Is Your Shadow Side Calling You?

When we consciously begin our 'healing journey', perhaps because we're feeling unhappy with our lot or have an urge to seek inner peace, we don't always realise what lies beneath the surface. We just don't know what we don't know, and the fault is not our own.

"Until you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life and you will call it fate."
~Carl Jung~

As a Wounded Healer archetype, I wanted others to have someone to relate to when they experienced situations or emotions that were similar to mine. I'd done some 'work' on my own issues, studying psychology and mental health to find the answers to why I might be experiencing depression and bouts of anxiety. Some reasons were blatantly obvious, abuse from childhood continued in the relationships I chose to be in as an adolescent and adult, but I knew there was probably more below the surface. Why did I have those experiences? Why did I react the way I did when so many don't? I was directed into healing because that was the way that I was to heal. I remember it clearly, the day it all began to change significantly for me. Working with a client, she received direction to heal me, and as so often happens with therapists, we agreed to offer our respective skills to one another in an exchange. Several years later, I don't believe for one moment that I've given anything that comes close to a tenth of what she offered me. The fact is, once we begin digging into the subconscious and unconscious mind, the proverbial can of worms is opened and cannot be closed. They took some opening, but once the floodgates were unlocked, nothing would change that.

Nobody wants to feel uncomfortable, distraught, heartbroken, hurt, and we certainly don't want to revisit those things that put us onto the path of self-destruction. But, the reality was, my Shadow Work had seriously begun and I either had to hide away and eventually implode, or I had to see it through and perhaps, just maybe, I would see the person that I was supposed to become. Not the one that was programmed by other people's actions and beliefs. Someone who was living their soul purpose, fuelled by change instead of afraid of it, running the risk of failure and loss for the prize of joy and love.

 ~ Living in 'love and light' all the time isn't possible. ~

If you believe it is, you may want to stop reading right here and refrain from visiting anything I offer in the future, because my opinion on this is in the structure of everything I put out there. Expecting life to be sunshine and roses with a few positive affirmations and thinking positive all the time, ignoring the challenges of life and our darker moments, just doesn't work. I know this because I've been there, tried that, and almost took my own life as a result of it. Ignoring the darker moments as you try to convince yourself that you should just be happy all the time simply means that you become more engulfed by feelings of failure, leading to misery, not trying anymore, and eventually giving up, perhaps completely.

Being 'authentic' isn't about being chipper all the time. It's about embracing all aspects of who and what we are - light and dark. There isn't one without the other in nature, in science, so why would it not be a part of who we are?

 ~ Embracing our light and our dark side is the only way we can heal those wounds. ~

And we all have them. Sure, some are most certainly deeper, but they exist on some level for all of us. Hiding from them just makes them deeper still.

So, what is the shadow, really?
Carl Jung describes the shadow as the hidden part of our human psyche, a mask that we use to hide our imperfections and flaws. It's called the shadow side because it hasn't been given any access to our visible life. It doesn't have to be 'negative' either. It may be unlived passions and desires, needs and wishes that we deny ourselves, or un-lived potential. As children we learn how not to be, for fear of being cut off from the love of our parents. We begin to hide things from our behaviour and we lose our authentic expression so that we avoid rejection. We fear abandonment more than we feel the need for authenticity and these parts of us that get pushed into the unconscious shadow part of our psyche root themselves deeper and deeper. However, it never disappears. Our ego, the 'manager' of our mind adapts our behaviours to protect us from pain and rejection.

And so the shadow work begins.....

Shadow Work is intended to bring those suppressed parts of our personality back to the surface so that we can learn to love and accept them, integrating them so that we can become more 'whole' as humans. It's not easy, it can be uncomfortable and is downright painful at times, and that's because we're doing trauma work when we start poking around in the shadows. We didn't have the resources to deal with emotions fully when we were children, and so they're stored in the nervous system and in the stories we tell ourselves. They appear as jealousy, addiction, anxiety, procrastination, bitterness, anger, depression, and self-sabotage, among other things, and they will control your life and bring situations that will be opportunities to integrate them. Often we'll be met with people who mirror these shadow aspects of ourselves, and you'll be drawn to people for whom you reflect their shadow.
It's exhausting keeping these parts of us hidden, which means we end up sick, burned out, or in major crisis. The way to avoid this, or heal from it is to face our dark side and bring it into the light, making friends with it, instead of treating it as the enemy. When we do this, we expand our capacity for kindness to ourselves, we become less judgmental, we find more fulfilling relationships, and can genuinely reach for our full potential.

Ultimately, we become self-aware and we function from our adult state instead of a child, reclaiming the parts of ourselves that have been rejected and becoming truly whole. I can tell you in all honesty, from where I sit, having done so much shadow work over the last 15 years, the understanding and acceptance of oneself is beyond liberating.

If you feel you are ready to answer the calls of your shadow side, there are many ways to begin. In fact, you may already have begun the work without really realising it. When we're ready we automatically seek out those things that will help us to understand ourselves even on a surface level. Through things like meditation, journalling, therapy, dream analysis and being conscious of our actions, the process begins. It's a long journey, perhaps one that will last a lifetime, but every part of ourselves that we integrate is a beautiful gift that we can learn from and which we can pass on to others.
Step into the shadow and reach for the light.

#shadowwork #shadowside #journaling #conscious #unconscious #selfawareness #selfaware