The Shadow Side of the Psyche

The reason I believe I have become so skilled at it, is because I simply had to! Why? Because the shadow is highly skilled at remaining hidden and unexposed. If one is going to work in the realm of healing – one must be appropriately skilled and not fall for the egoic consciousness and its ability to fool us into false information or lure us into a dead-end trap that leads us nowhere – far from where true transformation lies.  When it comes to shadow work one must seek ingenious ways to approach it, as just like the false trickster energy, the shadow is ingenious at keeping our conscious awareness from the hidden and unintegrated self, the deepest parts of ourselves that we refuse to take ownership and accountability for and ironically the very parts that hold the keys to our true self-mastery and empowerment.

Over my years of practice I have learnt that one must use clever tactics to bypass the various gatekeepers of the inner mind. The method I use birthed itself after constantly being in a power struggle with the various aspects of the hidden self.  I was taught to rely on and employ the help and assistance of the spiritual and shamanic realms. Journeying with my power animal, helping spirits and allies I am taken into the realm of the shadow and the unknown where I converse with the many different aspects of self that sit on the outskirts of ordinary consciousness where the mind most often refuses to go.  For me personally, the shamanic and spiritual side goes way further than what the subconscious mind allows, they interface in a way where “mind” is not involved and direct knowledge is imparted in a clean and undistorted way.

The shadow is the most denied aspect of the psyche; sometimes we would do almost anything to avoid confronting it within ourselves so instead we become highly skilled at projecting it or transferring it onto others.  We hide these deeply repressed parts of ourselves which are often locked into feelings of shame, guilt, grief and fear. Yet if we have the courage and the conviction to face the shadow and become accountable and responsible for it within ourselves profound healing and transformation takes place. When we truly understand that it is the ego that keeps us in separation via its judgement and condemnation, we can turn to the shadow as our way home. I once heard a speaker say “the ego always lies, while the shadow always tells the truth. At the root of all illusion and limitation is the fact that people tend to run from their shadows and listen to their egos” What powerful and profound words these are. The shadow is our perfect mirror and teacher of our unresolved issues. It shows us our triggers, patterns and wounding. It is one of the fastest paths to working on our self, setting us free to be our authentic self. Its sacred gift and medicine is loving and accepting all of whom we are, the good, the bad, the so called pretty and the so called ugly.   The shadow is aptly named due to its highly elusive nature, its sheer ability to remain hidden, avoided, denied and concealed – hence the requirement of skilled therapists to navigate us through these shadowy realms of existence and external situations to provoke it.  We know that if something is really getting up our goat – then it is hitting on something in the shadow!  I use these situations as gifts now, sometimes it takes a while to unwrap it, to digest it, to see what it is in me that is being provoked and triggered, it is never overtly obvious but each time there is a gift, some medicine, some truth for me to find, if I am willing to look honestly and to look again. Once we find that key we give ourselves permission to take accountability and responsibility for the emotional charge within ourselves which then magically disengages us from the “external” circumstance that provoked us in the first place. We assume full responsibility for ourselves and our creations.

So more on the definition of the Shadow… The shadow is simply the parts of our psyche that we fail to see, know or admit. Conceptually the shadow is any part of ourselves, either positive or negative, that is not integrated or accepted within our conscious reality. The shadow is akin to the deepest and darkest CLOSED closet that resides in the furthest recess of our mind, we simply don’t go there!  It contents are the disowned, denied, shamed, shunned, rejected, suppressed and repressed aspects of ourselves that are unacknowledged and un integrated, consequently getting pushed into the outskirts of our conscious awareness. The shadow, just as we do, contains both the light and dark aspects of ourselves – it is an integral part of being human – we all have one and just as a car’s blind spot is impossible to see – so too is our shadow.  I used to think that the shadow was only the unfavourable characteristics, yet so much of our innate worthiness, potential, self-worth and self-love resides in this closed closet. It is the door that is most feared yet it is the door that brings us the most freedom. One does not have to fear the shadow or keep it unknown, silenced or secret. It is so liberating to accept ourselves for ourselves, to openly acknowledge and take ownership for our feelings, perceptions and projections.  To admit that yes we can be judgemental at times, to admit that we can feel envious or jealous at times, to admit that we don’t like or accept something in another, to admit that we are not perfect and that we have flaws, to admit that we can be at fault and to blame. To admit that at times we can feel inferior and at other times we can feel superior.  To own all of these things within ourselves means that we can be responsible for these conditionings within ourselves. We can be accountable for them. We can hold space and love these parts of ourselves that were not properly addressed or integrated at the time of impact and split off into the shadow side of the psyche. When we fully own it within ourselves we no longer need to push it out and onto another. It is when we can’t own and admit these things within ourselves that the shadow side of the psyche becomes toxic even to the point of being extremely dangerous, the perfect example being Dr Jekyll and Hyde with a complete split in the psyche and such polarised behaviours.

The following are some simple examples of how an aspect of us can to fall into the shadow. The emotional or sensitive child intuitively skilled at picking up the feelings of others gets scorned for triggering and pushing the parents buttons and vulnerability, gets yelled at and labelled as “difficult” and “whinny” becomes ashamed of these innate characteristics and decides to disown them within the self. The child then learns to become emotionally numb to its surroundings (and so too to itself) and losses the capacity to be intuitively and emotionally sensitive to both self and others.  Another example is a child being reprimanded for a silly and dangerous act involving a sibling, the child is severely yelled out due to the element of danger involving the younger sibling and is punished badly by one or both parents. The child then equates itself to being “bad” and shoves into shadow the idea of being inherently good as well as the child’s daring and risking nature. The child grows up believing that it is bad and should never dare or risk in life. We can see from both of these examples how easy it is for an aspect of us to be forced into shadow in our formative years and how we develop psychological defence mechanisms which keep these split off aspects of ourselves hidden in the persona for fear of further pain and suffering.  We hide them and we hide them well. We develop all kinds of coping mechanisms and belief systems to protect us from the original wounding.

During our formative years we are taught what is “good and what is “bad” as our way of learning to navigate our world. Culturally we need these laws to operate successfully in society. The growing psyche however is sensitive to these laws and takes them incredibly seriously and literally. Thus the divide in the psyche between the ego ; who we would like to be and how we wish to be seen in the world and the shadow; those parts of us that we or someone else deems unacceptable, unlikable or not possible. We learn to create metaphorical masks that we wear to hide the true and authentic self and we begin to cultivate and nurture the false-self. The shadow keeps the false-self in place as the shadow is all that we prefer not to show others or admit to ourselves. The wounded child lives within the shadow and all energies in the shadow distort our reality. These things may go to the dark and hidden areas of our psyche but they do not remain hidden! In fact they have a life-force of their own and get powerfully projected into our life as strong emotional and energetic charges, mostly towards other people. The shadow is all about judgement and fear.
I have heard stories of therapists and people alike attempting to “kill off” the shadow and wounded inner child. Yet we can’t kill off these aspects of ourselves in hope to be rid of them forever. That wounds us even more! Yes the shadow can thwart our attempt at change and empowerment with its self-sabotaging behaviours but the answer is not its death.  We would only lose more of ourselves (due to the fact that the shadow is the self) which would then open us up spiritually and psychologically to a range of other phenomena we would definitely rather avoid. The shadow needs integration and love. Behaviours and perceptions are not the shadow but the symptom of the shadow.  To deny the shadow takes us into dangerous territory for what we deny in ourselves and in the world only grows stronger. When we deny the shadow it will magnetically come to us from the outside and mirror itself to us, there is no escaping it. When we understand that the shadow is born to protect us we can look at it compassionately and hold the space for it be seen, acknowledged and transformed with love and acceptance. As quoted by psychology today “Without the conscious inclusion of the shadow in daily life there cannot be a positive relationship to other people, or to the creative sources in the soul; there cannot be an individual relationship to the Divine”. That there is the sheer power of the shadow!

Ultimately it us up to us, we can keep the door closed and continue to cycle in delusion, illusion and limitation or we can open the door and illuminate our inner and outer world. Do you dare to peek inside?