The Truth About Shadow Work

TL; DR: You can control and overcome the qualities you don’t like about yourself. But they don’t go away. They remain as your Shadow, a sort of dark “evil twin” in your unconscious, sabotaging you when the chance arrives. This is likely to happen when the stakes are high, in the middle of an adventure when you’re close to reaching a big goal. By integrating your Shadow, you unlock powerful qualities that are often the opposite of what you tried to suppress. You become whole, and you’re exponentially more effective.

Suddenly, everything starts to go wrong.

You’re committed to achieving a major life goal in the next 12 months.

You have it all figured out, you know what you want, and you know how to do it. Not only are you disciplined, you’re on fire.

Then, for no obvious reason, you start to miss deadlines.

Accidents happen.

You give in to fear, procrastination, and other people’s demands on your time.

Meet the Inner Saboteur

When you stop to examine what went wrong, you’ll notice something odd: 90% of the problems originate in your own mind.

There’s a dark side of you that secretly sabotages everything you want to accomplish.

There are many names for this dark force: Threshold guardian. The Resistance. Imposter Syndrome.

There are even more tools and techniques for “fighting” it: Discipline. Priority Matrices. Pomodoro timers. The 5-second rule.

I teach and use a lot of these techniques myself, but I want to make a radical proposition: This dark force is the true purpose of your adventure.

Let me explain.

Meet the Shadow

Have you ever been upset with a person for doing something that didn’t cause any real harm?

You probably have words to describe this person and their deeds: Insensitive. Dishonest. Mean-spirited. Spoiled. Coward. Pussy.

Have there ever been times when any of these words applied to you?

It’s okay. Nobody’s perfect.

We all have things we don’t like about ourselves. Most people are good at hiding these things most of the time. In fact, you’ve probably buried them.

But they’re not gone, and anytime you’re creating significant change in your life, these negative qualities can rise to the surface. (Cue spooky music and a clip of zombies digging their way out of their graves)

There’s a long-recognized personality inside you that is made up of all the qualities you don’t like. It’s everything you’ve suppressed and tried to drown.

Psychologists call this dark personality your Shadow.

The One You Hate Is You

When you’re on an adventure, you create liminal space, and this flexible reality gives the shadow a way out.

Ironically, this happens when you’re chasing after a major, life-changing goal. It happens when you have the greatest need to hold everything together.

It’s better to address the Shadow long before you’re in the forest searching for treasure.  And you can find the Shadow any day you want, once you know where to look.

You can catch a glimpse of the Shadow any time you’re upset about another person or their actions. Unless that person is a sociopath, you’re seeing at least some of the qualities you don’t like about yourself. You’re projecting the Shadow onto the other person.

For example, I have a strong, visceral dislike of Donald Trump. But it’s not political.

I disagree with many of his policies, but they aren’t likely to have much impact on me or most of the people I care about. I’m more repelled by his crass narcissism.

A few months ago, I realized that I’m inclined to think and behave the same way as Trump. I’m good at suppressing these negative qualities, but I’ve learned to project them.

Making the Shadow external to you is a powerful defense mechanism. Billions of people make it through life by doing just this and nothing else.

But when you deny the negative traits in your personality, you’re missing out.

Not only is it possible to free yourself of the Shadow, you can integrate it and give yourself a new source of tremendous power.

Tapping Into Your Shadow Power

The most important feature of the Shadow is that it contains more than just your negative qualities. It hides positive qualities you may not know about.

In fact, each negative shadow trait is like one side of a coin that has another side:

· Greed may stem from your unacknowledged needs. It can lead to generosity when you’ve created a satisfying amount of abundance in your life. Greed can give you the “fuel” to create this abundance.

· Laziness can be a desire for more meaningful work and a rejection of unfulfilling tasks. It can also be a call for more self-care and compassion.

· Anger could be the dark side of a passionate drive to improve yourself, your circumstances, or the world.

· Dishonesty can mask a talent for storytelling and other creativity. It can point to what you wish were true, and give you the drive to make it so.

· Rude, crass insensitivity can hide a level of compassion and empathy that’s currently uncomfortable for you.

A quick caveat here. If you’re dealing with addiction or behaviors that regularly cause serious harm to yourself and others, get help from a professional. I’m not a trained psychologist or healthcare practitioner. Work with someone who is.

This piece is only meant to address uncomfortable feelings and occasional self-sabotage.

Accepting the Shadow

The Shadow is portrayed as a demonic force or an evil, manipulative person. But it’s more like a sad and angry child. It just wants to be heard and acknowledged.

The best way to integrate your Shadow is by working with a trained professional. But if that’s not an option for you at this time, you can make tremendous progress on your own with tools such as the Shadow Journal.

Tool of the Week: Create a Shadow Journal

I use the word journal broadly here. Your Shadow “journal” can be a physical book of blank sheets of paper where you write and draw. It can be a digital file. You can record yourself and make this a video journal.

Here are some prompts to get you started:

1. When have you recently disappointed yourself? What are the reasons you were disappointed? What positive qualities might this disappointment be masking? What would have to happen for you to feel okay about all of this?

2. What consistently makes you angry at other people? Are these traits or behaviors ever true about you? Are these people doing something you wish you could do?

3. What do you keep doing, even though you don’t want to?

4. Write down everything you can remember about your dreams, especially the parts that make you uncomfortable. Pretend you are one of the characters/objects in your dream. What motivated you to act the way you did in the dream?

5. Is there a part of yourself you try to hide from others? Why?

6. What do you tend to “overdo?” Are you a workaholic? Do you spend too much time consuming mindless entertainment?

Your Shadow Journal will help you be more aware of the shadow. The next step is to learn to be okay with it. Sit with those feelings of guilt, anger, reluctance, fear, or whatever comes up for you.

Then speak to it and say, “I accept you. Now let’s get up and do better next time!”

As you start to pay attention to the Shadow and integrate it, new superpowers will emerge. Some of your self-sabotaging behaviors will fade away, and you’ll tap into unblocked energy.

Something else amazing starts to happen. You’re literally accepting more of your complete self. This will make you feel more comfortable in your skin. Your self-confidence will soar.

Believe it or not, all these benefits come from the most superficial shadow work. If you really want to dive in, I highly recommend you work with a trained therapist. Journaling and everything else I’ve shown you is just the starting point of deep Shadow work.

Like most worthwhile endeavors, Shadow Work is an adventure!

That wraps it up for this week.

If you’re enjoying these rants, lessons, and tools, I would love to hear from you.

If you’re not, I would like to hear from you even more.

Reply to this email and tell me what you think, what you’d like to see in the future, or just to drop me a line about your cat.

I don’t always have the time to reply to your message, but I read every one of them.

Jacob