Each of us is a battleground where light and darkness meet. But these two forces, so opposed, come from the same womb. They are siblings who either thrive together or perish in mutual destruction. The quality and depth of our lives hang on our ability to bring peace to the battleground and unite what has been torn apart – ourselves.
By ‘shadow’, Carl Jung termed everything we don’t want to admit is within us. It contains our nasty, ugly, immature traits that we hide from others – and from ourselves. But the shadow also holds our forgotten talents, buried dreams, and imprisoned energy.
Recognizing our shadow and how we repress it is key to inner growth. And by integrating the shadow into our personality, we tap into unsuspected reserves of peace, vitality, and understanding.
(You can watch the video version of this essay on YouTube.)
The 3 Steps of Shadow Integration
After reading about 50 authors on shadow work, I put together this short 3-step guide. The information here should be useful whether you’re just starting your shadow journey or have been on the road for a while.
Jung writes:
[Integrating the shadow] consists solely in an attitude.
First of all one has to accept and to take seriously into account the existence of the shadow.
Secondly, it is necessary to be informed about its qualities and intentions.
Thirdly, long and difficult negotiations will be unavoidable.
C.G. Jung, personal letter from 1937
Here we will follow Jung’s 3-step model. In Part I, we will look at what the shadow is and how it forms. In Part II we will explore the ego-shadow relationship and its main pitfalls. Part III outlines the stages of shadow integration. And in closing, we’ll look at how shadow work can transform our lives.
So, let us descend.
I. What is the Shadow?
… the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being.
Aleksandr Isayevich Solzhenitsyn
How Society Splits Our Psyches
When we are born, we arrive with all the mysterious, contradictory energies of life within us. These energies are the inheritance of our ancestors and eons of evolution. They come with the territory of life as a human being.
Wordsworth writes:
trailing clouds of glory do we come
William Wordsworth, Ode on Intimations of Immortality…
Our parents, however, want only some parts of the glory. They teach us to, say, stop fidgeting, be quiet, stop touching ourselves, to not get into fights, to not ask silly questions… Whatever the case, they encourage some parts of us and punish the rest. This is all necessary of course, it’s their job. As we grow, our friends take over, then our teachers, colleagues, etc.
Being within society means learning what parts of ourselves we are allowed to express and how we are allowed to express them.
This learning begins long before we are self-aware or can think critically. So, when Mom and Dad say some part of us is bad, we take their word for it. Wanting their love, we chisel out of ourselves everything they don’t approve of.
The Mutual Arising of Ego & Shadow
Over time, we sculpt ourselves into the image our parents, friends, and society have taught us is good. This image is the masterwork of early life, the ego. Each one of us makes one, if all goes well, and we are so enamoured with it, we take it to be ourselves. All the pieces we have chiseled out, the ‘bad bits’, we lock in the basement and throw away the key.
Decades later, if ever, we discover that while we’ve been sculpting the ego, we have also created something else. We have crafted the ego’s inverted image, the shadow. This complementary opposite contains all feelings, thoughts, and desires we have tried to banish from our psyche.
Abrams and Zweig write:
The ego and the shadow … develop in tandem, creating each other out of the same life experience.
Jeremiah Abrams & Connie Zweig, Meeting the Shadow
Like yin and yang, ego and shadow complement each other through contrast. Their very opposition to one another is what unites them as inseparable parts of one and the same whole – our psyche.
Note here, what happens on the individual level also occurs collectively. It is not just people that develop shadows, but also families, countries, and our entire species. The collective also tends to identify with certain values, while repressing their complementary opposites. Movements such as the Enlightenment, feminism, and climate activism are attempts at redeeming repressed values from the collective shadow.
But let’s stay focused on the individual. Things get even more interesting once the ego and the shadow have fully formed. Let’s explore their evolving relationship.
II. What Does the Shadow Want?
The shadow … becomes pathological only when we assume that we do not have it; because then it has us.
Edward C. Whitmont, The Evolution of The Shadow
The ego becomes the focal point of everyday consciousness, the main character of our psychic drama. It takes on the role of our true self and is terribly convincing at it too. Let me demonstrate with a question.
Why are you reading this essay right now?
What do you hope to gain from it?
Whatever your answer, observe it. This is the ego speaking.
So what about the shadow?
Where is the Shadow?
Think about your hidden jealousies, sexual fantasies, your desires to dominate, to have the last laugh… Now, I’m sure you’re a wonderful person, but I am also sure you have plenty of those. We all do.
Just the thought of these lowly sentiments can make us uncomfortable. This is a taste of the energy trapped inside them. And energy only ever wants one thing: release.
Most of what we learn to repress are primitive impulses. Sexuality and violence top the list here. But we also learn to repress healthy traits. In some families, it is creativity that gets punished, or curiosity, or anger – or even affection.
A friend once told me she couldn’t remember a single time when her mother embraced her. Think about that for a minute.
Whatever the case, as we repress the unwanted parts of ourselves, we also trap the energy within them. This energy accumulates and is always ready to burst out into the open. Let’s look at how this affects our lives.
Venting the Shadow
In vino veritas, say the ancients, ‘in wine lies the truth’. When we are drunk, be it on wine, anger, lust, or intense emotion, the ego loses its grip. We then end up saying and doing things we never would otherwise. Once our episode is over, the ego returns to clean up the mess. ‘I don’t know what came over me’, we say, or ‘I didn’t mean it’. But something within us did mean exactly what we did and said. That something is the shadow.
Shadow outbursts can be destructive, leading to reckless or even criminal behavior. But they can also reveal hidden strengths, like courage and vitality we didn’t know we had. Think of a kid who’s finally had enough and stands up to her bullies. She may get beat up, but she may also see there’s more to her than a quiet girl. This could serve her for a lifetime.
Shadow Projection
Another way shadow energy escapes is through the unconscious mechanism of projection. Projection is when we see the disowned parts of ourselves in others, reacting to those traits without realizing why. Here’s an example.
Say my parents teach me sex is shameful. To earn their love, I repress all my sexual thoughts and urges. All that wild, primal energy goes into the basement.
When I grow up, this energy will be simmering under the surface of consciousness. My fight against my impulses may lead to depression, anxiety, perhaps even physical illness. I could try to cure these symptoms in myriad ways. I may take up journaling, exercise, or a spiritual practice. I may seek escape in work, drink, ideology, religion…
As Jung wrote:
People will do anything, no matter how absurd, in order to avoid facing their own soul.
C.G. Jung
And here comes projection.
Hell is Other People
In society, I’ll meet people who haven’t repressed their sexuality. (They will have repressed something else, of course, but that’s another matter.) The ego will recognize these people as threats and its defenses will flare up. Fear and aversion to my repressed impulses will now have an external target.
I will begin to see sexually relaxed people as inappropriate, dirty, perverted – dangerous, even. And the more I condemn their depravity, the more self-righteous I will feel. This is what makes projection so dangerous. It gives us the sweetest fruit – a clean conscience – but at a steep price: hatred for others.
The more I repress my shadow, the more elaborate will my projection be. I will have imaginary arguments with those I can’t stand, I will brood on their downfall, I’ll badmouth them in front of others…
Just as individuals project their shadows, entire groups can scapegoat others for qualities they can’t accept within themselves. This can escalate from intolerance to outright violence. The Inquisition, terrorism, and the Holocaust are textbook examples of this. So too are many present-day events, unfortunately.
Now, not every time we dislike somebody are we projecting our shadow. Negative reactions to certain people and behaviors are natural – and necessary. It is important to tell these apart from projection.
Reflect on how many people in your life have some negative traits. Chances are, all do. And yet, this is usually not a problem. The flaws of our close ones even endear them to us further. If they do cross a line, we react in the moment and then forget about it.
Projection, however, is marked by intolerance, exaggeration, and fixation. Whenever we find ourselves unable to stand somebody, chances are, they are living out our own repressed feelings.
The Real Enemy
At university, I used to be frustrated with a guy from my course for being such a know-it-all. It took me months to notice just how hard I was trying to appear smart to my professors. Suddenly, my annoyance at the guy turned into compassion. I recognized in him my own painful insecurities.
So, take a minute to reflect on this. Is there anyone you can’t stand? If so, what does that tell you about yourself?
Analyst Edward Whitmont writes:
[O]nly that which we cannot accept within ourselves do we find impossible to live with in others.
Edward C. Whitmont, The Evolution of The Shadow
The key danger of projection is we’re unaware of it when it occurs. We have to be unaware of it for it to occur. Our mind has evolved to hallucinate external enemies that distract it from the real enemy within. Ourselves.
Today we have a tool for putting an end to all enemies, internal and external alike. The world’s atomic arsenal. We may resort to this final solution if we don’t learn how to heal our psyches. To heal is to see the enemy outside is really within – and the enemy within is no enemy at all.
III. Integrating the Shadow
If you bring forth what is within you, what you bring forth will save you.
If you do not bring forth what is within you, what you do not bring forth will destroy you.
Jesus Christ, Gospel of Thomas 70
How then, does healing the split in the psyche look like? Let us begin with a reminder by the great psychologist James Hillman:
I use the term “cure of the shadow” to emphasize the importance of love.
If we approach ourselves to cure ourselves, putting “me” in the center, it too often degenerates into the aim of curing the ego—getting stronger, better, growing in accord with the ego’s goals, which are often mechanical copies of society’s goals.
But if we approach ourselves to cure [the shadow], we come up against the need for a new way of being altogether…
James Hillman, The Cure of The Shadow
Let’s see what this ‘new way of being’ consists of.
Recognition
The first step, as Jung says, is recognition. This may sound like a simple matter, but in fact it requires the utmost courage, vulnerability, and goodwill. Recognition means taking an unflinching look at everything petty, nasty, and immature in yourself. It means giving up the urge to deny, explain away, or blame. It means allowing the idealized self-image to die. And since you’ve always identified with that image, you experience that as your own death.
So here comes the first discovery. The self-image is dead, but you are still here. This means there is more to you than you realize. As Davies writes:
One always learns one’s mystery at the price of one’s innocence.
Robertson Davies, Fifth Business
Listening
Step two is listening. Once the shock of encountering our shadow passes, we must descend further. And we must bring offerings of humility, patience, and compassion. Knowledge of the shadow is not enough. We must cultivate a true understanding of our repressed thoughts and feelings. This we do by paying careful, unprejudiced attention to them. That is, we approach them with love.
Bly writes:
Every part of our personality that we do not love will become hostile to us.
Robert Bly, The Long Bag We Drag Behind Us
The idea of loving our shameful impulses may sound absurd, even dangerous. But love is exactly what arises once we drop our judgment and let the shadow tell its story. The monster we thought we would find turns out to be a wounded child who was never allowed outside, never nurtured, never even looked at. Most importantly, nobody ever taught that child how to express their impulses. They were ever only punished.
Here comes the second discovery. What we thought was evil, turns out to be pain; what we thought wanted to destroy, in fact only wants to be heard, to be seen… to be loved.
The third step of shadow integration is the most dangerous and is an art much more than a science. This final step, negotiation, is the beginning of true psychological maturity.
Negotiation
To negotiate with the shadow, we must reintroduce the ego. Having done so much shadow work already, we will find our ego has undergone a quiet transformation. And no, it will not have lost its power, quite the contrary.
Sanford says:
The ego is not really diminished in the process of integration; it simply becomes less rigid in its boundaries.
There’s a tremendous difference between a strong ego and an egocentric ego; the latter is always weak. Individuation, the attainment of one’s real potential, can’t take place without the strong ego…
John Sanford, What the Shadow Knows
So, shadow work makes the ego stronger but less egocentric. What does this mean?
A Mature Ego
The immature ego believes itself to be all of the psyche. It is the Charlie Sheen of Two and a Half Men or the Roger Waters of Pink Floyd. Such an ego recognizes no psychic authority other than itself and represses whatever it cannot control. This gives off the impression of strength but also generates endless internal conflict.
The mature ego, on the other hand, has recognized the other inhabitants of the psyche. This enables it to work with the rest of the psyche, rather than against it. So, the mature ego is a conscious, democratic leader who can rally unconscious drives to a common cause. This is its strength.
Shadow integration takes a strong ego able to stand its ground but also respect the unconscious. It takes a negotiating ego. Von Franz writes:
[The shadow] is exactly like any human being with whom one has to get along, sometimes by giving in, sometimes by resisting, sometimes by giving love—whatever the situation requires.
The shadow becomes hostile only when he [or she] is ignored or misunderstood.
Marie-Louise von Franz, The Realization of the Shadow in Dreams
Negotiation – Continued
Negotiation means establishing boundaries, making pacts, and dividing up the loot. This is what ego and shadow must learn to do in the last phase of integration. Whitmont writes:
The shadow has to have its place of legitimate expression somehow, sometime, somewhere.
By confronting it we have a choice of when, how and where we may allow expression to its tendencies in a constructive context.
Edward C. Whitmont, The Evolution of The Shadow
So, instead of having an affair, we spice up our relationship. Instead of getting into drunk fights, we become more assertive at work and home.
Things, however, are rarely this simple. In this advanced stage of shadow work, giving our dark impulses too much credit is just as easy as it once was to repress them. But the thoughtless surrender of the ego must not be mistaken with integration.
Liliane Frey-Rohn warns:
A message from the unconscious is not [automatically] the voice of God. It is always necessary to question whether the author of the message is God or the Devil.
Liliane Frey-Rohn, How to Deal with Evil
A Balancing Act
Integration, then, must be a balancing act between ego and shadow, where both get heard and both make compromises. There are no fixed rules for this and one always learns the way by trial and error. Shadow integration is a rough journey and part of it is accepting you will get hurt and you will hurt others on the way too.
Whitmont writes:
[W]hen it is not possible to restrain the [shadow’s] negative side we may cushion its effect by a conscious effort to add a mitigating element or at least an apology.
Where we cannot or must not refrain from hurting we may at least try to do it kindly and be ready to bear the consequences.
Edward C. Whitmont, The Evolution of The Shadow
Integrating the shadow is a volatile process, success is never guaranteed, and collateral damage is inevitable. It is difficult to reconcile this work with spiritual ideals such as non-violence, non-attachment, and compassion. But sometimes these very ideals become the obstacles to our embracing life and ourselves as we are. Sometimes the ideal of love becomes the obstacle to love.
Whoever Loses His Life Will Save It
There is one final key to integration. This will sound either absurd or obvious to you, depending on your shadow-work experience. And the key is: You (the ego reading this essay) must and will fail at integration.
The Buddha failed as an ascetic. Jesus died on the Cross. What do these stories tell us?
Only the death of the ego ideal in earnest service to the psyche can yield transformation. And this transformation will not be achieved by the ego. It will arise from the psyche’s hidden reserves of wisdom as a response to the ego’s sacrifice.
Frey-Rohn writes:
If a person is successful in detaching himself from identification with specific opposites, he can often see, to his own astonishment, how nature intervenes to help him.
Everything depends upon the individual’s attitude. The freer he can keep himself of hard and fast principles and the readier he is to sacrifice his ego-will, the better are his chances of being emotionally grasped by something greater than himself.
He will then experience an inner liberation, a condition—to use Nietzsche’s phrase—“beyond good and evil.”
Liliane Frey-Rohn, How to Deal with Evil
Shadow work is genuine only when we are walking the path of love. This path alone, the path of surrendering our ideals, expectations, and desires, the path of vulnerability, openness, and acceptance, only this path yields true transformation.
IV. The Fruits of Shadow Work
Something we were withholding made us weak, Until we found it was ourselves.
Robert Frost, The Gift Outright
In closing, let’s consider why the difficult journey of shadow work is worth the trouble.
Therapist and meditation teacher Connie Zweig writes:
My mother pointed out some twenty years ago, in the height of my spiritual grandiosity, that I was good at loving humanity but not so good at loving individual human beings.
With the gradual acceptance of the darker impulses within me, I feel a more genuine compassion growing in my soul. To be an ordinary human being, full of longing and contradiction, was once anathema to me. Today it is extraordinary.
Connie Zweig, Meeting the Shadow
Contrary to our fears, shadow integration make us more compassionate, patient, and understanding – both towards ourselves and others. Being intimate with your darkness makes you less likely to blame it on others – or to shame others for their own.
But that’s not all.
The Shadow as an Ally
The shadow, remember, is a storehouse. Depending on what we’ve exiled there, it may hold our sexuality, creativity, assertiveness, sensitivity, or any other vital trait.
Sooner or later, we get stuck in life and no amount of effort seems to move us forward. In such cases, life often requires of us something we have unconsciously denied ourselves. We may then retreat into quiet desperation… or face our shadow and reclaim our lost treasures.
By redeeming, healing, and empowering the shadow, we become redeemed, healed, and empowered by it. This process is a universal stage of human development. How consciously we go through it decides how much further we will be able to grow.
Initiation Into the Depths of the Psyche
This brings me to my final point. Consider the following:
[I]n a showdown, God is always on the side of the shadow, not the ego.
Fritz Künkel, as quoted by D. Patrick Miller
The confrontation of one’s own evil can be a mortifying deathlike experience; but like death it points beyond the personal meaning of existence.
Edward C. Whitmont, The Evolution of The Shadow
[The shadow] is the keeper of the gate, the guardian of the threshold. The way to the self lies through him…
Erich Neumann, as quoted by Jeremiah Abrams & Connie Zweig
These authors suggest that shadow integration does more than heal our personal psyche. It brings us into deeper dimensions of the mind, beyond our individual lives. Into what Jung called the ‘collective unconscious’.
While it begins as personal therapy, shadow work evolves into something much greater. Gradually, it gives us a new perspective on our existence, on the timeless patterns of human life, and on the universals of good and evil, self and other, life and death.
For all the trials that shadow work entails, it is only the entry point into much deeper realms of experience and understanding.
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