Shadow Work ™

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A cleansing Bastille soap made from olive oil, castor oil, sweet almond oil, lye, distilled water, mica colors, essential oils. So much energy and love. What is the “shadow self”?

The idea of the “shadow self” was popularized by famed psychiatrist and psychoanalyst Carl Jung, and according to neuroscientist and author of The Source Tara Swart, Ph.D., it’s composed of the parts of yourself that you reject. “They’re in your personality,” Swart explains, “but you’re blind to them because you don’t want to see them.”
How the shadow self forms

The reason you reject these aspects of your personality goes back to your childhood.

When we’re young, we depend on our parents or main caregivers for survival. As a result, we become very attached to them and their way of doing things. So, say a caretaker scolds you for being outspoken, there’s a chance that you won’t feel safe speaking your mind from that point on, even as an adult.

“Because what it means to you is, the person I need to love me to survive won’t love me if I do this thing,” Swart says. That message becomes internalized—buried within your subconscious—and can therefore become a trigger for you for seemingly no reason.

In this example, if one of your shadows is around speaking your truth, it might bother you to see other people doing so. Every time somebody is outspoken around you, it might bring up unexplainable feelings of anger and resentment since you have been programmed to believe that speaking up is not a safe thing for you to do.
Do we all have a shadow?

Short answer: yes. Long answer, according to licensed therapist and co-founder of Viva Wellness Jor-El Caraballo, LMHC: Yes, but you might hear it called by a different name.

“The concept of the shadow […] is generally a widely accepted perspective in analytical psychology,” he says, but it’s by no means the only perspective of the human psyche. Shadow work can also fall under the umbrella of self-reflection, self-examination, etc.

Regardless of what you call it, “Most therapists are tapped with helping clients make the unconscious conscious, which is a fundamental tenet of shadow work,” Caraballo explains. “As a therapist, I subscribe to the belief that we all have a version of a shadow that, when integrated, can be well-accepted and help us better manage our own mental health and relationships.”

How to do shadow work

So, how do you actually do shadow work? As Caraballo and Swart explain, it’s all about bringing the unconscious mind to our conscious awareness. “This is something psychoanalytic theorists (like Jung and Freud) prized as important to maintaining psychological health.” It’s typically done with a “Socratic approach” of questioning and exploration. This entails asking objective questions that elicit critical thinking and a reexamination of old stories and beliefs we hold about ourselves. However, the first step in clearing your aura is often bathing in water. This soap will help you heal if you follow directions on how to accomplish your goals.

“The idea is that a more objective entity (such as a therapist) can help provide an interpretive mirror to the parts of ourselves we have a difficult time seeing and accepting,” Caraballo says. And while it is often work done with the help of a mental health professional, you can begin to explore your shadow solo too, by examining your thoughts, feelings, and assumptions. Below, you’ll find some prompts to help you do so.

article excerpt from What is Shadow Work?