The gold in our shadow
Unearthing the hidden gifts in the unconscious
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In a previous life, filled with pant suits, kitten heels, fancy hotels and weekly flights, I was sent to restructure a client’s automobile operations. We were a team of four.
Michael was the only team member who didn’t belong to the corporate development task force, an elite ring fence reserved for those willing to sacrifice sleep and make profit a corner stone of their identity. Michael was different. Softer, more open, less intense. And Michael drove me crazy.
I couldn’t quite pinpoint what it was. Perhaps it was the fact that he’d use his lunch breaks to call his long-distance girlfriend (while we were working) and then go on about how much he missed her (also while we were working). Perhaps it was the language he used to describe his inner state throughout the day. Perhaps it was the fact that you could not say anything reasonable to Michael without him taking it a little too personal.
Don’t get me wrong, Michael was a sweet young man. But there was something about Michael that I could not stand.
Only months later, I would learn about shadow work and venture into my unconscious for the first time to identify and integrate traits I’d rejected. It would be years that said shadow work would reveal sensitivity as a deeply buried, suppressed trait. Sensitivity which Michael had, in hindsight, mirrored back to me so clearly.
Shadow work is raw inner work. It requires a certain sense of self-compassion and self-regulation, if that doesn’t exist, we’ll venture down but remain in the more shallow waters (case in point, the main trait I was integrating back then was laziness).
This work happens in layers, first we get to what’s lingering at the surface of our unconscious, only with time and practice we travel deeper and deeper into the most repressed pockets of our being. Eight years later, I’m still uncovering new facets that I’ve denied myself.
The concept of the shadow is ancient. It traces back to indigenous wisdom and Eastern scriptures such as the Bhagavad Gita. Carl Jung brought it into Western psychology when educating us on the three parts of our psyche: the persona, the ego (“consciousness”), and the shadow.
Our persona is the mask we wear in the world in an attempt to control how we are perceived. The ego is the conscious totality of our personality. The shadow holds all the traits and qualities we cannot possibly own because they threaten our worldview.
The creation of the shadow is a natural developmental process: anything we deemed to be a threat to the love, belonging and safety we craved growing up gets put in the shadow bag. We spend the first decade of our life filling our shadow bag, only to spend the remaining decades trying to empty it.
The shadow is the counterweight to the persona, carrying all that which we don’t allow ourselves and the world to see. The relationship is proportional: The more particular and limited the persona, the bigger the shadow.
In my early consultant years, my persona was neat and narrow: type A, overachieving, rational, put-together, confident, smart, easy to work with. This persona didn’t hold space for many of the qualities and traits I denied myself — being insecure, sensitive, emotional, lazy, selfish, and sometimes not super low maintenance.
All humans contain all human traits, both negative and positive, to some extent. We never discard anything from our consciousness, we can only move it. Depending on the origin, we may move it into the personal shadow, the familial shadow, the cultural shadow, and/or the collective shadow.
Social media is contributing to the fragmentation. We are either sharing our highlights in manicured feeds or witnessing the lives of others with envy, wondering if we’ll ever get there. The more perfect the homes, faces, families, and lives we witness online, the more compelled we feel to reject, deny, or cover up the imperfections in our own homes, faces, families and lives.
Social media is the antithesis to human complexity and wholeness. It has given those with carefully crafted personas a mechanism for validation at scale that forces their fragmentation onto the world. As a result, our personas become more and more limited and our shadows balloon.1
The gradual reintegration of that which we have repressed is a willful disruption of our identity. Why on earth would we want that?
A large shadow bag is what’s at the root of many modern miseries — our lack of (self-)love, depression, addiction, overconsumption, and overcompensation. Shadow work helps us judge ourselves (and consequently others) less. It illuminates the blueprint of our cage and provides the map to freedom. Freedom from suffering, as well as freedom to embody whatever we want to be.
It is our shadow that reveals our greatest gifts. If we feel stuck, the insights needed to move forward are usually buried somewhere in our shadow bag: a golden amber at the core of the fire we are so afraid may burn us.
The deeply insecure person will grow in unparalleled capacity for unconditional love, the people pleaser will model boundaries, and the retired overachiever will guide us into rest — if they individuate by integrating their shadow.
The GPS illuminating our path to wholeness is our ego’s ingenious defense mechanism: projection. Projection gets a bad rep, but it is our greatest ally. Projection is an invitation. It is a door cracked open. If we muster the courage to step through, it leads us deep down into the core of our whole, complex being.
Everything that we cannot possibly contain activates us in others — both negatively and positively. Projection brings to light that which we despise and admire. It is our psyche’s attempt to reclaim forgotten parts of ourselves. Once we recognize this pattern, projection becomes a powerful catalyst.
As an example, if I’m put off by outwardly sensitive people, the negative charge in my system is not because the other person is too sensitive but because I am not letting myself be sensitive enough.
On the other end of the spectrum, if we put others on a pedestal, we do so because we cannot recognize the greatness within ourselves. Instead, we let others hold our potential so we never have to question our ability to fulfill it.
We never have to face our fear of failing at that which matters most.
It is not the darkness in our shadow that most frightens us, but the gold within.
If you feel the call to venture into your shadow, you can begin by asking yourself a few simple questions. Please hold yourself with love and compassion throughout this process, as it is very raw, brave work.
Here are some prompts as a starting point:
What am I most judgmental about? What people drive me crazy? What qualities or traits do they exemplify? How may I have denied these in myself (and why)?
Who do I worship and look up to? What qualities or traits do they embody? How (and why) do I struggle to recognize that I hold these qualities within?
Once you have a list of 2-3 qualities: How can I integrate these more into every day life? What would I start/stop doing if I recognized that I hold those qualities?
As always, if there is anything you feel comfortable sharing, I so welcome it. How has your shadow played out in your life? Have you done this work, and if so, what have you gotten out of it?
Further resources
This book is a wonderful introduction to shadow work
Another short read on the human shadow
A concise, foundational guide to CG Jung’s work and depth psychology
"Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate, our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light not our darkness that most frightens us.”
— Marianne Williamson
There are exceptions here, of course: some creators that have made an effort to share their unfiltered, whole selves — but this is not the default operating mode on social media.
My introduction to the concept of shadow was through Debby Ford's helpful book: "The Dark Side of the Light Chasers". I found it incredibly helpful and even got my father to read it. I really like how you discuss projection (and give a real example) as a way to see what we are keeping in our 'shadow bag'. Another great topic and glad for the reminder of what it means to be human and where our work lies- thank you for this article, Julia.
I usually scoff or criticize pieces I read on social media about the shadow; because they usually represent a superficial of incomplete understanding. This was a very good piece! I love the way you described your projection with Michael. Thanks!