How does shadows work

Would the disapproval of our parents threaten our safety? Would the disapproval of our teachers and classmates jeopardize our need to belong? All the unaccepted or discouraged parts of us in the first 20 years of our lives are bundled together, swept out of view outside our conscious awareness.

As poet Robert Bly says in A Little Book of the Human Shadow , the child puts all of these unwanted parts into an invisible bag and drags it behind him. This repression of unwanted parts creates what psychologist Carl Jung called the personal shadow. As Jung writes in Psychology and Alchemy :. The ancient Greeks understood the need to honor all of the parts of the psyche. For them, these parts were worshiped as autonomous gods and goddesses. The Greeks knew a god or goddess you ignored became the one who turned against you and destroyed you.

Any part we disown within us turns against us. The personal shadow represents a collection of these disowned parts.

The Unconscious Mind. Perspectives on psychological science: a journal of the Association for Psychological Science , 3 1 , 73— Remaining unconscious of the shadow hurts our relationships with our spouses, family, and friends, and it will impact our professional relationships as well as our leadership abilities.

Hyde the personal shadow. Jekyll could not control the actions of his darker half, leading him to commit unscrupulous acts, including murder. In psychology, this is called projection. We project onto others anything we bury within us. Our egos use this mechanism to defend itself—to defend how it perceives itself. These psychological projections distort reality, creating a thick boundary between how we view ourselves and how we behave in reality.

Exploring our shadow side, however, gives us tremendous opportunities for growth and development. As you integrate your shadow side and come to terms with your darker half, you see yourself more clearly.

You become more grounded, human, and whole. You may notice an improvement in your relationships with your spouse, family members, friends, and business associates. Dragging around this invisible bag of stuff behind us is draining. Fatigue and lethargy can plague the unexamined life. Mental suppression can also lead to physical pain and disease. John Sarno has healed thousands of patients of chronic back pain by helping them acknowledge the repressed rage in their unconscious. With Jungian shadow work, you liberate a tremendous reservoir of energy you were unconsciously investing in protecting yourself.

As long as we deny our shadows and repress certain parts of ourselves, a sense of wholeness and unity is elusive. Integrating the shadow brings you one step closer to realizing a sense of wholeness.

One of the greatest benefits of Jungian shadow work is that it unlocks more of your creative potential. Creativeness, as psychologists like Abraham Maslow and Carl Rogers found, is a spontaneous occurrence in mentally healthy integrated individuals. This is perhaps the most important thing to do before you engage in shadow work.

Only from your Center can you get to know these parts. This will inhibit your ability to integrate your shadow. Before you begin working with your shadow, you want to be a calm, clear, neutral space.

Start by accepting your own humanness. Remember that we all have a shadow—everyone is in the soup together, as Jung used to say. I find it helpful to connect to my heart: place your attention on your heart.

Breathe in and acknowledge your heart. Seeing the shadow requires a self-reflective mindset—the ability to reflect and observe our behaviors, thoughts, and feelings. Mindfulness meditation helps foster nonjudgmental awareness —the ability to stay aware of the present moment without involving the inner critic or other modes of judgment. Self-awareness and self-reflection are a precursor to shadow work because they help us observe and evaluate feelings and emotional reactions without judgment or criticism.

So, how do you actually do shadow work? As Caraballo and Swart explain, it's all about bringing the unconscious mind to our conscious awareness. It's typically done with a "Socratic approach" of questioning and exploration. This entails asking objective questions that elicit critical thinking and a reexamination of old stories and beliefs we hold about ourselves. And while it is often work done with the help of a mental health professional, you can begin to explore your shadow solo too, by examining your thoughts, feelings, and assumptions.

Below, you'll find some prompts to help you do so. Depending on what kinds of things you've tucked into your own shadow, there's a good chance shadow work can help you get in touch with your deeper knowing, or your intuition. If you were discouraged from using your intuition as a child—trusting your gut and inner compass—Swart says, "then you throw that into the shadow.

When we're operating at an unconscious level, our shadow effectively controls us. So while, yes, facing our shadow is hard work, it's also incredibly freeing. As Swart puts it, "It all sounds very negative, but it's really important to raise it from unconscious to conscious, and then it doesn't rule you like it can when it remains suppressed. In instances like that, shadow work offers us the chance to reclaim the gifts that make us who we are, which we've been hiding away. If you're reading about shadow work, you're likely also interested in your own development and personal growth.

And according to Swart, shadow work is necessary for anyone who wants to become fulfilled and self-actualized. To quote Jung himself, "Everything that irritates us about others can lead us to an understanding of ourselves. So, keep an eye out.

Shadow work is by no means easy, and offering compassion to those parts of ourselves that we have hidden away for so long is important. Again, shadow work is never easy—especially if you've been through trauma. If considering the shadow sides of yourself brings about pain, suffering, or fear that you feel ill-equipped to handle, it's time to seek the help of a licensed professional.

There are lots of ways to approach this, depending on your preferences, with Caraballo including grounding exercises, affirmations , and therapeutic journaling as a few options. So, a good place to start with shadow work would be to think of someone who bothers you, and reflect on what it is about that person that might also be within you, he says. To figure this out, he recommends asking yourself gentle questions such as:. Swart provides another starter exercise to dip your toes into shadow work: analyzing your family tree.

This practice is all about getting honest enough to say, "I love my family, but one of my uncles drinks too much," Swart gives as an example. The next step is to really look at all those qualities that exist within your family, and ask if any of those things are in you. Another exercise involves meditating on, and confronting, your own shadow.

Once you've got a clear or at least somewhat clear view of the aspects of your shadow self, you can begin the work of confronting and releasing them with positive affirmations such as:. In this life, some of our greatest lessons will come from looking at the parts of ourselves we hide away.

Because when we can bring our shadow to the surface, heal, and integrate those lessons into our lives, we evolve exponentially. After all, it was Jung who said, "There is no coming to consciousness without pain. Want your passion for wellness to change the world? Become A Functional Nutrition Coach! Enroll today to join our upcoming live office hours. Our FREE doctor-approved gut health guide.

However, the size and shape of the shadow can change. These changes are caused by the position of the light source. When we are outside on a sunny day, we can see how our shadows change throughout the day. When the Sun is low on the horizon, the shadows are long. When the Sun is high in the sky, the shadows are much shorter. We can create the same effects indoors by changing the position of a torch as it shines on an object.

Although the shadow effects are the same, the reasons for the moving light source are very different. When we use a torch to make long and short shadows indoors, it is the light source that moves.

When the Sun makes long and short shadows outdoors, it is the Earth, not the light source Sun , that moves. From our vantage point on Earth, it appears that the Sun moves across the sky during the day. We see the Sun appear to rise in the east and set in the west. Actually, the Earth is spinning rotating on its axis so it is our view of the Sun in the sky that changes during each hour cycle of light and dark. We see the sunrise when our location on Earth spins towards the light of the Sun.

As the Earth continues to spin, we see the Sun higher in the sky. As the Earth spins away from the light, we see the sunset. When New Zealand is in darkness during the night, the opposite side of the world is in sunlight. During the summer, our location is tilted towards the Sun, so our midday shadows are very short. During the winter, our location is tilted away from the Sun, so our midday shadows are longer. The student activities Investigating shadows , Investigating shadows and the position of the Sun and Investigating shadows using transparent, translucent and opaque materials offer engaging ways to explore the science of light and shadows.

The article and interactive cover the science notes provided in the original BSC book.