Shadow Work
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Shadow Work
Understanding, integrating, and assimilating your shadow side
ELEMENT 6.1: SHADOW WORK
“Every pain, addiction, anguish, longing, depression, anger, or fear…is some disowned shadow wanting to return
home to the light and home of ourselves.”
–Jacob Nordby
YOUR VILLAIN
In every story, there is a hero and a villain. In our life’s story, we are both. The “villain” in our story is the dark part of ourselves that we hide from view because we are ashamed and afraid of it.
This “villain” is our selfishness, our fear, and our repressed anger. It is that part of our identity that we have repressed in our lifelong quest to be liked or seen as good and attractive.
Carl Jung calls this part of our identity our shadow because, just like a shadow, it follows us everywhere. According to Jung, our shadow is first constructed in early childhood as a result of our parents and teachers telling us that we had to be “good” because no one would like us if we were “bad.”
We were taught that our negative thoughts and behaviours were too ugly to form part of our conscious self. So as we grew up, we suppressed all our selfish, cruel, angry, and destructive thoughts so no one would see them … not even us. Our shadow has stayed buried deep ever since.
YOUR ILLUMINATION
Jung prescribed a three-step process for bringing our shadow to the surface and integrating it with our identity.
- Understand and accept your shadow as a fundamental part of who you are. This step involves accepting the so-called “bad” parts of yourself as well as the “good” parts. It also involves accepting that the labels “good” and “bad” were affixed by parents, teachers, and society, not you.
- Integrate your shadow self. In other words, bring it to full consciousness. You can accomplish this through mutual sharing, support, and guidance during our coaching conversations.
- Continue this inner work, using a range of techniques to fully assimilate your shadow over weeks and then months. This is where the real change takes place.
Your Personality
Jung postulated that we all possess, to differing degrees, some of the qualities of the 12 personality archetypes that together make up our collective consciousness. The archetypes describe how we see ourselves in relation to everyone else.
For a leader, there’s great value in understanding which three archetypes we most associate with. Once we do that, we can understand not only our key strengths but also the aspects of the other nine archetypes we may want to start integrating into our lives.
The 12 archetypes are:
- Outlaw
- Magician
- Hero
- Lover
- Jester
- Everyman
- Caregiver
- Ruler
- Creator
- Innocent
- Sage
- Explorer
We all possess some elements of each of the archetypes, but we tend to identify most with just three. It pays to know our strengths so we can play to them, and it also pays to recognise those areas where we are not as strong, so we can consciously develop them.
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