This journey to the repressed depths of one’s psyche has been considered a feminine model of transformation toward wholeness. It is essentially the task of giving birth to one’s true Self. Women more often experience the pain of inner dissonance as their feminine nature is not supported by the culture at large, and they attempt to fit into a masculine model of success, creating imbalance. As a wonderful priestess guide of mine, Jalaja Bonheim says, “Giving birth is priestess work. It requires a woman to pass through a painful and dangerous initiation in which she journeys to the threshold between worlds and risks her own life to help another soul cross over.”
I see now more than ever that the masculine model of wholeness is no longer adequate, and more and more, men are forced to relate differently to their own depths if they are not to be swallowed up in depression or addiction, both symptoms of not facing the deep dark feminine. Men, too, must have the courage to dare the descents that will permit them to reclaim the instinctual and wounded parts of themselves and to become capable of real relationship.
Suffering stems from the gap between who we think we are and who we really are. 
This is the wound, the pain body, the black hole that devours our energy and leads us to repeat the same unmerciful acts over and over. Each of us is called to do our part and step into who we really are, resolving the tension that arises from the gap for the sake of greater bliss and for the sake of the planet as a whole. We are being asked to evolve to a higher order of harmony, and in the process, we often disassemble our lives through crisis. We must remember that this disintegration is in the service of transformation into a higher order of integration.
This descent work is called shadow work, and its purpose is to bring to consciousness that which has been hidden, rejected, and disowned. Within each of us is multiple aspects of the Self, or psyche, which coexist, rather than a notion of a fixed and singular self. This allows us to dis-identify with being all bad as we own greed, or selfishness, or even face our addictions and perversions.
The shadow thrives in the dark where no one can see. Often as someone struggles with an affliction or addiction, whether it be pulling out one’s hair to self-soothe or even the darker expressions such as alcoholism and drug addiction or watching child pornography, the habit intensifies as the person is too ashamed to ask for help. Bringing the shadow out of darkness and into the light of consciousness in a spirit of compassion, acceptance, and curiosity is what begins to integrate the shadow.
The most important reason for you to do your shadow work is that you cannot fully experience the wholeness of who you are without putting your arms around the exiled parts of you and bringing them “home” to yourself. Integrally connected to that is the fact that in order to be healthy physically, emotionally, and spiritually, you need the energy that is tied up in your shadow.
If you have a long-empowered shadow, it will naturally take more energy to suppress it, which means less energy available for living. Jung believed that what is repressed in the unconscious comes to us as fate, where some unknown part of us leads us to our destiny. As you can see, it’s a very good idea to harness the power of your shadow in the direction you want to go, rather than letting an unknown sub-personality take over the helm of your life’s ship.
In his powerful little book, A Little Book on The Human Shadow, the poet Robert Bly says, “It is said that inside our body there is a vast gap—perhaps thousands of miles across—between the power chakra in the stomach and the heart chakra in the chest.” Indeed, shadow work is heart work, and the only way to fully absorb the shadow is to move into the heart.
The more you believe in your own goodness and wholeness, the more easily you can work with the shadow without destroying your healthy ego. When I work with couples, they often present as blaming the other, which tells me they have not yet faced and integrated their own shadow energy, and still see it in the other. It is so unconscious that one will criticize the other for being critical, calling the other names for having been called names. The childlike immaturity is so blatant and yet neither can see it, due to their emotional blind spots.
The shadow is most often very well defended. One way we can begin to know our shadow is to notice what we judge intensely. Who and what about them do we judge? There is this tendency to project our disowned “stuff” outward. I once heard about a patient of Dr. Jung’s who was a rather religious woman. One day she told Dr. Jung about a dream she had that this outrageous woman wearing an indecent red dress was doing a striptease on a table in a bar in front of many men. Dressed in her somber gray suit, the woman expressed her disdain about the woman in her dream. Dr. Jung said, “That woman, my dear, is you.”
Being nonjudgmental is the key to shadow work and then eventually bringing in compassion. These often shameful parts of us must be seen as long-lost children who need to be loved. Tara Brach, a Buddhist teacher and author of the book Radical Acceptance: Embracing Your Life with the Heart of a Buddha, says, “Clearly recognizing what is happening inside us, and regarding what we see with an open, kind and loving heart, is what I call Radical Acceptance. If we are holding back from any part of our experience, if our heart shuts out any part of who we are and what we feel, we are fueling the fears and feelings of separation that sustain the trance of unworthiness. Radical Acceptance directly dismantles the very foundations of this trance.”
This is active work. I have clients dialogue with shadow parts in whatever way suits them best: writing with their non-dominant hand, expressive arts, soul collage, psychodrama—whatever can bypass the judging mind to allow this aspect of the person to express itself. Jung called this work active imagination, and the premise is that whatever arises in your exploration of your shadow has value and growth for your development. We begin to learn and expand our self-concept, and as the Buddhist nun and spiritual teacher Pema Chodron says, “Nothing ever goes away until it teaches us what we need to know.”
When we do the work of integrating our shadow, our rage transforms into power, our terror transforms into excitement, and deep grief transforms into compassion. Always, at the bottom of everything, there is love.
Here is an exercise that will help you begin to integrate the disowned parts of yourself:
Welcoming the shadow home
- Make two columns on a page and list as many people as you can who “rub you the wrong way.” These would be family members or associates who trigger you to feel irritable or judgmental.
- Next to their names, list the qualities about them that absolutely drive you crazy.
- This part is best done out loud: Name the qualities, one at a time, and say after each one, “Welcome home.” Each time, take a breath into your Sacred Heart and expand your chest to make room.
Example:
Manipulative—Welcome home.
Undependable—Welcome home.
Critical—-Welcome home.
- Breathe slowly and deeply into your heart, saying “Welcome home.”
Kathleen, We met years ago when you gave me a free session on the North Shore, MA. Where are you located now? ( New 1st name- Was Elaina-joy.)