. Owning our shadow parts, does not mean we should act these parts out and become viscous. It means we are aware of the fact that these parts are in us, we accept them, and forgive them. But never should these be acted out unto others and the world. It’s like having a beast inside that we know is dangerous, but which we choose to contain. For instance, you could see yourself as being a martial arts master, someone who is capable of killing someone in a blink of an eye, someone who is dangerous, but never uses his skills to attack or harm anyone, only when needed he will be able to defend himself. Through integrating our shadow, we will become more of our Self, we will experience totality, as deep down we all wish to be whole.
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