Integrating the Shadow

The shadow is created because our ego, constantly trying to control our world, sorts out things that do not fit the picture we have constructed for how to survive and be accepted."  -Carol Adrienne

Psychologist Carl Jung describes the shadow as all the things inside of ourselves that we do not accept, do not like about ourselves, or do not wish to look at. Consider that the shadow is the storehouse for all of our unrecognized and repressed aspects of self. The shadow begins early in childhood when we start to hide away parts of ourselves that do not fit in with our parents or society.

 

As we go through our lives we continue to hide away more and more parts of ourselves that do not gain approval and love from others. By the time we reach young adulthood we have developed an outer mask that is finely honed and designed to gain acceptance from others.

 

"If you don't go within, you go without"  -Neale Donald Walsh

Yet the shadow comes through our lives...it leaks out in various ways in the form of projection. Everyone suppresses uncomfortable feelings. As soon as we resist a feeling it is projected "out there" for whatever we resist persists and follows us everywhere. If we cannot look at something inside of ourselves we project it outside of ourselves and make it "bad" in other people and in outer events. Self-rejection engenders a great deal of outer threat in our lives. When we reject parts of ourselves that we feel are shameful or unacceptable, life and others can feel foreboding.

 

We are often not even aware of what our natural state of fully lived human life would look like. Our body's are accumulated with stored, non-integrated feelings and life experiences. We can become so built up with rejected shadow energies that we begin to attract negative experiences. It can begin to feel like we are ruled by hidden forces.

 

Underneaths of our social mask we have many sub-personalities that conflict with our ego need to be "perfect" and lovable in the world. The good news is that we are designed to heal ourselves. Life is forever bring up outer events and other people to "rub up" against our well maintained outer facades. As Carl Jung said, "The meeting of two personalities is like the contact of two chemical substances. If there is any reaction, both are transformed."

 

I offer you a visualization exercise from Debbie Ford's book The Dark Side of the Light Chasers to help integrate the various aspects of your shadow.

 

Imagine yourself on an imaginary bus ride. Each passenger represents an aspect of yourself. Each offering something unique if only you would listen to their wisdom. You see every kind of person. Some are waving to get your attention. Some are hiding in the corner. Continue to walk through the aisles visualizing all the characters on the bus. Now the bus driver directs one of the sub-personalities to take you off the bus and go to a park nearby for a chat.

 

Who is the first person to want a conversation with you? You may not like who chooses you but make an effort towards accepting them anyway. They be outlandish, short, thin, disgusting of disturbing. Do not expect your shadow figures to be angels. It is important to welcome your sub-personalities with opening arms. Ask their name. Is it "Angry Alice", "Resistant Rita"?

 

Walk off the bus with your sub-personality and go to a park bench. Ask your sub-personality what it has to teach you. Whatever comes up will be a creation of your psyche based on an aspect of yourself that you cannot accept and that needs to be integrated in order to become a whole person.

 

Consider that when you have accepted all of yourself you would live entirely in the present moment. There would be no self-rejecting activity in the mind and no shadow to hide from. There would be no desire to escape from what is. It would mean being with whatever feelings and experiences that arise without having to shut them down or run away. Imagine living one moment at a time and experiencing life without searching, judging, reacting, clinging, avoiding or shutting down.