Psychospirituality: Psychological and Soul Healing Explained: Carl Jung’s ‘Shadow’, Debbie Ford’s ‘Shadow Work’, and Eminem’s Clarion Call for ‘The Real Slim Shady’ to "Please Stand Up"
- olivierbranford
- Sep 13
- 60 min read
Updated: Sep 23
What is the ‘shadow’? What is ‘shadow work’ and how does it relate to healing? What do Dr Carl Jung, Debbie Ford, and Eminem have to do with all of this?
Healing from suffering, emotional disturbance, mental illness, Soul sickness, or spiritual dis-ease is a choice: It’s your choice. Do you really want to heal?
Fully healing from childhood Trauma, the human condition, and mental illness is the domain of what I call ‘Psychospirituality’, in other words, ‘shadow work.’ Those two terms are for all intents and purposes synonymous. Shadow work has previously been considered to reside only in the domain of psychology: Becoming Self-aware is considered the domain of spirituality. Yet these two fields, namely psychology and spirituality involve the same objective of relieving emotional suffering and reintegrating the fractured psyche: In reality, they both incorporate shadow work. While they may share some concepts and tools (albeit some of these being couched in different terms and metaphors), spirituality incorporates practices that lead to transcendence, in part due to its opennes to a Higher Power, a belief in the Soul, and work towards unity consciousness. John Donne wrote that "No man is an island." Non-duality and connection are alchemical in healing, turning shadow work into gold.
Transcendence means 'to climb beyond.' Does this have an impact on healing? Psychospirituality incorporates both positive psychology an spirituality, harvesting both of their beneficial effects.
In this article, we will explore what the shadow is and describe the techniques for shadow work, which are essentially to bring the subconscious into the conscious, allowing for a fusing of the fractured parts of the psyche and the Soul, bestowing nuclear power to the reintegrated true Self.
This 'Hero's Journey' into healing will take courage: Dr Carl Jung wrote that “Shadow work is the path of the heart warrior.” Debbie Ford popularised the methods of shadow work. Eminem called us to "Please stand up."
Well then, if you are ready, and to quote another legendary hip hop singer-songwriter, Montell Jordan, “Well this is how we do it…”
Let's dive in, with a little help from some friends...
Introduction
Connie Zweig wrote that “Shadow-making happens in families and makes us who we are. It leads to shadow-work, which makes us who we can become... We all have a dark side: There's a reason why. It carries a great deal of energy.”
There is only one consciousness in there. Shadow work is how you awaken and return to it.
There are three parts to your psyche, once you have dispelled of your inner critic: The conscious yet asleep personal ego mind, which is your petrified inner child; your shadow (and a few other less important ‘archetypes’); and your Higher Power. The latter two form your subconscious, which, although being asleep in most of us as adults, may be awakened and brought into consciousness. Oli Anderson says that “Your ego and your shadow are in constant conflict.” This conflict tears us apart internally. Shadow work is the fusion of these parts: Their transformation, re-integration to form your true Self, and not their obliteration.
Shadow work isn’t fixing what’s 'wrong' with you. There is nothing wrong with you. Shadow work involves reclaiming what you’ve hidden; the parts you thought you had to bury to be accepted, loved, or safe. We are not 'bad' people trying to become 'good', we are all spiritually dis-eased and are trying to get well. Shadow work is the true path to healing. Shadow work is the hidden jewel. It is the deep secret, the key to healing, and is the path to liberation and personal transformation. Although it appears throughout history in all of our cultures, and in the creative arts in all their forms, most of us do not appear to know what the shadow is, and so, few have done the work required in order to heal. This is why studies consistently show that fewer than ten percent of us are self-aware. This accounts for the ubiquitous pandemic of mental illness that is synonymous with the human experience.
We have all been affected by childhood Trauma, whether we know it or not. This always involves a lack of feeling unconditionally loved. We come to believe that this is our fault and so we judge ourselves. We sell our authenticity in order to form attachment to our caregivers as without attachment we will die. So, we suppress the parts that we feel are unwanted in that we fear that they make us unloveable. This is reinforced by our parents, however much they may claim to love us (they do not love us enough to allow us to be fully ourselves), and by societal expectations.
For me, the aspects of my Self that I had to repress as a child in order to feel loved by my mother were my boundless energy, creativity, abundance, feeling and expressing my emotions, joy, assertive anger, unconditional love, passion, peace, restfulness, gentleness, acceptance, being able to surrender, my independence, authenticity, intelligence, intuition, clarity, and even presence and awareness itself. These aspects are needs that are fundamental to the human experience. They are called needs because we need them. For example, giving up our need for restfulness when necessary leads to depression, starving us of 'deep-rest'. These aspects of our persona are essential to spiritual growth, personal transformation, and healing. We give away our true Personal Power to others: It's time for us to reclaim it.
What have you had to suppress? Have you had to suppress your light? Marianne Williamson, the American author, philosopher, spiritual teacher, and presidential candidate famously wrote that “Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, 'Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous?' Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing Enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It's not just in some of us; it's in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.” She gets my vote!
The shadow doesn’t just include ‘negative’ aspects of our personality, but also 'positive' ones. The things we idolise or adore, and sometimes resent, in other people is un-lived potential within us and also part of our shadow.
The highest levels of positive psychology aim for transcendence: Spirituality is your orbital rocket booster that sends you into this limitless interplanetary trajectory by actually giving you the techniques to achieve this. Both deal with the reintegration of the fractured psyche: A process also known as ‘individuation’ by Dr Carl Jung, the doyen of everything psychiatric, psychological, and psychanalytic, who also happened to be regarded by his most inspired colleagues as a 'prophet'. No surprises there! He was!
Jung wrote about his role as a psychiatrist that “Thinking within the framework of the special task that is laid upon me: To be a proper psychiatrist is to be a healer of the Soul.” On psychotherapy, Jung commented that “Therefore our Lord himself is a healer; he is a doctor; he heals the sick and he deals with the troubles of the Soul; and that is exactly what we call psychotherapy.” Even though he did not use the term, Jung was describing psychospirituality. He knew the importance of spirituality in healing a century ago: And yet, somehow, some psychiatrists and psychotherapists still haven't caught on to the importance and potential contribution of spirituality to positive psychology with regards to fully recovering from mental illness.
Psychology and spirituality are only distinguished by psychology not recognising the Soul, which may be also called your Higher Power, Love, God, Nature, Energy, or the Universe. It may also be called the 'quantum field': Science and spirituality are not so different when you look close enough in. All of these are simply different metaphors for consciousness. Without your Soul, you are quite simply unable to be whole as your true Self. As your Higher Power can be anything that you want it to be, there is no need for this nitpicking distinction by psychologists, unless they want to limit themselves in their ability to heal.
Healing means wholeness: The etymology of the word 'healing' is 'to make whole.' Without an approach that includes recovery of our true Self, our physical and mental health (including the effects of childhood Trauma), are compromised. With it, we are made whole, and this is the basis of true healing.
What is Jung's 'shadow'?
Carl Jung said that “The shadow is what we hide, repress or deny.”
The shadow originates in self-judgement. The shadow is the sum of the parts of you that you suppressed. These are all the parts of you that you are shaming. You need to learn to fully accept and unconditionally love those parts of you. They need more love than the other parts. It is easy to love your wounded inner child. But you need to learn to love your shadow, as initially the shadow will only get that love from you, until you coax it into the light, so you need self-awareness and self-compassion.
Robert Louis Stephenson wrote in the famous ‘The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde’ "Man is not truly one, but truly two."
Our shadow is made up of all the parts of ourselves that we hide, deny, and don’t want to see in ourselves – both the positive and the negative. Our shadow is all the aspects that we reject out of shame, fear or, disapproval. It is made up of any part of ourselves that we believe is unacceptable, will be met with disapproval by others, or that annoys, horrifies, or disgusts us about other people or about ourselves. As Jung said “Our shadow is the person we would rather not be.”
In the opening chapter of 'Psychology and Alchemy' Jung wrote that "The labours of the doctor as well as the quest of the patient are directed towards that hidden and as yet unmanifest 'whole' man, who is at once the greater and the future man."
Jung wrote that "Closer examination of the dark characteristics reveals that they have an emotional nature. On this lower level with its uncontrolled or scarcely controlled emotions one behaves more or less like a simpleton, who is not only the passive victim of his emotions, but also singularly incapable of moral judgement. The way I see it - if you do not understand your own propensity for evil or ‘bad deeds’, you will unwittingly inflict it upon others. You cannot change what you are blind to."
Jung wrote “Until you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life and you will call it fate.” He continued, saying that “If such a person wants to be cured it is necessary to find a way in which his conscious personality and his shadow can live together.” He famously said “One does not become Enlightened by imagining figures of light, but by making the darkness conscious.” He said paradoxically that “To confront a person with his shadow is to show him his own light.”
Jung asks: “How can I be substantial if I fail to cast a shadow?” He makes clear that the unconscious is not bad or evil; it is just hidden from us. Jung describes the shadow also as being “The source of the highest good: Not only dark, but also light; not only bestial, semi-human and demonic, but superhuman, spiritual” and, in Jung’s word, 'divine.'
Jung wrote “The first half of life is devoted to forming the ego; the second half is going inward and letting it go.” He believed that the ego must be surrendered as a result of personal and spiritual growth and evolution in order to allow the true Self to emerge. With the benefit of the retrospectascope in looking at more recent studies and updated philosophies on childhood Trauma I would update Jung’s statement to say that “The preverbal stage of life generates our mortal fears and forms our personal ego mind, which is riddled with preferences, reinforced by conditioning and expectations during childhood, and this self-judgement creates our shadow; the second half of life consists of surrendering the ego from our conscious minds, creating enough space inside in order for us to bring our Higher Self and our shadow out of our subconscious into our conscious, allowing for full integration of these parts of our psyches to form our true Self.
The shadow as a timeless universal concept
The concept of the shadow, explicitly iterated by Jung, are timeless truths, appearing in many cultures throughout history.
In the ‘I Ching’, the ancient Chinese text from around 1000 BC, used as the basis for philosophy, wisdom, and understanding the Universe, it states that “It’s only when we have the courage to face things exactly as they are, without any self-deception or illusion, that a light will develop out of events by which the path to success may be recognised.” The I Ching also formed the foundations of Confucian and Taoist philosophy. The entire system in I Ching is based on the fundamental principle of yin and yang, representing opposing yet complementary forces in the Universe: This duality forms the entire basis of the philosophy behind shadow work, representing light and dark. It is our societal inclination, and subsequent conditioning, towards duality that causes our suffering.
In the sacred Hindu text the 'Bhagavad Gita', written in the second century BC, featuring a dialogue between the warrior Arjuna and his guide, Lord Krishna, it states the futility of fighting your shadow "It's like fighting our own shadow - exhausting and pointless.” It continues "You can't integrate what you refuse to name. You can't know yourself while rejecting half of you". With a prescient and spookily similarity to Jung's description of the shadow and Debbie Ford’s shadow work, the 'Gita' states that "Freedom isn't found in the light. It's found in the courage to walk through the dark and not look away".
In the Bible in Psalm 23:1–6 it is written that "Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me." The verse does not explicitly mention the shadow self. However, one might interpret walking through the "Valley of the shadow of death" as a metaphor for confronting one's own shadow. For someone confronting their shadow self, the verse can be seen as an encouragement to face these hidden aspects of themselves with the belief that they can be comforted and guided through the process by some aspect of divinity and Faith.
The ancient Greek philosopher Socrates said in around 450 BC that “The unexamined life is not worth living.” Living an examined life, which means through self-reflection, leads to an authentic way of Being.
William Shakespeare, the greatest author who ever lived, who was also an undoubted spiritual master, was very familiar with this wisdom, and although he didn't explicitly use the term 'shadow self,' he explored related concepts of inner darkness and the fragmented nature of identity, often using references to darkness or shadow, such as in Lago's confession in Othello "This thing of darkness I acknowledge mine" and the idea of internal conflict in Part 1 of Henry VI: "No, no, I am but shadow of myself: You are deceiv'd, my substance is not here." He also uses the imagery of shadows to represent illusion and the fleeting nature of life, as seen in Macbeth's famous Act 5, Scene 5, "Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow, Creeps in this petty pace from day to day, To the last syllable of recorded time; And all our yesterdays have lighted fools The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle! Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player, That struts and frets his hour upon the stage, And then is heard no more. It is a tale Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, Signifying nothing"
The great philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche encouraged us to "Embrace your shadow".
Sigmund Freud said that "Unexpressed emotions will never die. They are buried alive and will come forth later in uglier ways," alluding to the hidden aspects of the personality that, when denied or unacknowledged, can bubble up, manifesting in negative ways as described below.
Following on from Jung, Carl Rogers, a significant, foundational, and esteemed figure in humanistic psychology and positive psychology, stated that "The curious paradox is that when I accept myself just as I am, then I can change". The idea is that by stopping the resistance to who you are and instead embracing it, you create a space for growth and transformation to occur naturally. When you stop fighting against who you are this brings an end to all suffering.
Alan Watts, the British American philosopher who popularised Buddhist, Taoist, and Hindu philosophy for a Western audience, advocated for a holistic view of human nature, encouraging the integration of all aspects of the Self, including the traditionally negative or shadowy parts, to achieve true balance and inner peace.
The Harvard professor of psychology, turned philosopher and spiritual guru, who came to be known by his spiritual name ‘Ram Dass’, meaning ‘Servant of God’, taught that "The shadow is the greatest teacher for how to come to the light." He spoke of the spiritual path as a process of descent into the darkness and suffering of the self to find a deeper truth and emerge in power and wisdom, much like a phoenix rising from the ashes. We need to descend to ascend.
Are you ready to accept yourself and embrace the darkness within?
How does the shadow manifest itself?
There are many ways our shadow parts show up in our conscious lives:
Fear
Jealousy
Addiction
Depression
Anxiety
Codependency
Creating conflict and drama
Self-sabotage
'Power' struggles
Lies
Manipulation
Judging others and taking a fake 'moral' high ground
Projection
Procrastination
Resentment
People pleasing
Passive-aggressiveness, aggressive anger, and uncontrolled rage
Violent behaviour and abuse
Victimisation
Guilt and shame
Reactivity
Discontentment
Lack of self-confidence and being afraid to speak up
Blaming external circumstance or others rather than looking inwards
Weak boundaries
Fears around putting yourself and your creative work out into the world (fear of judgement, leading to procrastination and self-sabotage)
Fear of having a voice, being 'seen', or taking up space
Not doing what you know you need to do or what is good for you
Being obsessed with money, success, and external validation
Relationship issues (anxious or avoidant attachment styles)
Everything that scares you sinks deep into your shadow (sometimes it becomes a big inner ‘monster’). What are fears that you repeatedly have to deal with?
Debbie Ford and 'shadow work'
Debbie Ford, was an American personal development author, transformative life coach, lecturer and teacher, most known for The New York Times best-selling book, ‘The Dark Side of the Light Chasers: Reclaiming Your Power, Creativity, Brilliance, and Dreams’, which aimed to help readers overcome their shadow side with the help of modern psychology and spiritual practices. She did much to popularise 'shadow work.' She said that “Our shadows hold the essence of who we are. They hold our most treasured gifts. By facing these aspects of ourselves, we become free to experience our glorious totality: The ‘good’ and the ‘bad’, the dark and the light.”
One of the most important principles that you will ever learn is this: The way you feel about yourself on the inside determines what you will create for yourself on the outside. In other words, your external world is a direct reflection of your internal world. The way you feel about yourself in the privacy of your own thoughts will show up in the quality of your relationships, the level of abundance and financial success you can attain, and the amount of real love, health, vitality, laughter and joy you will experience in your daily life. If your insides are all messed up, so will be your life. Ford strongly believed that the key to unlocking your true authentic power, opening up your heart deeply to love, and finding the confidence to go after everything you want in your life lies hidden in your shadow. Her shadow work was to address the fact that from its invisible home deep within our psyche, the shadow wields enormous power over our lives. It determines what we can and cannot do, what we will be irresistibly drawn toward, and what we will do almost anything to avoid. It dictates our attractions and our repulsions and it determines what we will love and what we will judge and criticise. Our shadow is an oracle and teacher that predicts and creates all of our thoughts, beliefs, and behaviours, driving the way we treat those around us - and how we treat ourselves.
People often want to run away from their shadows. They don’t want anyone to see their shadow. But running away from our shadows is what trips us up. It is what causes us to self-sabotage. It is what has us not go after our dreams and stay stuck in fear. If we want to radically reinvent our lives, be all that we can be, and turn the tide on mediocrity, playing it safe, and settling, then we must run toward the aspects of ourselves that we fear and have shame around instead of running away. It is only when we have the courage to face ourselves exactly as we are, right now, without any self-deception or illusion, that we will have the ability to give ourselves everything that we desire and deserve in this lifetime.
She wrote “Your life will be transformed when you make peace with your shadow. The caterpillar will become a breathtakingly beautiful butterfly. You will no longer have to pretend to be someone you’re not. You will no longer have to prove you’re good enough.”
She wrote in 'The Secret of The Shadow: The Power of Owning Your Own Story' that "To liberate ourselves from the confines of our stories, we must be willing to give up the comfort of our self-made cocoons. I once heard a story of a young girl who asks a wise old woman, 'How does one become a butterfly?' With a twinkle in her eye and a big smile, the old woman replies, 'You must want to fly so much that you are willing to give up being a caterpillar.' The highest levels of Transformative Life Coaching (TLC) gets you ready to fly. Breaking out of the cocoons of our stories can sometimes be a slow and painful process, but the moment we break away, we liberate our Souls and bask in the joy of emotional and spiritual freedom. In order to step outside our stories, we must first learn to love, honour, and cherish them for all the ways they have contributed to us. We must acknowledge the experiences they have brought and the wisdom they have bestowed on us. Then and only then will we be able to make peace with our stories and move beyond them to fulfill our deepest desires."
Ford wrote in her book 'The Dark Side of the Light Chasers: Reclaiming Your Power, Creativity, Brilliance, and Dreams' that "Every aspect of ourselves has a gift. Every emotion and every trait we possess helps show us the way to Enlightenment, to oneness. We all have a shadow that is part of our total reality. Our shadow is here to point out where we are incomplete. It is here to teach us love, compassion, and forgiveness, not just for others but also for ourselves. And when the shadow is embraced, it can heal us. It is not just our denied 'darkness' that finds its way into the recesses of our shadow. There is a 'light shadow,' a place where we have buried our power, our competence, and our authenticity. The dark parts of our psyches are only dark when they are stuffed away and hidden. When we bring them into the light of our consciousness and find their sacred gifts, they transform us. Then we are free."
She continued "I wasn't willing to appreciate my talents. For some reason, I had always believed that downplaying the best parts of myself made me a better person. That afternoon I learned one of the most valuable lessons of my life: not only is it okay to say nice things about ourselves, it's imperative. We must recognise our gifts and our talents. We must learn to appreciate and honour all that we do well. We must search out our uniqueness. Many people cannot own their success, happiness, health, beauty, and divinity. They are afraid to see that they are powerful, successful, sexy, and creative. Their fear keeps them from exploring these parts of themselves. But in order to authentically love ourselves we have to embrace all of who we are, not just the dark but the light as well. And learning to recognise our own talents allows us to appreciate and love everyone else's unique gifts."
So, the shadow is really a friend, a friend that is whispering (and sometimes screaming) to wake us up. It is inviting us to tell ourselves the truth and to come out of denial. The shadow is really just a part of us that needs love, a part of us that has been wounded, ignored, and denied. For us to be the fullest expression of ourselves and to manifest all we want in the outer world, it’s vital to find love and compassion for the totality of our humanity - our light and our dark aspects, the selfish and the selfless parts of ourselves, the kind and the angry, the brilliant and the stupid - not just parts of it. We must learn to love the totality of our humanity if we want to embrace the fullness of our human experience.
This is why we love the shadow. This is the promise of shadow work. It’s the beginning of a journey, a journey of knowing yourself, creating your life at a whole new level, loving your humanity, and allowing your divinity to be fully expressed.
The most important healing modality in shadow work is experiencing unconditional love and also offering unconditional love to all the parts of yourself. The reason your shadow went into hiding and became unconscious is because it felt that it had to repress itself for the rest of your psyche to be loved.
It begs the question “Does shadow work allow you to be fully healed from Trauma so that any addictions or mental illnesses that you may have as a result are cured and not just held at bay?”
Debbie Ford wrote “Every one of us has constructed an ego-based identity in which we have assigned ourselves an acceptable role that eventually smothers our full self-expression. Rather than being who we really are, we become a characterisation of the person we think we ‘should’ be.”
But from Trauma comes transformation. As Debbie Ford wrote “Sometimes, we forget that we ever wanted anything different from what we have. The repetitiveness of our toxic memory can lure us into years of accepting more of the same and wasting away in a mediocre existence that fails to meet even our own expectations... Like the lotus flower that is born out of mud, we must honour the darkest parts of ourselves and the most painful of our life’s experiences, because they are what allow us to birth our most beautiful Self. We need the messy, muddy past, the muck of our human life - the combination of every hurt, wound, loss, and unfulfilled desire blended with every joy, success, and blessing to give us the wisdom, the perspective, and the drive to step into the most magnificent expression of ourselves. This is the gift of the shadow.” You receive the gift when you accept your Self and become whole.
Marianne Williamson writes “Your character defects are not where you’re bad, but where you’re wounded. But no matter who or what caused the wound, it’s yours now and you’re responsible for it. The only person who can bring it up and release it is you. Ultimately, it doesn’t matter where you got your character defects anyway. They’re yours now. You can’t live with a sign around your neck saying, ‘It’s not my fault. My parents were difficult.’ Your only way out of your conundrum is to take total responsibility for those defects.” As Rumi said “The wound is the place where the Light enters you.”
As superachievers we have been accumulating emotional debt to the past. That’s what burying emotions alive does. Childhood is the learning ground for shame, negativity, inferiority, and resentment as it was secretly deposited and then remains hidden in the shadow. You did nothing wrong. Make peace with this debt now and you will be healed by turning a negative into a positive as the psyche will remember and be prepared without feeling that emotion. Don’t recycle the negative emotions once you have healed them. These echoes of healing just torment you. We don’t need to protect ourselves from a childhood that has long gone. Like running from a real lion without being afraid. That’s the positive: You become detached and protected. Negativity is sticky. It’s a survival mechanism. But it isn’t you. Enjoy the lightness of being. That’s how children are naturally until the shadow teaches projection - be carefree. Become detached.
There is collective unconsciousness: This is the place of judgement, conflict, and hate. No-one wins in the blame game. Collective consciousness is the answer but the unconscious limits it and holds it back and yet has the potential to propel it forwards.
Debbie Ford writes beautifully on this "We continue to succumb to our lower impulses, sabotage our own desires and neglect our future in an attempt to hide our discontent, we put on a happy face, muster our best 'everything is fine look', and continue acting out in ways that undermine our Self-esteem and defeat our best laid plans. In the course of raising our children, and chasing success, answers to the very questions that will help us grow allude us. Sometimes we forget that we even ever wanted anything different from what we have. The repetitiveness of our toxic memory can lure us into years of accepting more of the same, and wasting away in a mediocre existence that fails to meet even our own expectations. Unfortunately this method of survival strips us of the ability to live the life that we were meant to live. The emotional pain that surfaces as a part of everyday life has us wish away our past, and become resigned about our future. We become victims of the past and hopeless about what's to come. Cynical and skeptical, we fall pray to judgement, opting to point our finger at others, rather than look inside for the answers to our woes. The robotic nature of our egocentric self rises up to help us overcome our rising feelings of insecurity and shame by protesting our innocence and proclaiming our differences. Rather than taking the time to pierce the veil between who we think we are and who we really want to be we allow the illusional life that exists in our minds to be in control. The problem with this approach to life is that it prevents us from discovering our true Self and it endangers the areas of our lives that are most important to us. When we are busy protecting ourselves from the demons that lurk in the dark we miss out on feeling joyful, connected to those we love, intent on hiding the darker half of our human nature we fail to reach our full potential and experience the depth and richness of our lives. We were born whole, yet most of us are living as partial human beings. We are meant to discover our authentic nature. The state of BEing in which we are inspired by ourselves, turned on, lit up, and excited about who we are. We are meant to overcome adversity and manifest the greatest version of our own individual soul. Not a version of a Self that is birthed out of fantasy. Big blown out fantasies about our lives stem from the pain of our unrealised potential. But true dreams are a reality which we are willing to work for, fight for, stay up late for. This is a future that is within our reach. And there is only one thing that can rob us of that future and that is our shadow. Our dark side, our secrets, our repressed feelings and our hidden impulses. The great Swiss psychologist Carl Jung tells us that our shadow is the person that we would rather not be. Our own shadow can be seen in the person in our family that we judge the most, the celebrity who causes us to shake our heads in disgust. If we understand this correctly we come to the startling and sometimes sobering realisation that our own shadow is everything that annoys or disgusts us about other people or about ourselves. With that wisdom in hand we begin to see that our shadow is all that we try to hide from those we love and all that we don't want other people to find out about us. Our shadow is made up of the thoughts, emotions, and impulses that we find too painful, embarrassing or distasteful to accept. So instead of dealing with them we repress them, seal them away in a part of our psyche so that we won't have to feel the burden and shame they carry with them. Our shadow filled with rhetoric and a hypocritical set of rules that we can never adhere to leads us to glorify some and demonise others. It began with the teacher that called us 'stupid', the bully who taunted us, or the first love who ever abandoned us. We have all hidden away and repressed pain-filled shame-filled moments and over time these emotions harden into our shadow. These are the unexpressed fears, the horrifying shame, the gnawing guilt. these are all the issues of the past that we have never faced. Our shadow can accumulate over years of denial. As the shadow takes shape we begin to lose access to a fundamental part of our true nature, our greatness, our compassion and our authenticity get buried beneath the parts of ourselves that we have disconnected from. Then our shadow gains the upper hand. It can trick us into believing that we are too unworthy, incapable, unlovable to be the superstar of our own life. It is our dark side, the repressed and disown aspects of our personality that cuts us off from our true Self. The fact is that anything that we have hidden away or denied out of shame and fear holds the key to unlock a Self that we feel proud of. A Self thats inspires us, a Self that is propelled into action. by great vision and purpose, rather than one thats is created out of our limitations and the unhealed wounds of our past. This is why we must explore our shadow. This is why we must unveil and reclaim our whole Self, our true Self. This is why we must look within to examine the underpinnings of our life Hidden here is the blueprint, a template, a vision of our authentic Self."
Dr Gabor Maté writes "What we want and demand from the world needs to conform to our present needs, not to unconscious, unsatisfied needs from childhood. If distinctions between past and present blur, we will perceive loss or the threat of loss where none exists; and the awareness of those genuine needs that do require satisfaction, rather than their repression for the sake of gaining the acceptance or approval of others. Stress occurs in the absence of these criteria, and it leads to the disruption of homeostasis. Chronic disruption results in ill health."
We are dualistic in nature as human beings as part of our human conditioning and experience. Deepak Chopra writes “The conflict between who we are and who we want to be is at the core of the human struggle. Duality, in fact, lies at the very centre of the human experience. Life and death, good and evil, hope and resignation coexist in every person and exert their force in every facet of our lives. If we know courage, it is because we have also experienced fear; if we can recognise honesty, it is because we have encountered deceit. And yet most of us deny or ignore our dualistic nature.”
Plato wrote in Republic "There is in every one of us, even those who seem to be the most moderate, a type of desire that is terrible, wild and lawless."
Friedrich Nietzsche described in Thus Spoke Zarathustra "Fear of wild animals - that has been bred into the human being for the longest time, including the animal that he harbours within and fears: Zarathustra calls it the beast within."
When we divide the world into good and evil, which is a cosmic joke, we each contribute to the collective conflict and drama that is so omnipresent in the world right now and between people at every level by judging.
We are part of the whole. There is no need to label anyone as right or wrong in the joke that is drama. It misses so much. The holistic view also releases a deep intuitive knowing. Duality is like believing in the devil. What if everything fits into a single scheme such as consciousness? It is infinite and all powerful that unfolds into myriad forms. Information is shared by every part of the whole. Ultimately there are no words at all. BEing is far from passive. It is a silent intelligence inside every cell of your body. The consciousness found everywhere is inexpressible and far exceeds the human mind. That’s why it’s overwhelming when you tap into it. Beauty, love, bliss, visions are all greater than the human mind. Thats why we need to expand our consciousness.
Resentment is soul suicide. Dr Gabor Maté writes "Strong convictions do not necessarily signal a powerful sense of self: very often quite the opposite. Intensely held beliefs may be no more than a person’s unconscious effort to build a sense of self to fill what, underneath, is experienced as a vacuum."
Projection is the subconscious projection onto others of what we do not accept in our self. Dr Gabor Maté says "Shame is the deepest of the “negative emotions,” a feeling we will do almost anything to avoid. Unfortunately, our abiding fear of shame impairs our ability to see reality." Projection is one finger pointed that way, but that leaves three fingers pointing back at yourself. Psychoanalyst Molly Tuby says that we can glimpse our shadow in our exaggerated feelings about others, in negative feedback from others who serve as our mirrors, when we have the same negative effect on different people, in our impulsive acts, in situations where we feel humiliated, and in our exaggerated anger about other people's flaws. Other tell-tale signs that you are projecting are that you are more triggered than just aware, you are in awe of others to the point of hero worship, you feel revulsion to the point of enmity - and that they last two change rapidly, you are certain that you know another's mind and motives, you repeat the same story about different people, your triggering is disproportionate compared to other people, you find your self looking for traps/proof that the behaviour you wish to accuse someone of. Everyone is using projection as a way of not looking inwards. For example f you have feelings of infidelity you project them on others. If you have feelings of shame you project them on others: Etc. etc. It’s a way of saying "I’m okay but you are not" and when really the first step should be "I’m not okay". There is no reason to label anyone as not okay. Everyone has the condition until they look at their shadow. Blame disguises your feeling that you are at fault and should be ashamed of your self. Blame disguises your feeling that you are a weak child that needs taking care of when that’s a universal condition. We are all victims of victims. The clue to projection is negativity. If someone is being negative, they are projecting on you instead of looking inwards. We have a collective responsibility to look within instead of blaming. Everyone has the condition until they look inside. Thats why it's called a 'Blame culture'. We all need to stop being the cause of war. It is our violence, hidden and denied as our shadow that leads to drama, conflict and war. The violence of the world is on each of us. J. Krishnamurti wrote “Inside you is the cause of every war. It is your violence, hidden and denied, that leads to wars of every kind, whether it is war inside your home, against others in society, or between nations.” We are sharing in a shared self and contributing to the collective unconscious. Denial is powerful. The shadow is secretive. We all need to stop holding up negativity. It represents a deep sense of inferiority in ourselves. Just before we create negativity we feel what we don’t want to feel. That’s how we know. Lao Tzu said "When people see some things as beautiful, other things become ugly. When people see some things as good, other things become bad." Carl Jung said "If you hate a person, you hate something in him that is part of your Self. What isn't part of our Selves doesn't disturb us."
Edward Edinger said "Confronting the shadow means to stop blaming others." Carl Jung said *Everyone carries a shadow, and the less embodied in the individual's conscious life, the blacker and denser it is."
When you are unhappy with something only you can make yourself happy. One needs to be able to give oneself a free pass to make mistakes on our journey. Any spiritual or compassionate approach would incorporate this. Then you can’t fail. Love that radical self compassion. You can only fail if you stop or are stopped.
Carl Jung said "The best political, social, and spiritual work we can do is to withdraw the projection of our shadow on others."
Neville Goddard said "To protest against anything which happens to us is to protest against the law of our being and our ruler ship over our own destiny."
Carl Jung said "We carry our past with us, to wit, the primitive and inferior man with his desires and emotions, and it is only with an enormous effort that we can detach ourselves from this burden. If it comes to a neurosis, we invariably have to deal with a considerably intensified shadow. And if such a person wants to be cured it is necessary to find a way in which his conscious personality and his shadow can live together."
Marianne Williamson writes “Our power to override their destructive intensity lies in our ability to love with as much conviction as they show in hate. Hating with conviction, they draw forth more hatred; when we love with greater conviction, we will draw forth more love.”
The key to dealing with the shadow is integration not incarceration. Shadow work is about three words: allow, accept, embrace. We need to make it conscious, heal it and integrate it.
The shadow should not be ignored, denied, repressed, feared, fought, or caged - that is what we have been doing our whole lives. We have to learn to uncover, face, understand, accept, and love our shadow, integrate the shadow and become 'whole'. Then we can transcend it and become truly self-aware and limitless: Self-actualisation. Sophocles said "A human being is only breath and shadow." Breath represents the present, higher Self: We need both the shadow and the higher Self to be whole.
The Academy of Ideas - Part 2: The Integration of the Shadow; Accepting the Shadow.
Carl Jung said "In each of us there is another whom we do not know." This applies to the shadow and the higher Self.
Your joy is your sorrow unmasked.
95 percent of us life an unexamined life. We are asleep, acting from our unconscious conditioned minds.
What do we do about projections? The answer is self-inquiry, own the projection, accept your shadow, then integrate it. Ask your self is it true what you feel is negative in others? Can you absolutely believe it is true? When have you been like that? If you get annoyed its something that you have suppressed in your self.
Carl Rogers said "The curious paradox is that when I accept myself just as I am, then I can change."
Debbie Ford writes “Although ignoring or repressing our dark side is the norm, the sobering truth is that running from the shadow only intensifies its power. Denying it only leads to more pain, suffering, regret, and resignation. If we fail to take responsibility and extract the wisdom that has been hidden beneath the surface of our conscious minds, the shadow will take charge.”
Deepak Chopra writes “When we expose our dark side, we understand how our personal history dictates the way we treat those around us—and how we treat ourselves. This is why it’s imperative that we unmask it and understand it. To do this, we must uncover what we’ve hidden and befriend the very impulses and characteristics that we abhor.”
As Deepak Chopra writes “Only in the presence of an unwavering commitment to facing our demons does the doorway to self-discovery open.”
We all fear judgement. As part of becoming our higher Self we need to let go of external validation as a source of joy. This is even more acute for superachievers as for us being attached through being approved of is a matter of life and death. As Deepak Chopra writes "Judgement is guilt wearing a moral mask to disguise its pain." No-one should judge. “ As Wilson Kanadi wrote "Those who judge will never understand, and those who understand will never judge.” As Debbie Ford writes “When we hold on to our resentments toward ourselves or anyone else, we bind ourselves to the very thing that has caused us pain by a cord stronger than steel. As my dear friend Brent BecVar shares, refusing to forgive those who have hurt us ‘is like being a drowning person whose head is being held under water by someone else. At some point you realise that you have to be the one who fights your way back to the surface.’“ She continues “Whatever we judge or condemn in another is ultimately a disowned or rejected part of ourselves. When we are in the midst of projection, it appears as though we are seeing the other person, but in reality we are seeing a hidden aspect of ourselves.”
"We have been conditioned to fear the shadow side of life and the shadow side of ourselves. When we catch ourselves thinking a dark thought or acting out in a behaviour that we feel is unacceptable, we run, just like a groundhog, back into our hole and hide, hoping, praying, it will disappear before we venture out again. Why do we do this? Because we are afraid that no matter how hard we try, we will never be able to escape from this part of ourselves. And although ignoring or repressing our dark side is the norm, the sobering truth is that running from the shadow only intensifies its power. Denying it only leads to more pain, suffering, regret, and resignation. If we fail to take responsibility and extract the wisdom that has been hidden beneath the surface of our conscious minds, the shadow will take charge, and instead of us being able to have control over it, the shadow winds up having control over us, triggering the shadow effect. Our dark side then starts making our decisions for us, stripping us of our right to make conscious choices whether it’s what food we will eat, how much money we will spend, or what addiction we will succumb to. Our shadow incites us to act out in ways we never imagined we could and to waste our vital energy on bad habits and repetitive behaviours."
Osho Gita said "Accept your Self as you are. And that is the most difficult thing in the world, because it goes against all your training, education, your culture." That is why Dr Gabor Maté says in his lecture about the 5 levels of compassion that we must been seen with total compassion by another, for this acceptance to commence. And after that we must be patient and realise that acceptance is a lifelong journey - we wont get 100 percent of the way there overnight, and getting less than 100 percent is a challenge for overachievers.
As Deepak Chopra writes "The first step in defeating the shadow is to abandon all notions of defeating it. The dark side of human nature thrives on war, struggle, and conflict. As soon as you talk about ‘winning,’ you have lost already... We can't fight darkness with darkness. We have to find compassion, and embrace the darkness inside of us in order to understand it and, ultimately, to transcend it... Higher consciousness is the answer—the only lasting answer—to the dark side of human nature... It sounds strange, but feelings have feelings. Being part of you, they know when they are unwanted. Fear cooperates by hiding; anger cooperates by pretending it doesn’t exist. That’s more than half the problem. How can you heal an unwanted feeling when it’s trying not to cooperate? You can’t. Until you make peace with negative feelings, they will persist. The way to deal with negativity is to acknowledge it. Nothing more is needed.”
Integrity stems from the Latin word 'integer' which means whole and complete. So integrity requires an inner sense of 'wholeness' and consistency of character. If you want to liberate yourself accept yourself. Carl Jung said "There is no light without shadow and no psychic wholeness without imperfection. To round itself out, life calls not for perfection but for completeness; and for this the "thorn in the flesh" is needed, the suffering of defects without which there is no progress and no ascent."
If we asked the shadow what it needs it would say space to show its vulnerability, but what it really needs is compassion and love.
Debbie Ford writes “Heroes are only as strong as their villains.”
Carl Jung said "The shadow is ninety percent pure gold." The shadow is an amazing repository of gifts in our selves. How do we integrate these parts as a great resource? He continued "To confront a person with his shadow is to show him his own light.”
Poet and author Robert Bly describes the shadow as an invisible bag that each of us carries around on our back. As we’re growing up, we put in the bag every aspect of ourselves that is not acceptable to our families and friends. Bly believes we spend the first few decades of our life filling up our bag, and then the rest of our life trying to retrieve everything we’ve hidden away.” As Confucius wrote “We have two lives, and the second begins when we realise we only have one.”
Debbie Ford writes “We possess every human characteristic and emotion, whether active or dormant, whether conscious or unconscious. There is nothing we can conceive of that we are not. We are everything—that which we consider good and that which we consider bad. How could we know courage if we have never known fear? How could we know happiness if we never experienced sadness? How could we know light if we never knew dark?” As superachievers we have known the depths of darkness: This allows our light to shine like a supernova.
Deepak Chopra writes “You get the emotions you think you deserve.” When we can start to believe that we deserve joy, love, fulfillments and peace, we will access them.
Our shadow is our source of limiting beliefs in our Selves. Limiting beliefs are what hold us back in work and in life. These must be addressed if we are to realise our true potential.
Debbie Ford writes“Only when we stop pretending to be something we are not—when we no longer feel the need to hide or overcompensate for either our weaknesses or our gifts—will we know the freedom of expressing our authentic self and have the ability to make choices that are based on the life we truly desire to live... I believe that the shadow is one of the greatest gifts available to us. Carl Jung called it a ‘sparring partner’; it is the opponent within us that exposes our flaws and sharpens our skills. It is the teacher, the trainer, and the guide that supports us in uncovering our true magnificence. The shadow is not a problem to be solved or an enemy to be conquered but a fertile field to be cultivated. When we dig our hands into its rich soil, we will discover the potent seeds of the people we most desire to be.” In Transformative Life Coaching (TLC) you will learn that by BEing the acorn you will grow into the mighty oak, as acorns do, if you are prepared to face the dirt of the soil in which we grow.
Only by choosing to BE our authentic integrated selves, which involves embodying and integrating our wounded inner child that so needs love, our shadow that so needs compassion, and our adult assertive fearless self will we become the light that we, our loved ones, our connections and the world so desperately needs. As Debbie Ford writes “It’s ironic that to find the courage to lead an authentic life, you will have to go into the dark rooms of your most inauthentic self. You have to confront the very parts of yourself that you fear most to find what you have been looking for, because the mechanism that drives you to conceal your darkness is the same mechanism that has you hide your light. What you’ve been hiding from can actually give you what you’ve been trying hard to achieve... To be a whole human being, we have to acknowledge the existence of all our feelings, human qualities, and experiences and value not just the parts of ourselves that our ego has deemed acceptable, but everything that we have deemed wrong or bad. If we are willing to allow our dark side to be a part of the whole of who we are, we will find it comes equipped with all the power, skill, intelligence, and force needed to do great things in the world.”
When we learn to let go of our numbing fantasies of validation, fame, and recognition can we begin to realise our dreams. Debbie Ford writes “Big, blown-out fantasies about our lives stem from the pain of our unrealised potential, but true dreams are a reality we are willing to work for, fight for, stay up late for—this is a future that is within our reach... Why do we have access to so much wisdom yet fail to have the strength and courage to act upon our good intentions by making powerful choices? Why do we continue to act out in ways that go against our value system and all that we stand for? […] It is because of our unexamined life, our darker self, our shadow self where our unclaimed power lies hidden. It is here, in this least likely place, that we will find the key to unlock our strength, our happiness, and our ability to live out our dreams.”
Doing the inner work rejuvenates you: It brings a youthful, effulgent, vitality that is not of this world. When you fail to do the inner work, and instead focus on changing your outside, no amount of Botox and fillers will erase your lacklustre, listless, and lifeless form.
Deepak Chopra writes “You are not in the world. The world is in you.” When you become who you truly are you can no longer identify with darkness - there is no more division at the source. You are at peace. You have self knowledge. You are not in the world, the world is in you. You can perform intense action with detachment. The best time is the present. You are equanimous. Your desires manifest easily. You are not invested in any outcome. You know how to surrender. You see the reality of God in everything. You don’t fight the shadow you transcend it. Never underestimate the cycle breaker. Not only did they stand up to years of generational trauma but they stood up and broke the cycle. They are powerful, they are strong, they are brave.
Carl Jung said "We do not become Enlightened by imagining figures of light, but by.making the darkness conscious... Our greatest treasure is that which is hidden within our own subconscious. It is that dark, unused part of our Self that is in fact the light of consciousness itself." This is a psychological rebirth. Edward Whitmont said "When there is an impasse, and sterile time in our lives - despite an adequate ego development - we must look to the dark hitherto unacceptable side which has been at our conscious disposal."
If we can collectively replace shame with compassion then perhaps we can collectively heal the wounds that we have all been inflicted, moving from limiting beliefs to freedom and expanded consciousness. When we become truly authentic, this means that we are aligned to our purpose and passions: This is where real magic and true miracles happen. So now you know, what are you waiting for?..
Shadow work techniques
Shadow work involves bringing your subconscious into your consciousness, allowing you to embrace, love, accept, and reintegrate the fractured elements of your psyche (shadow, inner child, and Higher Self), ultimately resulting in transcendance of your suffering, deep healing, and Self-realisation. This process facilitates a dialogue between your various parts, which contributes to allowing them to safely and gently reunite, returning you to your divine blueprint, that was manifested before the world got to you.
Shadow work involves identifying your habitual reactions to adult stress, which triggers your unhealed childhood Trauma and its associated fears, developed in infancy, and which is nothing to do with your current situation or people around you.
There are techniques for shadow work, which rest on foundational elements which support these approaches. Shadow work restores our fractured psyche into wholeness.
The techniques for shadow work include meditation and mindfulness, creative expression, journaling, observing your reactions, practicing emotional inquiry and completing the emotional cycle, doing inner child work, and breathwork practises. These techniques are based on positive psychological approaches combined with spirituality, as 'psychospirituality'.
The superglue that holds all of these techniques together is composed of foundational related concepts, traits, and characteristics, which, as with mastering the shadow work techniques, are developed over time, much as a violin player practises their scales in order to play as a soloist, achieving Self-mastery and flow states. The foundational elements Self-compassion and Self-love (both of which are essential to 'emotional sobriety'), along with vulnerability and authenticity. I include an exercise on self-love in the relevant section below. Vulnerability is crucial to shadow work as it gives us the realisation that it is not only safe to take off the mask of our ego and the shadow, but it is precisely when we do so that we begin to love ourselves, and that others become attracted to our light, in other words, to our authenticity, which is a rare and beautiful character trait.
Shadow work is also Trauma work as we heal wounded parts of ourselves - our shadows were created as part of developmental or attachment Trauma when we were children, when we didn’t have the cognitive resources to deal with our emotions fully and are stored in our nervous system, our bodies, and in the stories we tell ourselves. In order to become whole human beings, we have to learn to embrace not just our light but also our shadow and heal the deep wounds from childhood Trauma (because we all have them).
Shadow work will shine the light of intuition, clarity, and wisdom on your deepest fears, their associated limiting beliefs, identifying the underlying childhood Traumas that caused these fears, how they are triggered, how this causes subconscious reactions, and negative emotional states. Shining the light of Self-awareness on these will bring you into the peaceful 'seat of your Soul'. This peace is a profound serenity that brings calmness and stability even amidst life's greatest challenges: It is, as it says in the Bible, "The peace that passes all understanding" (Philippians 4:7).
This work requires courage: Carl Jung wrote about shadow work “This confrontation is the first test of courage on the inner way, a test sufficient to frighten off most people, for the meeting with ourselves belongs to the more unpleasant things that can be avoided so long as we can project everything negative into the environment (especially onto others). But if we are able to see our own shadow and can bear knowing about it, then a small part of the problem has already been solved: we have at least brought up the personal unconscious. The shadow is a living part of the personality and therefore wants to live with it in some form. It cannot be argued out of existence or rationalised into harmlessness.” Shadow work confronts us with parts of ourselves that we rather not know about - hence, why many people avoid doing it, don’t want to go there, are not interested and disregard this kind of ‘personal development’.
Meditation and mindfulness
Meditation is the golden key that allows us to access our intuition, which is in essence divine guidance. It is your Soul speaking with you. Meditation may be silent or guided. Learning to sit with yourself in silence is essential in really getting to know yourself and your shadow. The French philosopher Blaise Pascal wrote "All of humanity's problems stem from man's inability to sit quietly in a room alone." He wrote this in the 17th century, observing that people are often uncomfortable with solitude and are constantly seeking distractions to avoid introspection.
Whenever you are faced with something that you feel overwhelmed by and you don’t know what to do, pause, breathe, relax, take a step back, and meditate: As the wave of emotional overwhelm passes through you, the clear voice of intuition will come and you will know the way forward. The confusion is because you have reverted back to the personal ego mind, which is afraid, generates your intrusive, noisy ‘monkey mind’ (as coined by the Buddhists), thoughts, and it always lies to you; or you have not yet harnessed your shadow self, which is an archetypal part of your Jungian collective unconscious, or brought it and your Higher Self together into conscious awareness and your united true Self. Jung saw the collective unconscious as a powerful source of inspiration, creativity, and energy that can provide the necessary resources to face challenges and foster personal growth, acting as a catalyst for awareness and Self-realisation. The collective unconscious is central to Jung's concept of 'individuation', the cornerstone of his body of work, which is the psychospiritual process of integrating the conscious and unconscious (shadow and Higher Self) aspects of the psyche to achieve wholeness and self-awareness. As you do the shadow work you give birth to a teacher inside of you. This teacher is the awakened, reintegrated, collective unconscious (the shadow) and Higher Self (often considered part of a larger cosmic consciousness, being the individual's highest divine, innate wisdom, and transcendent potential).
The universally applicable question to ask of your Self-realised state of presence during meditation is “What would love do now?” You will always get an answer that is abundantly replete and pregnant with wisdom and truth. The way forward will become clear.
For my full article on meditation, which includes some guided meditations, please click here:
I will guide you through two meditations that allow you to meet your Higher Power, and then integrate your reborn inner child, your shadow, and your true Self.
You can also try Insight Timer or listen to this guided meditation:
Mindfulness is the process of turning your entire life into a meditation. For my full article on mindfulness click here:
Creative expression
By doing shadow work, you bring the repressed aspects into conscious awareness and integration, which frees up the energy previously spent on suppression. This newfound energy can then be channeled into creative endeavours, both in art and in life.
The mind-blowing result of creativity in shadow work is that you yourself become the created art, as the captivating magnificence of individuated Being: From this state, everything flows. This unique and evolving ‘masterpiece-like’ Self, makes one's entire life a creative act and a work of art in its deepest, most meaningful sense. Individuation is the ‘Creative act of Self,’ with life being the canvas. This creative act is the birthing of your saviour: You! Michelangelo was not only sculpting David, he was sculpting himself through the David, a metaphorical, philosophical interpretation of the artistic process, suggesting that he was revealing his own true inner Self as much as the biblical hero.
For my article on creativity, shadow work, and healing, entitled 'Psychospirituality and Creativity: Art, Music, Art, Writing, Movies, Miracles, and Mental Health", please click here:
For an example of the narrative, story, creativity, and shadow work done through music, see Eminem's story in the next section below.
For an example of creative expression through writing, who better as an example than 'The Bard' himself: Click here for my article on William Shakespeare, writing, creativity, and psychospirituality click here:
Oscar Wilde possessed the supreme intelligence and sharp wit to explore the complex philosophical and societal themes within the breadth of the human experience in his creative writings. He wrote that “The first duty in life is to be as artificial as possible (in other words, the ego). What the second duty is, no one has as yet discovered." I love Wilde’s epigrammic brilliance, and his tongue-in-cheek, provocative, biting, humour, poking fun at timeless Truths; and perhaps, in the second half of the quote, he is knowingly hinting at the beautiful, tailor-made ‘Hero’s Journey’ to the brave new world and secret treasure of Self-discovery, which is hidden from those who lack Self-awareness. Wilde used humour to provoke thought and reveal the absurdities in everyday life and shallowness of social conventions, satirising conventional thinking. I believe that he very well knew what he was saying and he was challenging us to reflect on our purpose in life.
Journalling
Stream of consciousness writing is like a raw window do yourself. It helps us learn to be honest with ourselves and we discover things from our unconscious we didn’t expect. The pages are the space where we can’t bullsh*t ourselves. Another great journaling practice is 'The Work' by Byron Katie, based on 4 questions.
Practice daily journalling to track emotions, thoughts, reactions, and dreams, noting any recurring patterns or uncomfortable themes. Journalling may be a very personal and private process. For me, I use journalling, in the form of the articles that I publish here on my blog and on my Medium account, as it is linked to giving a voice to all the parts of my psyche. Childhood trauma means that we were not seen or heard. My articles address that. In that sense, journalling may become a creative art. Although I am an artist too, for me, writing has become my primary creative art form.
For my 500 free articleas on shadow work, psychospirituality, transformation, and healing click here:
Observing your reactions
What are your triggers? What and who makes you have a reaction? Why do you react so abruptly? Being triggered comes from unconscious patterns and is essentially a automated fight/flight response that originates in our brain that sends signals to our endocrine and nervous system. Watch yourself in your relationships, as you are out and about in your daily life but also when you are consuming social media. Because remember: 'When it’s hysterical, it’s historical': Meaning: when your reaction to an event or someone’s behaviour is out of proportion it is usually rooted in your past and in your shadow, and have very little or nothing to do with external events or people. The great contemporary spiritual master Michael Singer wrote that “One of the most amazing things you will ever realise is that the moment in front of you is not bothering you. You are bothering yourself about the moment in front of you. It's not personal - you are making it personal.” Read that again, and don’t ever forget it. That is the malign legacy of childhood Trauma on mental illness in your adult life.
For my article entitled 'Responding Versus Reacting Versus Creating', please click here:
Practicing emotional inquiry and completing the emotional cycle
What am I feeling?
Why am I feeling this?
What belief or story is attached to this emotion? (eg. I am not good enough, my feelings are not valid, I am not lovable, no one supports me, I will never be happy…)
Does this feeling or situation remind me of something in the past or my childhood?
Feel the emotion in your body. Connect to it and give it the space it needs to complete its cycle. Let it pass through you, rather than storing it as an energetic blockage.
It’s really about developing a sense of curiosity for your inner emotional world and seeing your emotions as information, as well as allowing yourself to feel them then let go of them, rather than suppress, resist, repress, deny, or repress them.
Inner child work
Since most of our shadows are created during childhood, that’s also where a lot of the healing and integration potential lies.
We essentially have to learn to reparent ourselves in order for our adult self to take the driver’s seat in our lives.
A great way to do inner child work is through guided meditations (see this one on Insight Timer) and journaling practices.
Here are two great books on the topic:
'Homecoming: Reclaiming and Championing Your Inner Child' by John Bradshaw
'Reconciliation: Healing the Inner Child' by Thich Nhat Hanh
Breathwork practises
We get to explore our shadows very deeply when we are in altered states of consciousness such as during breathwork.
For my article on breathwork click here:
Self-compassion
You can't have Self-compassion unless you have been shown the highest level of compassion. I do this by listening to you without any judgement without judgement, and I see the highest version of you in you until you see it for yourself. Dr Kristin Neff, a pioneer in the study of self-compassion wrote "When we give ourselves compassion, we are opening our hearts in a way that can transform our lives." Ann Foy wrote that "Of all the journeys to undertake, the one of self-compassion is one of utmost importance for long-term well-being." Jack Kornfield, the spiritual teacher who trained as a Buddhist monk in Thailand, India, and Burma, holds a Ph.D. in clinical psychology. He said that "If your compassion does not include yourself, it is incomplete."
So, what is compassion? Compassion is the antidote to the shame that needs healing. Marianne Williamson writes “The shadow does not leave when it is attacked; it heals when it is forgiven. We do not take off our shadowy mask in the presence of someone who blames us, but rather in the presence of someone who says through words or behaviour, ‘I know this is not who you are.’ We miraculously heal in the presence of someone who believes in our light even when we are lost in our darkness. And when we learn to see others in the light of their true being, whether they are showing us that light or not, then we have the power to work that miracle for them... We heal when we feel forgiven. We heal in the presence of compassion. If you really want someone to change, the miracle lies in your ability to see how perfect they already are.” Be the person that sees the divine in another. That is what I do in TLC - I create a space where we can have a conversation from higher Self to higher Self with total compassion.
Dr Maté described the 'five levels of compassion', with the highest level being 'The compassion of possibility'. When you look at even the most rejected person you see them without judgement as the full human being that they are and that can be manifested. You are aware of that possibility. This is the level of compassion that we aim for in Transformative Life Coaching (TLC). I see and speak to the highest version of a person and it brings it to life for them, free of ego. Compassion is the only thing we can actually give anyone. To see another without judgement is the first step to them having Self-compassion and Self-worth. Compassion is the antidote to shame. There is more to each of us than the conditioned personalities we present to the world the suppressed or untrammelled emotions we act out, and the behaviours we exhibit. Understanding this allows for the compassion of possibility. Possibility as a present, alive, ever available, inherent quality. Possibility is connected to many of humanity's greatest gifts. Wonder, awe, mystery, and imagination. Qualities that allow us to remain connected to that which we can't necessarily prove. It's up to us to nurture this connection because the day-to-day world will not always provide us with reassuring evidence. This deepest aspect of compassion recognises that the seemingly impossible only seems so. And that whatever we most need and long for can actualise at any moment. Staying open to possibility doesn't require instant results. There is more to all of us in the most positive sense than meets the eye. The same applies to whatever seems the most real, solid, or intractable in us or others. In a famous story the Buddha saw the universal potential for the humane self to emerge in a notorious criminal who accosted him with murderous intent. The man became his humblest and most gentle follower. In order to gain possession of ourselves, we have to have some confidence and hope. And in order to keep that hope alive, we must usually have some taste of victory. The compassion of possibility I would say is that door we keep open so we can see that victory coming. If we didn't mistake ourselves or one another for whatever personality features and behavioural traits appear on the surface, good or bad. If in each person we could sense the potential for wholeness that can never be lost, that would be for us all a victory worth savouring.
For my full article on 'Compassion'; click on the following link:
Self-love
Don't expect the world to love you: Most people are too busy hating themselves. The first step in any journey to wellbeing and personal power is to love your Self unconditionally. We don't love ourselves unconditionally as for most of us, our parents loved us conditionally. We felt that they would love us if we behaved in one way or another, achieved this or that. We created our ego, or false self in order to try to feel loved. Marianne Williamson wrote "All of us wish we'd had perfect childhoods, with a mother and father who modelled ideal parental attitudes and taught us to internalise the tenets of Self-love. Many of us, however, did not."
Professor Brené Brown, one of the world's leading researchers on shame, vulnerability, and compassion asks us "Talk to yourself like someone you love."
Louise Hay, the spiritual teacher wrote "Remember, you have been criticising yourself for years and it hasn't worked. Try approving of your Self and see what happens"
For my full article on Self-love click here:
Some coaches recommend 'mirror work' as an exercise in Self-love. However, I prefer the following exercise, due to its power, and that truth that mirror work does not involve looking at your true Self, just your material form. For an exercise in Self-love, which harnesses the power of shadow work and inner child work, do the following exercise: Find a photo of your 7 year old Self. What do you see? This is me at age 7:
Look into your eyes, those of your 7 year old Self. What do you see when you look at your Self? You don't see pupils, irises, skin, bone structure and hair: No-one sees the anatomy. You see your soul. The soul is visible. The soul is a recognisable reality. The ego is who we think we are and is full of shame. The soul is who you really really are. Souls love one another. You can accept your Self. Albert Camus wrote: "Man is the only creature who refuses to be what he is.” Drop out of your mind, and drop into your heart. Open your heart. Your heart contains all the love, wisdom and Truth that you will ever need.
The United Nations Declaration states that "Humankind owes to the child the best it has to give."
Tell your 7 year old self "I love you and I always will." I will let Ram Dass take over for a few minutes - meditate on this...
Ram Dass and East Forest on Truth
Ram Dass said “You are loved just for being who you are, just for existing. You don’t have to do anything to earn it. Your shortcomings, your lack of self-esteem, physical perfection, or social and economic success - none of that matters. No one can take this love away from you, and it will always be here.”
Are you with me yet? Have you found a reason to love your Self? Can you see your Soul in your photo?
Vulnerability
For my full article on vulnerability, please click here:
Authenticity
For my full article on authenticity, please click here:
Eminem has the last word
Eminem, born Marshall Bruce Mathers III no less, the hip hop artist who explored childhood Trauma, dark themes, and personal narratives, mixing social commentary with humour, continues to teach us much about shadow work and psychospirituality through his music.
Beginning with the line "Will the real Slim Shady please stand up?" in the song 'The Real Slim Shady' on his album 'The Slim Shady LP' in 1999, introducing us in Jungian terms, to the 'real' Slim Shady, representing Eminem's shadow self (how extraordinary that an artist names a whole album, let alone a song, after his shadow self), he takes us on a journey through his shadow work, culminating in his latest 2024 album where he recorded a song about the integration of his shadow self.
While Eminem also refers to this persona as his 'true Self' in interviews when referring to the other parts of his psyche, he uses the concept of the 'real Slim Shady' to provoke and highlight issues of authenticity and identity. Slim Shady embodies raw, uncontrolled emotions, acting as a vehicle for Eminem to express aggressive, taboo, or morally ambiguous ideas that he could not, or would not, express as Marshall Mathers. By confronting and giving voice to his shadow, Eminem, through Slim Shady, engages in a process of self-discovery and aims for a more complete, authentic "whole" person. The song "The Real Slim Shady" specifically critiques pop culture, celebrity culture, societal expectations, conditioning, and repression, using the alter ego to express rebellious and controversial thoughts, which reflects the shadow's potential to disrupt social façades. The concept of the "real" self is complex, as it's informed by social expectations. Slim Shady, with all his flaws, is a form of the authentic self that emerges when these social layers are stripped away, allowing for a more unvarnished truth. Slim Shady is a vessel of irony encapsulating what he hates most about the corruptive powers of society. Slim intentionally does the wrong thing as a warning of the negative consequences attached to those actions. His lyrical abuse of celebrities is an attack on the institution of celebrity as a whole, including, and especially, himself.
The lyrics are distinctly Jungian. The song opens with this call to action:
"May I have your attention, please? May I have your attention, please? Will the real Slim Shady please stand up? I repeat. Will the real Slim Shady please stand up? We're gonna have a problem here".
After the repeated call to identify the real Slim Shady, the response is from Eminem himself, declaring, "I'm Slim Shady, yes I'm the real Shady. All you other Slim Shadys are just imitating"
It continues:
Dr. Dre’s dead, he’s locked in my basement (Ha ha!)...
Yeah, I probably got a couple of screws up in my head loose..
We ain’t nothin’ but mammals—well, some of us, cannibals…
And there’s a million of us just like me
Who cuss like me, who just don’t give a fuc* like me
Who dress like me; walk, talk and act like me
And just might be the next best thing, but not quite me
I’m like a head trip to listen to, ’cause I’m only givin’ you
Things you joke about with your friends inside your livin’ room
The only difference is I got the balls to say it in front of y’all
And I don’t gotta be false or sugarcoat it at all
In every single person there’s a Slim Shady lurking. Eminem, by using creativity, demonstrates a cathartic way to engage with societal issues and his own darker impulses.
In what many consider to be his magnum opus, “Stan”emerges on The Marshall Mathers LP (2000) as a resolute indictment of America’s obsession with celebrity culture. In “Stan’s” case, Eminem is using an obsessive, impressionable, angry, and psychotic character in the form of Stan Mitchell to criticise literal interpretation and emulation of the Slim Shady character. Stan himself is a fan who idolises the surface level understandings of Eminem. He does not see the irony of the Slim Shady character. In a way, one can understand Stan as a manifestation of Slim Shady himself, as Stan becomes a vessel for the sadistic ideology of the alter ego.
Unlike the listeners of Eminem, Stan does not find catharsis in the words and actions of Slim Shady, but rather misinterprets the lyrical messages as endorsements and sanctions of the violent and insane behaviour of the character. For instance, in the climax of Stan’s rage and obsession, he poses to Eminem the question: “Hey, Slim, I drank a fifth of vodka, you dare me to drive?” This is a direct emulation of Slim Shady on “My Name Is”where he asks the listener the exact same question. On “My Name Is,” this is ironic like the rest of the song; on “Stan,” Stan’s mimicry is a clue that the titular character doesn’t quite get the subtext of Slim Shady. We find out in Eminem’s final verse, no longer in the Stan character, but as the lucid Marshall Mathers, that Stan drove drunk after being influenced by an uncritical interpretation of Slim Shady on “My Name Is:”
“Try to understand that I do want you as a fan
I just don’t want you to do some crazy shit
I seen this one shit on the news
A couple weeks ago that made me sick
Some dude was drunk and drove his car over a bridge.”
The idea that Eminem is appealing to base instincts is made clear on “Cleanin’ Out My Closet” ( The Eminem Show, 2002):
“Picket signs for my wicked rhymes, look at the times
Sick as the mind of the motherfuckin’ kid that’s behind
All this commotion, emotions run deep as oceans
Explodin’.”
A bit of a paraphrase is needed: Eminem is the “motherfuckin’ kid that’s behind all this commotion,” and is saying that his mind is as sick as the times (he is currently living in). The difference is that he is breaking down his own boundaries to act as a vessel through which others can experience catharsis in what he views as a repressive world.
Dr Gabor Maté argues that mental illnesses are not individual failures but "normal responses to an abnormal culture" and that societal values and practices create widespread trauma, which underlies much of human pathology. In a toxic culture that prioritises individualism, competition, and material success over emotional well-being and connection, people suppress their natural needs and vulnerabilities, leading to psychological wounds that manifest as mental and physical illness. Maté's work, particularly in his book 'The Myth of Normal', calls for profound societal and personal change, emphasising the need for community, connection, and compassion to heal these wounds.
Irony or no irony, the most fundamental aspect of the Slim Shady character, and what is most responsible for the ascension of Eminem in the 1990’s and 2000’s, is the creation of intense cathartic feelings in the listener through his singer-songwriter skills. Everyone has thoughts that they know are not representative of their personality or character. These intrusive thoughts — of violence, self harm, the violating of social expectations and rules — are normal in every individual, and are impossible to block out. The discography of Eminem revels in the embrace of these intrusive thoughts, and in so doing, allows for catharsis in the listener.
A simple definition for catharsis, which comes from ancient Greek theories of tragedy: “the process of releasing, and thereby providing relief from, strong or repressed emotions.” Slim Shady is a character through which Eminem can produce or induce catharsis in the listener. This is exactly what he is alluding to when he says on “The Real Slim Shady” that in “every person is a Slim Shady lurking.” The Slim Shady in the music is just the collective repressed, suppressed, and intrusive thoughts of every other person on the planet.
Fundamentally, Slim Shady is an ironic character, a boogeyman, Satan himself with the spotlight shone on him, and Eminem makes him dance in front of an audience to show that perhaps not all shadows in the Soul are to be feared.
Marshall looked deep inside himself and found the parts of him that were angry, rageful, and hurt. Then he found a way to funnel these deep emotions into his music.
Eminem provides an example of the healthy expression of Jung’s shadow through his musical creativity: In 2002 Eminem was filmed saying: “Eminem is the rapper, Slim Shady will kill you, And Marshall Mathers is the person, like, behind the whole mask…That’s how I see it.”
In Jungian terms, the 'death' of Slim Shady in the song 'Guilty Conscience 2' on Eminem's new 2024 album 'The Death of Slim Shady (Coup de Grâce)' represents the rapper's attempt to integrate his shadow self, symbolised by the destructive and controversial persona of Slim Shady. This integration involves confronting and symbolically overcoming the past self to achieve growth and maturity, with the album's ending suggesting that the shadow cannot be entirely 'killed,' (and neither should it be) but rather has become a part of the more mature and whole Eminem, Marshall Mathers. This marks the culmination of his shadow work. The title of the album includes the term ‘coup de grâce’, which means a final, decisive blow, often one that is mercifully delivered to end suffering. The phrase is French, literally translating to ‘blow of mercy’ or ‘stroke of grace’. The term ‘Coup de Grâce’, when applied to Genesis 42:1-38, refers to divine strategic intervention, ultimately leading to rescue, salvation, reconciliation, and redemption as part of God’s plan. It is by no coincidence that the word grace is used, as this is the powerful gift from our Higher Power, delivered lightly as being touched by a feather, that is bestowed upon us for doing his will. As it says in Revelation 3:8 “I know your deeds. See, I have placed before you an open door that no one can shut. I know that you have little strength, yet you have kept my word and have not denied my name.” In other words, you will be saved from your suffering by your shadow work, which is to take the spiritual journey: You will be freed from your emotional pain, and so you will be healed. Et voilà! This is the genius of Eminem!
Marshall was deeply touched by Trauma throughout his early years (listen to Cleaning Out My Closet, When I’m Gone, or Mockingbird). He also felt profoundly about injustices of the world (go listen to Darkness, Square Dance, We As Americans, or Mosh). Similarly—you may have also been affected by childhood Trauma. Which usually occurs when things that shouldn’t have happened (e.g. emotional neglect, abuse, etc.), happened. Or when things that should have happened (e.g. love, affection, etc.), didn’t happen. And when a traumatic experience hits, you need to (like Eminem) figure out what to do about it. Eminem chose to tell his stories, traumas, and triumphs one rhyme at a time. What will you do? Sarah Parker Thomas wrote that “We can validate Trauma by acknowledging it exists (instead of pretending we are okay or burying it) and by taking the necessary time to work through it. It isn't easy, but it's the path to freedom and libration from constant suffering.” This is shadow work.
Eminem's shadow work has been a massive source of inspiration, creativity, success, meaning, and healing for him, as it may be for us all. His openness and vulnerability has been remarkable and inspiring. Creativity leads you to your true Self, and your true Self leads you to creativity. This is a self-accelerating feedback loop, like a thermal explosion, which leads to a rapid, explosive release of energy.
Jaeda DeWalt, the artist, author, and poet, wrote that "Creativity connects me to my truest self and vulnerability. There is nothing more personally liberating, than reaching for my face and peeling off the social mask that hides my; shadow self, pain and weakness. When i produce from this place of truth, the results transform both creator and beholder."
Ursula K. Le Guin, the American author, sums this journey up succinctly, writing "And he began to see the truth, that he had neither lost nor won but, naming the shadow of his death with his own name, had made himself whole: A man: who, knowing his whole true Self, cannot be used or possessed by any power other than himself, and whose life therefore is lived for life's sake and never in the service of ruin, or pain, or hatred, or the dark." This is the journey of Marshall Mathers: It is the journey of every one of us.
Jason Nordby, the author and poet, wrote the following poem about the shadow and healing:
Every pain, addiction, anguish, longing, depression, anger or fear
is an orphaned part of us
seeking joy,
some disowned shadow
wanting to return
to the light
and home
of ourselves.
Conclusions
Shadow work on ourselves without any outside support is often quite limited. We all have blind spots that we don’t know that we have them and it often requires a light from outside to shine it into consciousness for us.
If you are really serious about healing your wounded parts and integrating your shadow, I highly recommend working with a professional such as therapists or coaches or both. It’s been crucial on my own journey and I continue to get support from therapists and coaches. All of the best coaches have coaches.
Can a qualified coach guide you through your shadow work or do you need a psychologist? The International Coaching Federation (ICF), the International governing body for qualified coaches, with which I am accredited, is unequivocal about this, saying a resounding "Yes!" to coaches being able to do this work with you. For this, the coach must have done their own shadow work.
Left unattended, th shadow is like an enormous bag we drag behind us, filled with unresolved conflicts, resentments, misunderstandings, forgotten dreams, and unconscious projections. Jung sometimes used the image of an iceberg to describe this shadow: the tip of the iceberg represents our conscious self; anything below the water line is unseen and, if ignored, can cause havoc. Now, some claim that shadow work belongs in therapy; however, whenever coaching moves in the direction of awareness, it invariably involves a confrontation with the shadow. Moreover, integrating the shadow has the potential to transform us as powerfully as a medieval alchemist could transform base metals into gold! In fact, “to own one’s shadow is to reach a holy place — an inner centre — not attainable in any other way”
The coach should be self-aware. Ideally they will be transformative life coaches. The best shadow work coaches are those who take a psychospiritual approach.
The ICF Core Competency 7: Evokes Awareness defines this approach as Facilitating client insight and learning by using tools and techniques such as powerful questioning, silence, metaphor, or analogy. At its best, coaching leads to a mind shift, a change in perspective. It is not about maintaining the status quo but about diving deeper, gaining clarity, understanding oneself, becoming more authentic, and encountering Truth. This coach approach involves full attention on the part of the coach listening for deeper levels of meaning, inviting the client to pause and reflect, exploring imagery, and asking powerful questions. For example, if the client seems obsessed with rescuing colleagues or direct reports, the coach might ask why playing the savior or enabler is so important. That one question might help the client recognise previous unhealthy patterns while exploring habit-changing strategies. Such an approach does not focus on the past but, rather, examines the negative fallout from the shadow, why it would be desirable to shift behaviours or perspectives, and how incorporating new learning might be transformational for the client. Instead of playing the saviour the client learns to combine authentic caring with reasonable expectations and measures of accountability.
The shadow also manifests in the form of projections. By helping clients examine emotionally charged encounters or the triggers that sabotage them both personally and professionally, coaches can help them see in themselves the very qualities they cannot tolerate in others. A seemingly insignificant question like “What a X reminds you of yourself?” can lead to heightened self-awareness and an end to denial, scapegoating, and other pejorative behaviours.
Shadow work is not a topic that typically appears in coaching literature; however, it is a powerful way of opening clients - and coaches - to unimagined possibilities, enabling them to move toward a new understanding of themselves and of our world. As a result, they will have a greater capacity to create meaning and become more self-aware as they embark on their own unique, heroic, and authentic life journeys.
I convinced of the transformative power of self-discovery in healing. My mission, purpose, and calling are to empower individuals on their journey to uncover and embrace their authentic selves through shadow work. Rooted in the teachings of Dr Carl Jung, shadow work serves as a comprehensive, and often creative, tool designed to help you navigate the hidden aspects of your psyche that may be holding you back.
Shadow work is about exploring the subconscious parts of ourselves that we often hide or ignore - our fears, insecurities, and past traumas, bringing them into the light of consciousness. By illuminating these aspects, you can cultivate self-awareness, foster deep personal growth, and enhance your emotional well-being.
Namaste.
Olly
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Disclaimer: The information presented in this article explores the role of spirituality in mental well-being and recovery. It is for informational purposes only and should not be considered a substitute for professional medical, psychological, or psychiatric advice, diagnosis, or treatment. You should always seek the advice of your own qualified healthcare provider with any questions you may have regarding your specific condition or any medical concerns. Never disregard professional medical advice or delay in seeking it because of something you have read here. Integrating spiritual practices can be a valuable part of a holistic approach to mental health, but it should complement, not replace, care from medical and mental health professionals.
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