What is shadow work?
The Shadow is the side of your personality that contains all the parts of yourself that you don't want to admit to having or the society considers unworthy.
It is our unknown side or our unconscious side. Our Shadow Self can be positive or negative.
The goal is to recognise those personality traits and become self-aware and try to create a healthy balance betweet our "shadow" and "light".
Its a really huge topic and I won't be able to explain everything in detail. But you can find a lot of great information online.
I will give you an example from myself and hope you will understand better what the Shadow is:
I really love dancing and when I was younger I visited dance classes and also volunteered to give some dance classes at school. When I got older I stopped doing this and never liked to dance when other people are around and even judged people who danced like no one was watching. Also when people asked if I wanna go to a club to dance or even when a video parapara project started I really wanted to participate but I always said "no" to do it.
With Shadow work I realized why I ignored this part of myself and tried to hide that I love dancing. When I was younger we had a dance project at school. With a classmate we created a dance routine and had to teach the rest of the class. I had so much fun. But one classmate deccided to make a terrible joke about my weight and later the teacher called me and said that I shouldn't wear tight shirts because bigger people shouldn't wear tight clothes. Since then I ignored this part of my personalty and put it in my "shadow". Whenever someone asked if i like to dance it triggerd this memory and I said "no".
Shadow work has different stages and steps and there many diffent ways on how to do those.
I will share what works for me but you can find many great other ways online!
- The first step is awarness or identifyig the Shadow
What triggered your reaction? Was is a word, a place, a behaviour? Is there maybe a pattern?
This first step is a really big one but can also be very difficult sometimes.
It's not easy to confront those parts of yourself that you tried to hide but allow youself to feel. If you need to cry or shout that's totally fine! All feelings are valid
- Understanding and React
You can do that with many different ways:
-Journaling
-Writing a letter (you don't have to send it)
-Meditation
-Therapy
-Inner child work
-....
- Accepting
It's hard to accept all the pain that happened but with accepting and understanding it will lessen the tigger reactions and from my own experience I can say that this feels amazing.
Shadow work is not about fixing you because there's never been something wrong with you.
When I started with Shadow Work I used those three promts:
1 -Inner desire how I want to be
2 -Doing something "tabu"
3 -Changing the thought prozess and things I say
I will give you again some examples
- Really listen to your Shadow. Do you really want to stay at home and not go to the party? Do you really don't want to say your personal opinion? Is it really ok to say yes? Maybe you really want that pink hair but never dyed it or you always wanted to do Cosplay. Write down how you really want to be
- With tabu I don't mean something illegal but something thats feels tabu to you
- write down things you want to do or say For example: I will stop apologising for things that aren't my fault. And then of cousre also try to achieve those things. And remember that even the smallest step is a step
Maybe wear a really sexy underwear piece which you never wore but always wanted to.
Or an example from myself: I recorded myself dancing
And write down how this made you feel. It made me feel so good! I felt again that joy from the past.The next time I even posted a parapara video and wrote down again how it made me feel.
Take small steps!! Don't try to rush it and push youself in a situation you don't feel safe in!!
With those steps I also slowly understood why I tried to hide some parts of my personality.
Please remember that Shadow Work isn't something you can just do in an hour. This really needs months and sometimes years of work.
Please don't be afraid to ask for professional help when you notice that you can't do this on your own. Shadow Work is not a replacement for therapy but it can really help you to understand yourself better.
Take your time. Healing takes time and that's normal. The hardest step is to start but if read about Shadow Work you maybe even already noticed some things about yourself or maybe you wrote already something down. So without even noticing you already did a step and that's amazing !
You are loved and your feelings are always valid
