Shadow work is having a bit of a moment right now. A cursory glance over Google search results for the term will reveal article after current article on what shadow work is, how to do it, and where to buy your shadow work journal. Has shadow work come across your radar recently? And have you wondered what it actually is or how it could be relevant to your life? If so, read on as this post will explore the impact that shadow work can have on one of the most important aspects of life—our relationships.
The term shadow work was originally coined by Carl Jung, a Swiss psychiatrist whose work was contemporary in the first half of the 20th century. (It was from his work that the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator, the infamous MBTI, was created.) Originally a protégé of Freud, Jung ultimately split from his origins as a psychoanalyst to establish a distinct form of psychotherapy known as analytical psychology. Like Freud, Jung was interested in the unconscious parts of the human mind and the development of the personality. Jung conceptualized his view of the psyche using personified structures known as archetypes. Some of these archetypes include:
1.) the ego—the executive part of our personality with strong ties to our experience of the physical body,
2.) the persona—who we portray ourselves to be to the external world, any masks we may wear at work or home,
3.) the Self—the sum total of the psyche, essentially our holistic sense of self that is driven towards integration, wholeness, and growth, and
4.) the shadow—the things about ourselves, known or unknown to us, that we have rejected or suppressed which live in our internal world.
Everyone has a shadow. And although the name of this internal psychic structure sounds dark, mysterious, or even corrupt, our shadow is a vital part of who we authentically are. Through the integration of the less savory parts of ourselves, we become more powerful and more whole—more of who we are.
Your shadow often contains traits opposite to your persona. For example, do you portray yourself as (or perhaps believe yourself to be) someone who is selfless and generous, are you deeply triggered by others when they behave in ways that are selfish or greedy? Then pay attention to this triggered feeling. In shadow work, your triggers are invitations to more closely examine parts of your Self that have been banished from your awareness. You can think of triggers as tugs on your ego, and when you examine them you will find an invisible string that, when followed to its origin, will lead you to the darker parts of your Self. At the other end of this string are precisely the things that you wish to avoid about yourself—perhaps your own greed, your own selfishness. Your shadow tends to be made up of the things that you were not allowed to be, or traits that you were punished or shamed for in your family of origin or culture, or by specific caregivers during your early development. You may have learned from a young age that these traits were undesirable and that you would be rejected for acting on them. As a result, you begin to disown certain parts of yourself. Perhaps you rejected the part of you that prioritized your own needs or pursued your own interests—perhaps you even became a bit of a martyr, always in service to others while neglecting yourself. By banishing selfishness into your shadow, you banished the part of you that asserts your own needs (which may even include basic needs like the need for safety or security) and you may have suffered or become secretly resentful towards others for acting “selfishly” because of it. This is why shadow work is important: it is a reminder that all of your traits are acceptable and necessary sometimes. When you reject parts of yourself, you limit yourself. Integrating your shadow can help you become more balanced and give you a greater sense of self mastery. To know your shadow is to more deeply know yourself.
Because you are the foundation of all your relationships with others, increasing self-knowledge is always going to improve your ability to build solid relationships. But shadow work is a particularly potent way to better know yourself and is therefore a particularly potent way of better knowing others. The thing about intimate relationships is that they will trigger you. And the more intimate the relationship, the more intense and frequent the triggers. But remember that shadow work is an invitation to examine those triggers (rather than react to or reject them) and by the same token is an invitation to more deeply examine yourself and the other person in the relationship with you.
Relationships, like our shadow, are a mixed bag, neither all good nor all bad. While you will certainly experience triggers within relationships that bring up strong negative feelings about yourself or the other person, you will also experience the opposite phenomena. Although we generally think of the word “trigger” to mean a negative emotional reaction, triggers are more accurately understood to be a powerful emotional reaction. Therefore a “trigger” can also be a powerfully positive emotional reaction to someone—in other words, the types of feelings that typically lead us to pursue relationships with others in the first place. These positive triggers are also fair game for shadow work and can lead us to the positive traits that we have also banished from our conscious awareness that we then get to discover or experience through others. Maybe your partner triggers you with their lack of consideration for your time (“they’re always late”), but through your work on integrating your shadow you recognize that your relationship with time is so pressured that waiting for even 5 minutes makes you feel anxious because you were constantly being rushed as a child. Maybe your partner also triggers strong feelings of admiration and joy within you (perhaps your partner is a natural artist and you love watching them create or perform) and through exploring this positive trigger you discover your own love of being the center of attention, a trait that you banished because your father shamed this desire in you with his constant remarks about vanity and showiness. This work becomes utterly powerful in relationships when both you and your partner are intentionally working to integrate your own individual shadows. People who are embodied within themselves can be more embodied within their relationships which ultimately leads to more honest and authentic connection and healthier conflict.
Undertaking shadow work, either individually or within a relationship, is no small feat and not necessarily appropriate for everyone. If you are still actively working through unresolved trauma or significant mental illness, consistently struggling with self-regulation, are in an abusive relationship, or your basic physiological needs are unmet—it may not be time to delve into shadow work. Shadow work is a kind of self-actualization that exists at the top of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. Ensure that your more fundamental needs are well addressed before diving into your shadow.
If you feel ready to begin this kind of work but are unsure about where to start you have several options. Journaling about your triggers and reflecting on their origins is a good introduction. There are multiple shadow work journals for purchase with prompts designed specifically to initiate this kind of self-reflection. Cultivate your sense of curiosity around your triggers by incorporating mindfulness practices that allow you to pause and respond rather than react to them. The ability to self-regulate through triggered feelings is also imperative to shadow work and within relationships in general. Obviously, it can be difficult to uncover the hidden parts of yourself on your own (your mind has rejected them from your conscious awareness for a reason), so therapy can also be utilized as a helpful mirror. It is a lesser-known fact that Jung himself viewed the natal chart as a map of the psyche and eventually incorporated astrology into his practice along with his archetypal work on the aspects of the Self—therefore even spiritual tools like astrology can be a gateway into shadow work and other kinds of self-actualization.
No matter your entry point into this kind of work, increasing your ability to accept yourself increases your ability to accept others. And when you can more clearly see yourself without running away, you can offer this same gift to the people you love.