Are You in Touch with Your Shadow?

Are you in touch with your Shadow? This is the part of you that is the opposite of everything you want to think you are. You probably like to see yourself as positive, strong, smart, loving, caring, kind, supportive and all around amazing.  Which is true, you probably are.  However, as with all in nature, human beings are balanced, and have an opposite side as well. It's called your Shadow because it is dark and follows you wherever you go. In today’s episode of Your Personal Power Pod, we talk about your Shadow, and how to identify and come to terms with it so it doesn’t run your life.

We want to hear from you, whether it’s your stories about how self-esteem and personal power affect your life, or topics you’d like us to address in future episodes. We’d love for you to review our podcast. Do this on your streaming service or visit www.yourpersonalpowerpod.com , click Contact and drop us an email. You can also find us on Instagram at Your Personal Power Pod.

Also, if you’d like to make changes in your personal or business life, spending time with a coach can make all the difference.  Sandy is offering a free consultation, so contact her at sandy@insidejobscoach.com and put COACHING in the subject line to schedule a free call.

Thank you for listening to Your Personal Power Pod.  We look forward to hearing from you.

And, until next time, find your power and change your life!

Transcript

E79 Are you in touch with your shadow

[00:00:00] Shannon: Welcome to your personal power pod, a podcast about aligning yourself with the life you want. And here are your hosts, Sandy Abel and Shannon Young.

[00:00:21] Sandy: Another beautiful day in the neighborhood. How are you today? I'm great, Sandy. How are you? I am great. And I'm, once again, excited about our topic today because it's really, really important. It is. It's one of 

[00:00:31] Shannon: those things that if you aren't aware of it, it can really control your life. Today we're talking about the 

[00:00:37] Sandy: shadow again.

[00:00:38] Sandy: Right. The reason we're doing that, one of the many reasons, is one of our listeners, who mentioned to me recently that she's been to a lot of counseling, and it was helpful but not hugely, and nobody ever mentioned her shadow. And when she heard our podcast about it, we did a podcast on the shadow two years ago, amazingly enough, she said that [00:01:00] was such an eye opener for her.

[00:01:01] Sandy: that she realized she'd been running away from her shadow, and that was controlling her behavior. So she wanted us to revisit it for people who might not be aware of it. And I think that's a great idea. So here we are again with the shadow. 

[00:01:14] Shannon: So tell us who came up with the concept of the 

[00:01:16] Sandy: shadow. Way back at the 1900s, psychiatrist Carl Jung described the shadow as the hidden and repressed aspects of your personality.

[00:01:26] Sandy: It's everything you like to think you're not. Yes. And it's the part that you hide from yourself and others as well. You're ashamed of it. You don't want to acknowledge it. You don't want anybody to see it. And it's often seen as a dark, dangerous, and evil part of who you are because it's all about negative emotions.

[00:01:44] Sandy: We want people to think that we are wonderful and lovable and valuable and kind and smart and generous and caring, which we are, but we don't accept that as in nature, everything is balanced. You know, there's spring when the [00:02:00] flowers grow and winter when they die and everything is balanced and human beings are balanced too.

[00:02:05] Sandy: And our personalities are balanced and we have really good parts and we have really uncomfortable parts that we really don't want to acknowledge. If we repress those, it can cause a lot of problems. But this is your shadow. So it's important to get in touch with your shadow. It's key. 

[00:02:22] Shannon: You can't fully know and love yourself until you accept all parts of you.

[00:02:27] Shannon: And no human being exists without this portion of their personality. We all have a shadow. 

[00:02:34] Sandy: Indeed. If you spend your life running from it, if every time it surfaces, you go, Oh, that's not me. I'm not that. I'm over there. I'm going to go do this. You're ignoring a large part of yourself. And eventually it will get really big and start to control you.

[00:02:48] Sandy: It's important to be aware of this concept. It's interesting. Carl Jung divided your personality, all of our personalities into three parts. The first is your facade, which [00:03:00] is what you want to believe you are and what you show to the world. That's the beautiful, wonderful part. And then there's the shadow, which is the darker side of who you are and what you try to hide from yourself in the world.

[00:03:11] Sandy: And then there's your real self, which is the combination of your facade and your shadow and all parts of who you are. That is the beautiful part. Yeah, 

[00:03:20] Shannon: I think learning about becoming aware of and accepting your shadow self. is huge in a number of ways. For people who sometimes struggle with identifying their values, that can be a really hard question for people.

[00:03:35] Shannon: What are your values? Well, I don't know. Well, looking at the parts of yourself that you don't particularly like will help you find your values. If you tell little white lies a lot, you really can't accept that part of yourself. Well, then maybe honesty is actually one of your values. Becoming aware of that portion of yourself can help you learn about and then also have compassion for your whole self because it includes 

[00:03:59] Sandy: those fallible [00:04:00] parts.

[00:04:00] Sandy: Exactly. If you come from a family that made you feel unlovable when you showed your shadow, you may have learned to be ashamed of this part of yourself and so hide it from yourself as well as other people. Many people spend their lives denying or running away from this part of who they are. or they get in touch with it and it ends up defining them.

[00:04:19] Sandy: Everything you 

[00:04:19] Shannon: do is then built on ignoring that part of yourself or trying to hide it from the rest of the world and that just limits you in such a big 

[00:04:28] Sandy: way. Oh yeah, and it's really hard to have positive self esteem and value and love who you are and accept who you are. all parts of you if you don't acknowledge and come to terms with your shadow.

[00:04:41] Shannon: So tell us about the negative repercussions of ignoring or avoiding your shadow. How does that extend into the rest of your life? 

[00:04:49] Sandy: Well, when you ignore your shadow, you reinforce negative behaviors, like you said, and it will increase feelings of stress and anxiety and depression. Like I said, you'll have trouble with self esteem and [00:05:00] trouble claiming your personal power.

[00:05:01] Sandy: You'll have problems. with relationships, with other people, because you're not being authentic, you're not being real, and you'll have a reduced ability to cope with stress or change, and your mental, emotional, and physical health will suffer. So it's really important to acknowledge your shadow. One 

[00:05:19] Shannon: way to look at your shadow that might make it easier to acknowledge and accept it, is to look at it as if those are the places in your life that are opportunities for growth and development.

[00:05:32] Shannon: If you are selfish or have a temper or engage in vice behaviors that maybe you don't want to, and you can't acknowledge that, these are definitely places where you could grow and change. So leaning into the shadowy parts of yourself will help you progress. 

[00:05:50] Sandy: Absolutely. It's really important to remember that it does not define you.

[00:05:55] Sandy: If you see it as the only part of who you are, you're going to be [00:06:00] a really unhappy person and struggle with your life. But if you see that it's the part of you that makes you well balanced, then you can work with it and accept it as part of the whole. 

[00:06:11] Shannon: It can also help you identify certain behaviors. If you're reacting away in situations that you don't particularly like, well, maybe it has something to do with these parts of yourself that you don't want to look at.

[00:06:21] Shannon: You can't get to know yourself unless you're willing to look at all of you. You do have 

[00:06:26] Sandy: dark parts, we all do. And you can't grow unless you acknowledge them. You can't improve and become the person that you want to be if you don't acknowledge the parts that are getting in the way. Yeah. Instead of denying them.

[00:06:40] Sandy: Acknowledge them and say, Oh yeah, there's that. I know the past few days I've been dealing with my shadow back when I was a little person in elementary school, people used to make fun of me and laugh at me all the time for weird stuff. Like they didn't like my dress or whatever. In those days we wore dresses to school.

[00:06:56] Sandy: I've been able to work with that little person and that [00:07:00] part of my shadow for a long time. But for some reason, somebody said something and I thought they were laughing at me about something I did. And that little person, that little part of me, that shadow part, jumped up and got huge and got really angry and defensive and was belligerent.

[00:07:19] Sandy: all those negative things that I like to think I'm not. But there it was, that shadow part, for a day, my poor husband had to deal with me living my shadow until I finally realized, oh, this is what's going on. Okay, I need to get control of this, I need to work with it, and calm it down, and come to terms with what happened, and that it really isn't bad, and that I don't need to react that way.

[00:07:46] Sandy: Yeah, that was a shadow day for me. How about you, Chant? 

[00:07:50] Shannon: Yes, I have some shadow feelings around work, around my employment, not about work in general. I'm typically a pretty hard worker, but I have a [00:08:00] tendency to get petulant. Oh, good word. There's definitely a part of me that leans towards temper tantrums.

[00:08:09] Shannon: Well, it's because I have an issue around feeling underappreciated and ignored, that my ideas or efforts are ignored, and that makes me feel Like I don't matter and my work doesn't matter. So it's really easy for me to go from everything is fine to everything is not fine and nobody's listening to me.

[00:08:30] Shannon: And so that is definitely a thing that I work at. 

[00:08:33] Sandy: Yeah. We feel invalidated. 

[00:08:35] Shannon: Yes, exactly. And so that is something that I have been dealing with recently. And that happens at work. It does. It happens at work. It happens in my home life, too, and I've come to recognize that it has to do with my need to feel capable and then my husband's need to feel helpful, and those two things together create quite a clash.

[00:08:56] Shannon: Yeah, right. 

[00:08:58] Sandy: Yes. Yes. [00:09:00] 

[00:09:00] Shannon: But if I hadn't taken a look at that, we would fight a lot. That's not necessary. His desire to feel helpful is just how he shows love. And my desire to feel capable is my need to feel worthy. Now that I know that. I don't get as upset or irritated when he offers to do really nice things like carry the groceries in for me or take lids off of jars.

[00:09:24] Shannon: But those are things that I like to feel like I'm capable of doing. So being able to look at that was really big in terms of keeping my relationship 

[00:09:32] Sandy: copacetic. Yes. And you have to own that part of yourself that I have this need to feel capable and I am capable. You can open a jar and you can carry grocery bags.

[00:09:41] Sandy: Hey, if he wants to do it, great. Uh huh. It's good to just be aware of the dynamics and what is important for you and where your shadow comes in if you are feeling like he thinks you can't do these things and you get angry about it and all that. Right. Connecting [00:10:00] with your shadow can help you in a lot of ways.

[00:10:02] Sandy: It 

[00:10:02] Shannon: can, but that first time you open the door to your shadow can be really scary. So how do we approach it 

[00:10:09] Sandy: for the first time? Well, the first step is to be gentle with yourself. Always. Do not be judging yourself, don't be hard on yourself, and start to increase your awareness of your shadow. Be honest with yourself and look objectively at who you are, both sides, the positive and the negative, the real self, and stop being ashamed of your shadow self.

[00:10:30] Sandy: Learn to identify and work with it. It can be 

[00:10:32] Shannon: helpful to write down the things you like and don't like about yourself. As soon as you start shining light into these dark corners of your personality, they will become less scary. As soon as you're willing to acknowledge them and love on them, they don't control you anymore.

[00:10:47] Shannon: Being able to be honest about them, make a list, look at those parts of yourself, and explore the reasons behind them. That'll help you figure out whether you want to keep them or change [00:11:00] them. 

[00:11:00] Sandy: Yeah, and it's good to know where you learned them, how they were dealt with when you were young, and increase your non judgmental awareness of those characteristics.

[00:11:10] Sandy: Make sure to use self compassion and acceptance. Remembering that everyone has a shadow. Yes, 

[00:11:16] Shannon: it can be very helpful, I think, to look at the parts of people you love and their shadows. If you can recognize how compassionate you are towards other people, how quickly you are likely to forgive them for the parts of themselves you know they don't like, then it can be much easier to transfer that compassion to yourself.

[00:11:37] Sandy: Absolutely, and once you identify the negative patterns, you'll be able to achieve your full potential. You'll be less stressed and able to enjoy yourself and your life a whole lot more. And your relationships will improve, as you said, especially if you tune into the people you love or your friends and understand where their shadow self is coming from so you don't [00:12:00] instantly react with yours.

[00:12:02] Sandy: It can also 

[00:12:02] Shannon: be helpful in uncovering positive qualities about yourself that you didn't know you had. It can help you become more creative, can help you discover hidden talents, because once you start allowing yourself to connect with who you really are, All these cool things bubble to the 

[00:12:19] Sandy: surface, too.

[00:12:20] Sandy: Right, because you're not suppressing parts of you, so you can just be your total self and be your amazing self, which is really fun. And also your emotional, mental, and physical health will improve, and you'll be able to face your fears and vulnerabilities instead of denying them or letting them control you.

[00:12:37] Sandy: And 

[00:12:37] Shannon: that'll just all play into gaining more confidence, more self awareness. more self esteem, and it just makes you a stronger, more compassionate, less judgmental person, which I think could be really helpful in our society 

[00:12:51] Sandy: today. Yes. Less judgmental is a wonderful thing. Just being aware that everybody has a shadow, and as long as [00:13:00] they're not using it to damage you, then you have to be defensive, of course.

[00:13:04] Sandy: Take care of yourself. But if they're just being who they are, let them be. Have compassion for that. And then you'll be able to communicate better with everybody and also better to manage your own emotions and behaviors and accept yourself as the whole and unique person you are. 

[00:13:20] Shannon: Yes, you can't reach your full potential until you're willing to look 

[00:13:23] Sandy: at your full self.

[00:13:24] Sandy: Exactly. And once you understand and are in touch with your shadow, it can no longer control you. That's the super 

[00:13:31] Shannon: powerful part about this. It separates you, you know, it gives you some distance from it. Being able to say, Oh, yeah, I have a tendency to be rude and short with people. Just knowing it gives you the power to do 

[00:13:44] Sandy: something about it.

[00:13:45] Sandy: Exactly. And that is the next step. Just knowing it and saying, I have a tendency to be rude to people. And they're, Oh, well, that's me. Well, no. Once you acknowledge it, if it's not acceptable, if it's hurting others or yourself, you're aware of it, you have the [00:14:00] power to change it. Always know you have the power to change once you're willing to look at all of who you are.

[00:14:06] Sandy: You and I have both worked on this for a long time. If our shadow characteristics pop up, we recognize them and work with them so they don't control us. At least for me, my shadow doesn't control me most of the time, except last week.

[00:14:27] Shannon: Would you like to wrap us up? 

[00:14:29] Sandy: Sure. So we all have a shadow part of our personality, which is everything we like to think we're not. If you don't acknowledge it, over time, your shadow can grow to where it affects your thoughts, behaviors, and relationships. When you ignore your shadow, you'll experience increased stress and your mental, physical, and emotional health will suffer.

[00:14:48] Sandy: According to psychiatrist Carl Jung, we have three parts of our personality, the facade, the shadow, and your real self. And it's important to acknowledge and work with your shadow so you can face your fears [00:15:00] and vulnerabilities, instead of avoiding and denying them or letting them control you. This way you can be your real self.

[00:15:07] Sandy: To deal with your shadow, you have to be honest with yourself and realize that it does not define you. Stop being ashamed of your shadow and instead learn to identify and work with it. And once you're in touch with your shadow, you will gain more confidence. Better manage your emotions and behaviors and accept yourself.

[00:15:26] Sandy: as a beautiful, whole, unique person. I love it. Thank you, Sandy. Thank you, Shannon, and thank you to our listeners. We appreciate you taking this podcast journey with us, and we hope that what we're doing is empowering you to be your best selves. 

[00:15:41] Shannon: And thank you too for communicating with us. We love hearing from you.

[00:15:45] Shannon: We love hearing about your stories about how self esteem and personal power have affected your life. We also love it when you suggest topics because that tells us what you're really interested in and what could be most helpful. So please keep that up and we'll continue to [00:16:00] address those topics that you suggest in our future episodes.

[00:16:02] Shannon: And we also love it when you review our podcast. So if you feel like doing so, please do. You can do it wherever you stream. You can also... Talk to us directly by visiting YourPersonalPowerPod. com, clicking contact and dropping us an email. We also have social so you can find us on Instagram at YourPersonalPowerPod.

[00:16:21] Shannon: And if you want to learn about how one on one coaching can change your life, contact Sandy. She can help you with your free coaching call, and you can reach her at Sandy at InsideJobsCoach. com. Thank you so much for listening. We look forward to hearing from you. And until next time, find your power and change your life.