Shadow work can be somewhat of a buzzword that is hovering around spiritual communities at the moment. But what is it exactly? Before we dive into what shadow work is, we need to understand what Carl Jung meant by describing the ‘personal shadow’. 

The shadow aspects of ourselves are parts of our personality we don’t share freely with others, parts we are ashamed of, negative things that happened to us in the past, things we were shamed for and have since repressed. It contains every thought, feeling, behaviour, and personality trait that we have rejected and ignored. It is the part of ourselves that we think society will disapprove of and so we suppress it. The shadow is also known as our subconscious mind — we cannot see it clearly, which means we are not fully aware of it. 

The shadow isn’t necessarily always negative emotions like jealousy, anger and greed but can be many positive traits and emotions. Anything we have deemed bad, inferior, or unacceptable becomes a part of our shadow. When we disown these parts of who we are, we are suppressing half of ourselves. We ignore our wholeness. However these suppressed parts don’t go anywhere, and we never get rid of them. Instead, they become a part of our subconscious – it gains greater power, contributes to our suffering and prevents us from reaching our full potential.

For me, I had a huge fear of rejection and judgement from others growing up. This fear was developed during my childhood and teen years when parts of my expressive personality were deemed as negative. From showing anger to being goofy, silly and emotional. I was called ‘too sensitive, ‘dumb’, ‘weird’, ‘off with the fairies’ or ‘a b*tch’.

When someone deemed these expressive parts of me as inappropriate. I suppressed and rejected them. I looked at them with disgust and so these aspects stayed stuck in my subconscious – resulting in my real self being trapped inside.