Wandeth Van Grover, MPH
Mar 1, 20183 min
What is shadow work?
The shadow is a term coined by psychologist Carl Jung, and it refers to both our deepest wounds and the parts of ourselves that we repress or deny. Our deepest wounds have us believing we're flawed, unlovable, undeserving people. These wounds are often created in childhood, but can sometimes develop later in life.
When left unattended, these wounds fester, leading us to live from this place of deficiency. Doing shadow work allows us live from a place of wholeness and expansion. Its shedding light on those things we'd rather hide. Accepting it, all of it, and then having the courage to grow into healthier patterns and beliefs.
The shadow is the “dark side” of our personality because it consists of primitive, negative human emotions and impulses like rage, envy, greed, selfishness, desire, and the striving for power. All we deny in ourselves—whatever we perceive as inferior, evil, or unacceptable—become part of the shadow. This shadow self represents the parts of us we no longer claim to be our own, including inherent positive qualities. These unexamined or disowned parts of our personality don’t go anywhere. Although we deny them in our attempt to cast them out, we don’t get rid of them. We repress them; they are part of our unconscious. Think of the unconscious as everything we are not conscious of. We can’t eliminate the shadow.
Whatever qualities we deny in ourselves, we see in others. In psychology, this is called projection. We project onto others anything we bury within us. These projections distort reality, creating a thick boundary between how we view ourselves and how we behave in reality.
Robert Moore outlined the structure of the psyche in archetypal terms. Moore suggests that the four primary archetypes of the psyche are the King, Warrior, Magician, and Lover. Each archetype possesses qualities we define as the best attributes of mature adulthood. Each constructive archetype, there is a destructive shadow.
For example, the shadows of the King is the Tyrant and the Weakling. The shadows of the Warrior are the Sadist and Masochist.