Illuminating the Shadow

The first sentence is the hardest for me. I'm thinking of a hundred things I want to put into the text, and I also want a fantastically good start to a new text. This stresses me out. So I procrastinate, and suddenly so many other things become important, like reading the news, eating something, taking a nap, oh my!

Well, now that I've started with these sentences, I might as well write about shadow work. Now I'm in it, so to speak (yeah, this is my 'trick myself' tactic, not particularly fantastic, but effective).

In my last blog post about shadow work, I approached what a shadow is. Okay, but what can you do with a shadow inside you that you have recognized? Or maybe I'll start one step earlier: how you can even recognize a shadow.

"If you reject something in another person, that's a part you reject in yourself."

I think that's a really good starting point. A starting point that makes me consciously realise—aha, there's something there.

Not every rejection is a shadow, not every negative feeling is a clue. I think it depends on the extremity, how much it burdens you. How strong the feelings are and whether they seem to want to endlessly repeat themselves in a wondrous cycle.

I reject weakness in others, which means I reject weakness in myself.

That was true for me. And even if it's not true, it's usually the ego that tries to prevent us from looking deeper. Why? Because it's probably going to hurt. So, it's worth sticking with it, not believing the ego, and looking further down. If you don't, you fall back into projection, and the other person or the external situation remains 'to blame.'

But that's not true. Even if it's the hard truth that hurts, we are always responsible for ourselves, and if something bothers me, it has to do with me.

So, I hold on to this principle, swallow the bitter pill that I am to blame and not the other person, and ask my ego to help me find the cause of this 'disturbance' inside me. I don't know anything more at this point... And then I write down everything that comes to mind, just writing it down without judgment, trying to illuminate it from all sides. There are many questions involved that remain unanswered at that point. I also do a meditation to feel everything there is to feel about it. Without a plan, without a list, I just surrender to find what I need to find. And in this process, I find answers. Answers I didn't have before.

With that, we're at step 2. The shadow is now there, however it presents itself in the highly individual situation. For me, it was weakness, the neediness that I rejected in myself and therefore also rejected externally. In this case, rejection doesn't mean I avoided people (I don't want anyone to think that), but I regularly struggled, felt uncomfortable within myself, and mostly blocked, reacted with passive aggression, and tried to bombard the other person with solutions. This is a behavior the other person in their situation usually didn't need or even ask for. But I just found it difficult to react with genuine empathy because that shadow inside me was unfolding its full potential. In a negative way.

Reacting with genuine empathy would mean accepting and allowing the other person to be in their state, instead of trying to get them to change their behavior so that I feel more comfortable. Because that's just projection; the feeling inside is not being looked at.

So, the shadow is now there. And for me, that's where the most intense phase begins. Finding answers is not easy. The ego plays a decisive, but rather negative, role here. It constantly gives us answers that sometimes serve the shadow, keeping it suppressed. Because anything else would mean pain or discomfort**, which the ego is responsible for avoiding. If it weren't so, the shadow wouldn't be in the subconscious but would simply be conscious. So it's an interplay of two forces that, in this case, works against me, and it would be nice to interrupt it.

Therefore, I concentrate, and I don't accept answers from the ego (the other person's behavior was so stupid, the situation is so stuck, whatever, any judgment the ego throws at me doesn't count). And that's difficult in practice; as understandable as it may sound when I describe it now, living it in practice is hard because my thoughts don't come listed and labeled so logically. They are just normal thoughts mixed with feelings. Normally, we don't consciously step aside and start not believing what we think... Normally, we do believe what we think. (It sounds complicated, and it is. Are you confused now? Good, then your system is already starting to rethink... That's the next step towards change.)

And after a period of resistance against my own ego—yes, that's just as exhausting as it sounds—the real answers come. Those from my own depth. And they are not easy to accept. They may cause pain. To realize that you did to yourself what you did to others. I can hardly describe it. It's just painful. Everything is there: sadness, regret, despair, helplessness, powerlessness, feeling small.

At the same time, this is the path to shadow-freedom.

After feeling through all these emotions and recognizing the reasons why this is and was—all of this cascades over me like a torrent—the shadow integrates into the entire system (step 3). For me, this happened automatically.

**Pain or discomfort: In the situation, the solution without projection would be to expose the shadow and talk about why the other person is causing discomfort. This is usually unpleasant and requires courage. Because in this situation, it might feel embarrassing, insecure, painful, reminding one of childhood when one's emotionality was rejected —all of this is the shadow, and talking about it is probably difficult. Of course, the ego tries to help avoid this pain and works to change the external situation by blocking, bombarding with solutions, etc., so that the external situation, i.e., the other person, changes, instead of exposing one's own pain—to oneself and to others. And then there's the risk, because we don't know how the other person will react, and we are showing vulnerability. Oh my...

Well, what can I say, that's just how we work, especially when one experienced pain in life and has not worked through it.**

The page is now blank. A new beginning is at the door. By accepting my shadow (yes, I also have a part in me that wants to and is allowed to be weak and needy), I am more whole (step 4). A life in which I can approach and react to others differently. And they will probably react differently to me as well, and we will experience that as positive.

1)      Find/recognize the shadow

2)      Illuminate it

3)      Feel it and recognize the reasons

4)      Accept it

I am in favor of us all ending our inner wars as best we can to live more in wholeness and harmony. That's why I do this work, and I started with myself so that I can continue with my clients. Shadow work is also a frequently recurring topic in my consultations.

When I know my shadow instead of living unconsciously with it, a truthful conversation is possible (with myself, with the other person) about what is really going on, and that creates trust, security, and genuine closeness.

Jung says about this:

"The question today is no longer: How can I get rid of my shadow? Because we have seen enough of the curse of one-sidedness. Rather, one must ask oneself: How can a person live with their shadow without a series of misfortunes arising from it? The recognition of the shadow gives reason for humility, even fear of the unfathomable human being. This caution is very appropriate, insofar as a person without a shadow seems harmless, precisely because of their ignorance of their shadow. But anyone who knows their shadow knows that they are not harmless. [...] The advantage of the situation, with all its risks, is that with the presentation of the unvarnished truth, the conversation has come to the essential point and thus the ego no longer remains in the duality or split with its shadow, but is put together into a, albeit conflictual, unity." (from GW 16, §452)