What is Shadow Work? A Guide to Overcoming Self-Sabotage & Living your Full Potential✨

[Music] hi welcome back you guys have been asking me to do a video on Shadow work so today this is it I'll be going over everything you need to know to get started with Shadow work what it is how to do it and what you get from it if you're someone who feels stuck in life like you keep getting in your own way you're falling back into Old patterns and you feel like you're the only one between you and the life you want to live then Shadow work may be interesting for you let's start with

what is the shadow this is a term that was coined by kayong as a part of analytical psychology which is very focused on the unconscious the unknown the depths of your mind and what this means is that even though the shadow is something that you can't see and you're not even aware of it plays a very important role in your life so what is the shadow I'm going to try to explain this really simply because it's probably the most confusing part about Shadow work but you'll get the gist of it Yong splits the psyche up

into several parts so to help explain this I've created a very simplified drawing of what this looks like you can see his version of this is much more complicated I'll put it up here to show you but today we're going to just work with this you can see there are three three main parts of this we have the Persona we have the ego the Shadow and then all of it together makes up the self I think it's best to start with the Persona when explaining this so the word Persona is derived from a Latin word

which literally means mask and this is how you can think of it your persona is the social mask you wear and you show to the world and people around you it reflects how you want to be perceived it's the image that you project outwards and this is a good thing because your persona is what allows you to fit in and adapt to society it's formed by what you learn is acceptable what it means to be a good person it can also hide the less desirable parts of your personality so all the things that you think

are wrong or bad you hide behind your persona while the Persona isn't your true self it's still an important part of your personality so while your persona is who you wish to be your Shadow reflects the opposite everything you don't want to be and this is where it becomes a problem if you haven't integrated Your Shadow yet then your ego is going to identify with your persona and by identifying too closely with this by becoming too attached to who you want to be or who you think you should be you may end up rejecting who

you really are your real self and this is why Yung says in order to discover and realize your unique potential in life you have to rid yourself of your persona this may seem strange at first because if your persona is everything that is good and right and everything that you want to be in life then why would you reject that why would you fight it well the problem is that it will never feel natural to maintain that mask you can live a life as your persona and maybe you already do but you'll always be fighting

yourself in order to keep that mask up as Yung says I am to have a dark side if I am to be whole and you may think happiness comes from just being good all the time but really happiness comes from embracing your whole self even the parts of yourself you don't like now in contrast to the Persona we have the shadow Yung describes the shadow as the thing a person has no wish to be it contains all the unconscious and repressed parts of your personality all the things you deem are bad think of it like

this anything that's in conflict with your persona falls into the shadow so these are all the and qualities and emotions and thoughts that you try to hide from the world or feel ashamed of but most of the time these shadow traits aren't actually bad they're just undeveloped and you can think of most traits like this for example if you're naturally a very cautious person then this personality trait will show up differently depending on how much you've nurtured it at its best this can mean you're very careful and analytical and you can make plans that help

you reach your goals but at its worst this can mean you're overly fearful and risk averse and you avoid responsibilities in life even when it's important for your growth so these are just examples of two sides of the same trait depending on how much you've developed it and it also shows how authentic personality traits can become destructive Shadow traits if they're prevented from maturing if you never have the chance to live them and learn how to control them so put simply Your Shadow is the sum total all the negative qualities you try to hide from

yourself and others things such as laziness greed jealousy insecurity fear all these things can make up your Shadow and it's like the dark side of the mind which you don't want to acknowledge or confront but the thing is when you deny the existence of your Shadow it tends to become more powerful and can start to take control of your life so your Shadow contains everything you reject in yourself regardless of whether or not it's good or bad and this is where your ego becomes important although the term ego has quite a bit of stigma from

any new age books yong's definition of the ego is pretty simple your ego here in the middle is the conscious part of your psyche which mediates between all other parts conscious and unconscious and makes executive decisions you most likely think of yourself as your ego because it's the voice in your head that holds all your values beliefs and your life experiences now your ego can also develop a certain thinking style and this is what's called your conscious attitude this is quite a popular part of yongan psychology so maybe you've already heard of it but it

basically breaks down the way that your ego selects and makes decisions into four psychological functions and each one is like a spectrum everyone tends to lean one way or another on the Spectrum the first you've definitely heard of is being more introverted or EXT rted then thinking and feeling and sensation and intuition these are also what the mbti types are based off of but for Yung this is very important because it's how your ego selects and makes decisions and this is ultimately what shapes Your Shadow the only problem with this is that your ego's attitude

or thinking style has a tendency to become more one-sided over time and instead of having a balanced perspective of things you may become overly emot or judgmental and on the other side of that is where you'll start to have problems showing up in your life but for now all you need to know is that your ego is the one controlling your actions but it is influenced by various parts of the mind now the entirety of your psyche forms the self this is the core of who you are the self represents your Highest Potential as an

individual and realizing this is like the ultimate goal of self-development but to real realize your whole self means integrating all other aspects of your psyche especially your Shadow and this is what shadow work is all about so try to imagine it like this you are born whole with all the pieces that you need to develop in order to reach your fullest potential but as you grow up and you learn to fit in in society you start to split yourself you start to sort these pieces into good and bad this doesn't mean that they are good

andad bad it's just what you learn to be good and bad because of course this is what's important for survival this is the whole job of your ego you want to be accepted by others so that you're safe so naturally all the parts of yourself that you deem good are embraced and this is what shapes your persona all the parts of yourself that you deem bad that you're criticized for you reject and this becomes part of your unconscious and can fall into your Shadow I'll give you an example of how the shadow can be formed

in this way let's say as a kid you're growing up you're young and you get upset about something so obviously you haven't developed your anger yet you don't have much experience with it so it shows up in a very immature State maybe you have a tantrum maybe you yell at people that are close to you and you get in trouble for this you're told that this is wrong you shouldn't do that again and this is then where you start to reject this part of yourself and you may end up suppressing your anger and there's a

very simple thought hunt this because as a kid if you're not loved by the people close to you if you're not taken care of then that means death it's as simple as that so to survive you want to be accepted you want to be liked you want to fit in and this is kind of the filter that your ego is running everything by you experiment with acting in different ways and depending on whether or not the people around you find this good or bad this is how you learn to shape yourself but here's the thing

if this part of yourself your anger for example were to just simply disappear it wouldn't be a problem but it doesn't instead it gets pushed into the unconscious mind into your Shadow and now two things tend to happen at this point the first is you can no longer develop your anger anger is part of your aggression and aggression isn't good or bad but it can show up differently depending on how mature it is when it's immature it may show up more UNC controlled explosive or awkward and this is usually where you get told off for

expressing these traits but ideally you want to be able to express these parts of yourself so you can learn from experience and that's how you gradually develop them if you get a chance to express your anger then over time you can learn to control it it can then mature and it may look like healthy assertiveness confidence but if it's suppressed then it remains in this immature State your you're not able to control it or develop it and then every time you get angry you push this away and it starts to grow a charge in your

Shadow and this is where it can become a problem because the more you suppress the more power Your Shadow has over you remember the psyche it's like a balancing act the ego's whole role is to try to satisfy all the different impulses in your mind I think understanding this can be so helpful especially when you don't feel in control of your life as it's often because of this unconscious influence just think if you're the creator of your own reality then why isn't your life what you want it to be why isn't it as simple as

knowing what you want and going after it why do you keep getting in your own way even if it's against your best interest understanding your Shadow can explain all these things because you are the creator of your own reality your life is a reflection of everything that's within your own mind but the thing is you're only aware of your conscious desires and motivations what about your unconscious motivations what about everything else that's in your own unconsciousness Your Shadow has a huge influence over all of your actions and choices and feelings even if it's expressed in

ways that are immature or unproductive that's just the nature of the unconsciousness it's just like a muscle anything that isn't used or developed will become weaker and harder to control and that's how it is with your Shadow it's all Balancing Act between the conscious and the unconscious parts of the mind and your ego is like the final judge I'll give you an example so let's say this is you and your persona is that of someone who wants to be very easygoing and harmonious and light and this is very common in people Pleasers but then your

Shadow contains all of your suppressed anger and rage that wants to be expressed because this is a part of who you are these are still parts of your true feelings so then your ego sitting in the middle will hear both of these urges and it will try to satisfy both the best it can and then this may show up for example as you becoming resentful passive aggressive pulling back in relationships and these are all forms of self-sabotage and of course it's important that there's also a different balance and power dynamic in this if for example

you've suppressed so much of your anger into your Shadow then this is going to have more influence over you you may then tend to snap and react in ways that aren't normal for you and this is because it has such an emotional charge which you don't have control over and this can then also have a negative effect on your self-image because you suppress all this anger because you want to be liked you want to be seen as a cheerful good person but the thing is by doing this you then let people overstep your boundaries you

stop speaking up for yourself you stop expressing your anger and allow things to happen that shouldn't and then after years of doing this you sit there and you think why am I so weak why am I so passive why am I so scared I wish I weren't like this I wish I could be stronger and more confident but the thing is these are all two sides of the same coin you want to be more confident yet you fear your own emotions you want to be more self assured yet you don't trust yourself you want to

change your life yet you fear others disapproval so much of the mind is complimentary and you do one thing to compensate for another so ask yourself with these kind of things what is this for are you really too shy or are you too angry so you hold yourself back your Shadow generally shows up as these kinds of inner conflicts you have it feels like tension within yourself and this can be in the form of inner dilemas you have with yourself a negative self-image limiting beliefs or even just a feeling of unfulfillment in life so to

sum this up growing up you learn to suppress parts of yourself that you believe are bad and you start to split yourself into almost two sides good and bad and this is based on the feedback you get from other people because you always want to be accepted and to fit in but the thing is the parts of yourself you reject don't just disappear they fall into your Shadow and from here they have an unconscious influence on everything you do in life your thoughts feelings Toc decisions actions and they usually show up as self-sabotage this is

when you're acting against your conscious goals you can usually put that down to your Shadow so what is Shadow work Shadow work is the practice of integrating these repressed parts of yourself and making them a conscious and integral part of your personality even though some of these repressed qualities may appear bad they're usually just undeveloped so you can think of it like this your Shadow holds the seeds to your potential but the thing is you need to go back and you need to retrieve these parts of yourself so that you can develop them so that

through this you can become the person you need to be in order to live your potential in order to reach your goals and overcome the challenges you're facing believe it or not everything you experience is nudging you towards realizing your whole potential all the challenges and opportunities and experiences you face are trying to make you aware of these parts of yourself and giving you the opportunity to integrate them and to become whole and this is a big part of Shadow work Yung calls this process individuation which is creating a line of communication between your conscious

and unconscious mind this is where he talks a lot about DreamWorks imagination Universal archetypes but we're not going to go into those things today just so you understand though the goal of Shadow work is to become aware of your Shadow and it's influence on your life and then going back retrieving these repressed parts of yourself and then developing them so that they can be one of your strengths a core part of your personality this is who you are at your best if you've learned to suppress your aggression then a lot of your problems in life

are going to be connected to this because on the one hand now that it's a part of your unconsciousness a part of your Shadow you're not going to have any control over it and its influence is going to show up in very destructive or productive ways and on the other hand you're going to be in situations where what you're missing is this very quality for example you're going to have a hard time asserting boundaries or yourself and it's because you're missing this piece of who you are you haven't developed your aggression which will be a

tool a strength for you in many of these situations so this is just one example but if you sit down and look at your problems in life you're going to find that they're all related to few main themes maybe you'll realize oh it's because I learned it's wrong to express my anger so I suppressed this and then it's been so long that I feel if I let any of this out it will ruin my life it'll be out of control so then I continue to suppress this and it starts creating more and more problems the

key is realizing this going back retrieving this part of myself from my shadow and then learning to control and develop it ideally all challenges you're faced within life will help you integrate these lost parts of yourself and give you opportunities to develop them to bring you closer to your potential now how do you actually practice Shadow work this is the question I know you've been waiting for and there are many different answers to it you can practice DreamWork working with archetypes journaling active imagination therapy obviously the list goes on and the best way to do

this will look differently for everyone so all I can say here is this is how I practice Shadow work and what has been helpful for me so I broken my shadow work practice down into three steps and I do this alongside with journaling step number one start with a vision of your dream life especially when you're starting out with Shadow work it can be much harder to try to notice your shadows influence in your daytoday or in the moments where you're feeling triggered so so instead if you want to get started you're a complete beginner

to this I think this is a great place to start visualization is such a powerful tool for shadow work because it Taps into the unconscious mind and it can help you become aware of your repressed desires and aspirations and you do this by focusing on your dreams not life goals goals always go through a filter of your perceived reality and you'll question them and break them down into can I really achieve this am I good enough disciplined enough smart enough to do this can I even do this however dreams are a product of your imagination

and fantasy they allow you to express yourself freely and authentically and they're a much better indicator of your true desires so sit down and write out everything that comes to mind for you when you imagine who you want to be and where you want to be in life I'll give you a few of my favorite question prompts to use for this and I'll put them on the screen here so you can pause and screen shot if you want to use them [Music] later and now once you've done this you're going to go on to step

number two which is noticing discrepancies between your dream life and your current life these differences can show up as Behavior patterns limiting beliefs repressed desires relationship Dynamics notice all the things that don't fit this dream Vision you have for yourself and your life and then one by one start to challenge them the easiest way to do this is just by asking yourself why over and over and over and seeing what stories you come up with for yourself your nature wants to be whole and whenever you try to separate these parts of your core you'll be

caught in the tension between the two and this is what's behind so many of the internal conflicts that we face you might think why am I so lazy I have such great Ambitions but you don't realize that you're being confronted with this laziness in all of your attempts towards your Ambitions because this is what you have to deal with and develop first in order to reach your Ambitions these bad parts of you your weaknesses they're not what's holding you back they're simply your undeveloped strengths that you need in order to live your potential so when

you're then trying to suppress and push away these weaknesses thinking that once they're out of the way you can get to where you want to be really you're locking away parts of your s that are the missing pieces you need in order to be successful in the things you're doing so every dream you have and every piece of your Shadow that's coming up when you're trying to reach it are two sides of the same coin now that you're aware of these discrepancies between your real and your dream life you're going to start challenging them by

asking why and when you do this notice what stories come up these are stories that your ego creates to satisfy your persona so this means they're based in reality and what you believe to be true but they're not necessarily true for example if my dream is to be a successful writer but I'm clearly not then I'm going to start asking why and if you're doing this yourself then maybe you're going to notice a lot of thoughts come up such as well I just can't this is a limiting belief because you never actually go deeper than

that it's a very dismissive and quick thought it's an answer to a lot of things and you usually don't question it or see what's behind it maybe you'll also have thoughts come up such as I'm not good enough I'm not disciplined enough I'm not smart enough and these are all tied to your self-image all these kind of thoughts that come up when you start to challenge the stories you tell yourself the stories you use as excuses for not living the life you really want all these things are a part of your shadow even that initial

feeling of unfulfillment you have when looking at the differences between the two you want to be somewhere else because you're not fully fulfilled where you are now why it's because clearly there are parts of you needs you have that are repressed and not being addressed in the life you're living and this is exactly where Shadow work can help the goal is to really dig into these stories and question them over and over and over until you find their root in your Shadow for example just to show you what this might look like when I do

this I will pick one of these main thoughts that comes up such as I'm not disciplined enough and then I will journal on that and I will ask why why why again and again and I will freely write down everything that comes to mind without restricting myself in any way or holding back I'm going to try to not judge the thoughts that come up and just let it all out and this will be 15 maybe 30 minutes of journaling and it's just a free flow of thoughts it will be uncomfortable because keep in mind these

are the thoughts that you usually try to avoid being confronted with and you may even think oh God why do I have these kind of thoughts this is awful it may feel very triggering you may cry and that's okay too but for the moment just let it be and write it all out for example if I start with a thought such as I'm not disciplined enough then I ask why and I might think well because I always give up on things because I know that I'm not going to do this or be successful in it

or finish it anyways or maybe because I've let myself down so many times in the past and I hate myself for it or when I pursued goals in the past and it didn't work out people thought less of me I thought less of me and I don't want to risk myelf worth like that you'll have all kinds of excuses like this come up and they're normally based on past experiences things you've been told belief but you want to find what's beneath it all so the next time you're sitting there and maybe you're procrastinating on a

project and you feel ashamed about it wishing you were more disciplined just think about how this would play out in your head maybe you have the conscious goal of working on this project and being successful in it but then you have this Lack of self trust maybe supressed fear around this and that's creating an unconscious goal of avoiding this task because Your Shadow is saying hey if I do this and I'm not good enough if I fail then I'm going to put myself down for it I'm going to hate myself my confidence will take a

hit maybe even the people close to me will stop loving me even if this sounds ridiculous these are all the kind of beliefs that we can hold on to over time without realizing it and this all becomes a part of your Shadow and then this is the message that it's telling your ego this is what's driving your self-sabotaging behaviors so what do you do what's the only solution you avoid the risk of failure by coming up with any and all excuses that are somewhat based in reality for example you'll think well I can't do this

project right now because my room's a mess and I have to do that first or I'm too tired to do this now or I'll just do it tomorrow and all these things they kind of make sense they satisfy both of those impulses and it's a win-win except that it's not and that's why Shadow work is important so from here this is what I call the unraveling process it's not the name for it just something I call it because I feel like it fits quite well you want to start unraveling all of these excuses until you

get to the bottom of it I had a lot of insecurities around my creativity and when I challenged that when I really dug into it I had a lot of thoughts come up such as what if I give this my absolute best and I'm not good enough what if I still fail what if I never improve and get to where I want to be and then I have to give up this dream so to avoid the chance of failure with this I just never even tried but once you realize this that's great because now you

can actually do something about it now we come to step number three which is accepting and developing Your Shadow traits the first thing you need to realize when doing Shadow work is that having bad qualities doesn't make you a bad person Yung believed that you can't be a good person until you realized your Capac for evil and I don't mean acting it out in the world but understanding it and bringing it under your control to do that you still need to face it you still need to look at it and accept it and let it

become a part of You by choosing to keep yourself small and holding back you're not really helping anyone you're not good you're just weak in fact you don't even give yourself the chance to be a good person because maybe you don't trust yourself just think how many of us are walking around without fully realizing the kind of person we can be we don't let oursel be so many things because we're scared of it we're scared that we can't control it I know that was the case for me I've spent a lot of years not being

able to express uncomfortable emotions such as anger but that didn't make me a pleasant and happy person it made me incapable I couldn't tap into anger even when I would have needed it to be a good person you need to accept and integrate Your Shadow because that's how you're going to control and access your own power you shouldn't fear the things that you deem bad inside of you this was actually one of the big messages of Yung because at the time there was so much negative stigma around the unconscious around the unknown he believes that

both the conscious and unconscious mind have capacity for evil nothing with this is ever black or white but trying to split it up into categories like this is only going to hurt you for example look at aggression if you can control your aggression it can help you protect your values and the people you love but if you suppress it you won't be able to use it in any intentional way and I know this might sound great and all and maybe you're still thinking no you don't understand if I don't fight this it will ruin my

life but I do understand and I'm not suggesting to just let loose and let your Shadow control your life it's letting it in bit for bit integrating it in steps so that you can keep control and affirm grip on it you want to eventually be able to control these parts of yourself just as well as you can control the conscious and developed parts of yourself so how do you do this you treat it a bit like a child you start small you take Tiny Steps you find Opportunities where you can get practice and accept that

you will make mistakes and most importantly you have to be able to love and accept yourself through it all to give you an example I had a lot of anger and other emotions that were just piled up out of sight and I really didn't know where to start with this so this is what I did I made a plan and I wrote down the tiniest steps possible to get started with this I would write down in my weekly planner things like three times this week I will ask for something I want and maybe once I

will speak up about something that upset me this is really how intentional you have to be about this and it'll be uncomfortable but it should still be within your comfort zone it's okay to start as small as possible because even doing these things felt really difficult and scary for me at first but it's like a muscle the more you do it the more comfortable you'll get the stronger you'll get and the more control you have over it taking little steps like this will really help you get experience and practice in developing repressed parts of yourself

and accept that you'll make mistakes you'll overreact you'll feel embarrassed because this is still an immature part of your personality so try to show yourself Grace and it's best to start around people you do love and Trust let's take discipline for an example you can start by doing something and letting yourself be bad at it and showing yourself love and that it's okay anyways you can also build your self trust through setting small goals for example every day you'll do five push-ups and the point isn't in doing the push-ups it's in showing yourself that you

will do what you say that's the whole goal of it so don't choose a goal that's too big that you're likely to fail at instead choose something you can be consistent with because this will give you experience that you can do what you say you will learn to trust your own word but it will also give you experience in doing things even when you don't want to even when times are tough because if it's as small as doing five push-ups on some days you're going to feel tired you're not going to feel motivated to do

it and it'll still be easier to do that than for example go an hour to the gym that day because you want to build yourself up you don't want to set yourself up for failure so really start small because otherwise how can you trust yourself with something big that'll only lead to self-sabotage or as another example if you want to build up your social confidence you can look at this and break it down into a big list of Tiny Steps you can do and then sort it from easiest to hardest and this can really look

like for one week you go outside and you just be around people for five 10 minutes just be somewhere where other people are you don't have to look at them talk to them do this until you feel comfortable with it and then you can move on to the next thing maybe the next thing will be going out and making small talk with someone in a shop and you do that until you're comfortable with it and you want to gradually build this up because remember this part of yourself is undeveloped and the only way to develop

it is through control and experience if you start with little steps like this eventually you'll be able to do things like go out and eat a meal on your own talk to strangers go to meetups and you have then developed the skill enough that it's no longer an insecurity but it's become a strength of yours it's a part of your personality and you'll no longer be self-sabotaging because you're afraid of social situations and you'll also be able to be more intentional and live towards your potential by having this skill so it's natural that you'll face

difficulties and challenges When developing a new skill but the more you do this you'll also develop resilience in yourself so that you can deal with tougher situations when you start to develop your repressed qualities it's best to start with the easier ones the ones that are more within your comfort zone because the more you do this the more you go through this process the more confidence you'll have in yourself to do it in the future resilience will help you believe in yourself and get back up when you fall because you need to expect that you're

going to make mistakes and you're going to fail even when you're giving it your best because your best isn't one set level it's something that you grow and you develop and that's okay that's natural so instead of just giving up with something learn to pick yourself up and try again and again and again because you build resilience by facing challenges with a mindset of I don't know how to do this but I will figure out how instead of I can't do this this because in most situations you're less afraid of failing than you are of

not being okay if you do so prove that you're there for yourself in tough times because that's how you develop resilience life is just like a game the goal is to experience all it has to offer and to pursue your unique potential it's in facing your fears and overcoming challenges following your dreams striving to improve and finding yourself and most of all it's realizing your potential and growing into the person you can be and this is what shadow work will help you with so this was a lot to sum up in one video let me

know if you have any questions about this if this was helpful and I will definitely use your feedback in my next video thank you so much for watching and if this was interesting for you I talk a lot more about Shadow work and self-development so feel free to check out my channel I hope you enjoyed this video and I'll see you next week bye