Shadow Work

In this episode I introduce the concept of the shadow - what it is, how we can start to notice it, and how we can start to work with it. 

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Hello and welcome back. Or welcome if you're new here to Into the Shadows. I'm Melissa and this podcast is all about shadow work and dream work and inner child healing. Today's episode, I'm surprised I haven't done this one yet, is about shadow work. Maybe you're someone who knows what your shadows are. Maybe you're someone who's brand new to this. So I'm gonna introduce first and foremost what the shadow is and how you can start doing shadow work. So Carl Jung, who is, I would say, the father of dream work, I'm not sure he used that title, but that's how I view him. And he coined the term the shadow. And he described it as unconscious, repressed aspects of our personalities. Essentially, our habits, our traits, our behaviors, our perceptions, the way we view the world, the way we view life, are all dictated by our shadow. Now, there's a little bit of a nuance to this because I think when people think of shadow, they think of all of the dark and repressed aspects. And it's not to say that those aren't obviously the shadow, but part of your shadow is anything repressed. So if you've ever heard someone say, I'm not creative, that's technically their shadow or one of their shadows, because it's something that they have been disconnected from or repressed within themselves. I think shadow work is one of the biggest reasons of why we're here living a life. I don't think life is random. I think that we all come here with a purpose. And I think that what keeps us stuck and not evolving and living out the same patterns year after year is um not integrating our shadows. In Hinduism, they believe in karma, and I'm sure you've heard that term. And karma, what we put out affects us, and how it affects us, they call samskaras. In Hinduism, they call samskaras, and samskaras are a lot like shadows that we carry from lifetime to lifetime, and I think that over our lifetimes they get denser and heavier. And Carl Jung actually has an awesome quote, and it goes, Everyone carries a shadow. The less it is embodied in the individual's conscious life, the blacker and denser it is. So this these shadows are like these samskaras, these psychological grooves that hold us back from life and keep us heavy and dense and oftentimes really stuck. Our shadows live in our unconscious, in our psyche. So one of the best ways to uncover your shadow is with dream work, and we'll get more into that a little bit later. Besides dream work, one of the best ways to start recognizing your shadow is really increasing your self-awareness by starting to become aware of your triggers and your projections, looking around and recognizing that relationships of all kinds are a type of mirror. And the people who set us off, the people who piss us off, or the people who make us the most mad or upset, um they're reflecting something about our shadow. Now it doesn't mean that those people can't be annoying or you know, not in the wrong, but the shadow work lies in the awareness of why it's upsetting you, why is it triggering you? When we start to use our triggers as a doorway into ourselves, we start to expand our awareness and start to recognize these different patterns that are living within us. I know for me, one of the first places that I started with shadow work was after I got divorced. I really wanted to understand why I was so triggered by my ex and why I had stayed in an abusive marriage for so long. And one of the things that really helped me was treating this relationship as a kind of mirror. Now, this was really hard at first because this person is a narcissist. And to see how we were mirroring each other, it was really confusing. I didn't feel like I was a lot of the things that he represented. But when I dug deeper under the surface, I started to explore my triggers within the relationship. I could see that he carried, just like I carried, um, a deep sense of shame and abandonment. And so as I started to, you know, as the years went by and I got into different friendships and started to notice the triggers in those friendships, I would really look at myself and figure out, like, where is my blind spot? What is it that I'm not seeing? What is this triggering in me? What is this trying to show me? The more I did shadow work using this kind of method, following my triggers, noticing my projections. I got this thought one day, and I was like, you know, this is a lot like like little divine sparks that we set off in each other. Like we're almost destined and meant to annoy the crap out of each other just so that we can see our blind spots, our shadows. And that's why I thought of them as divine. Because they are divine, especially if we use it as a gateway and a doorway into ourselves. I knew because of doing these trigger and projection exercises, I knew some of my shadows. And I understood that I had abandonment issues, I knew that I had shame. I knew that I had insecurities, I knew that I put on like a people-pleasing mask, I knew I didn't always share my truth. These were all conscious to me because of doing um some of this self-inquiry work. But dream work, of course, took it to a whole new level. Because I mean, really, this is the deepest psychological process you can undergo. And when I started to show up to my dreams, I did recognize and see these similar patterns. And I really think that getting to know myself before doing dream work was so foundational in being able to understand my dreams because I had a level of awareness there that really helped guide me. Dreamwork um it showed me all those shadows uh that I listed, and even more, and it showed me the depth deeper than I ever thought these patterns went. The deep shame that I was carrying was so deep, it was soul crushing. And all of the ways that I adapted and conformed and put on masks just to be loved and accepted. I had a very traumatic childhood. I grew up with um abusive parents and abusive, some abusive siblings, and it was really hard for me as an adult to feel like I could lead a normal life. So diving into my dreams showed me all of these psychological adaptations that I had taken on and carried throughout my life, patterns that kept me stuck, patterns that kept me in the dark. And it was amazing because through the process, I was able to heal my body. I came out of a 40-plus-year-old uh nervous system freeze response. And I'd wake up from my dreams and I could viscerally feel it, the difference. That was amazing to me because not only was I healing my shadows, but I was evolving and healing my life, my body, and my consciousness. I don't think anybody is excited to do shadow work. I don't think you're like, yes, sign me up. Let's go. I want to see my shame. I want to see my fear, I want to see the parts of myself that are really scary to look at. So I was thinking about some of the traits that I think are imperative when starting down your shadow work path. And first and foremost, I believe, is surrender. Now, the ego wants control, it wants to dictate outcomes, it wants you to believe in your fantasies, it wants to control. And the opposite of that is surrender. Surrendering to not knowing, surrendering an outcome. That's the ultimate letting go. You have to trust that whatever is on the other side is a better than anything that your ego can imagine. More love, check. More surrender, more presence, check. More of everything that all of us deeply want. And it's this connection to ourselves. Now the next trait is courage. This is something that I actually have been using recently in my dreams when I felt like I was stuck in some patterns, and I kind of felt like I wasn't getting anywhere, and I was just lost in this confusion and this fog. And so before bed, I I told my dreams, I told my psyche, I was like, I just want to rip the band-aid off. And my psyche heard me and responded. And this pattern I had been dealing with for a long time in my dreams, committed suicide. And I took that as, you know, the symbol of ripping the band-aid off. Like it takes courage to be able to face these deeper and dark aspects of ourselves. For me, I had sexual abuse, and getting to the depths of that, of how that affected me, took a lot of courage. I mean, I I pushed off healing that abuse before I healed it in my dreams. I pushed it away for two years. And then that may not sound like a long time. Um, but I put it off. I didn't have the courage. Courage is this willingness to face the things that you're scared of, no matter what your dreams are going to show you. The next trait is humility. And humility is this willingness to be wrong. It's the opposite of that ego controlling. It's is a kind of surrender. It's um a willingness to learn, to be a kind of brand new student, a child who's learning. The next trait is curiosity. This is just simply being open to discovery. Even if we don't like it, even if it's something that we've rejected, that's the shadow, right? But getting curious, asking questions, trying to figure it out. Lastly, is a willingness to change. I've met a lot of people who've hit rock bottom and are still unwilling and don't want to change. So it has to be a choice. It has to be something that you're willing to do anything in order to um discover what's on the other side of this suffering. For me, I know that when I was finally at my wits' end of my shadows controlling me, I was very stuck and stuck in this kind of never-ending groundhog day. And I swear, if I in that moment, it was like, if you tell me that I'm gonna be in this same situation next year, there's no fucking way. Like, I will not do it, I'm not doing that again. And that was, I guess, for me, my willingness to do anything, anything to change. Like, if you would have said I had to eat dog shit, I probably would have. That's how much I wanted to change. If you noticed in that list some of those traits that you already utilize, then lean into those. If there's some on that list that you feel like you could harness and cultivate a little bit more, lean into that. Wherever you are on your shadow work journey, the biggest thing is just know that you're not alone. Oftentimes, shadow work is what's calling to us because we're in a kind of funk and a depression. We're in this dark night of the soul where life feels so meaningless and mundane and repetitive and sometimes miserable. And I know for me, the whole idea of like mind over matter, just you know, like trying to be positive and self-affirmations, like none of that really worked for me. It maybe for like a short time it did, but inevitably my life was calling me inward. It was calling me into my darkness. The very thing that I compartmentalized and avoided, which was my sexual abuse. And it just so happened that that was the gateway into myself. I just didn't know it at the time. And I want you to know that you're not alone on this path. So many of us struggle with depression and the loss of meaning in life. And everyone has shadow work that they can do. Shadow work isn't something that you show up to once, twice, ten times, twenty times, a hundred times. It's a lifetime commitment to growth, to understanding, and to your evolution. So to summarize, I would start with your triggers and your projections, and I would start noticing where you show up with a kind of persona or a mask. I would get a journal, I would start writing those things down. I have a free PDF. If you want to check that out, no pressure. But that can help you kind of orient to triggers and projections and different ways to think about the shadow. And if you want to start dream work, I don't have a free PDF on that yet. I'm working on it. But my suggestion is with that same journal, um, start to show up to your dreams every single day. And no matter what, even if you don't understand it, even if you think the dream is kind of stupid, um, write it down and know that it's not random and it's actually trying to show you something. And dreams aren't isolated to one single message. So think of it as like a thread that you're going to follow, and you're gonna start to notice similar themes and patterns. Now, some of these shadows can be really scary, especially if you're showing up for the first time. So find ways to ground and get into your body as you work through these shadows. And lastly, as you make progress with your shadows, whether that's just showing up consciously and noticing your triggers and projections, or the ones that you discover in your dreams. Remember to congratulate yourself, give yourself some credit along the way. I know that was something I definitely didn't do for myself. And when I started to do it, I it felt a lot better because it's a journey. This is, you know, if we go back to the Hinduism idea and like lifetimes of shadows and weight, it's gonna take a long time to work through these different layers of yourself. Perhaps these are lifetimes of a pattern that you've been carrying. So be patient with yourself on this journey of discovering your shadows. Thank you so much for listening in today. Hopefully, you were able to find some guidance in that message. The really awesome thing is that when I show up to this mic and I speak about shadow work, in real time I'm unfolding some shadows that I didn't know were there. Shadows around blocks to my creative freedom, shadows around my voice and my expression, and shadows where I had some attachments, unhealthy attachments that I still didn't realize. So I guess I share with that with you because it's just a testament to dreaming, how we can show up to life and we can speak our truth, we can speak from our hearts, and our psyche listens and our psyche responds. In the future, I'll be sharing way more on how to start listening to your shadows and your dreams. In the meantime, you can check out a podcast that I did a while ago about my descent into my shadows, which I just share with you what that was like to first show up to my dreams and what shadows unfolded from there. Now, that's not an exhaustive list, that's just the first three months of dream work. I would love to hear from you if you have some shadows that you want to share. I really believe that when we open up about our shadows to each other, all of a sudden we don't have to suffer in silence anymore. And oftentimes with our shadows, there's a lot of shame. And I believe that there's no shadow that's so shameful that it can't be loved. I'm sending you all the love and all the support on your shadow work path. I hope you have a beautiful day or a beautiful night wherever you are in the world, and I'll talk to you next time.