HOW TO INTEGRATE YOUR SHADOWS

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When you first get started with this process, it’s a lot like learning any new skill: it can feel weird at first. Essentially, you’re trying to look at yourself without a mirror.

 

At first, getting to know your shadow might feel foreign. As we go through our different assignments, jot down ideas and insights you discover about yourself along the way.

 

Some of these insights you might already know about yourself, to a certain degree. For example, maybe you know that you can be arrogant, jealous, or a little rigid. But even though you may know you have an arrogant side, it doesn’t mean that you’re aware when this quality is expressing itself. And this lack of awareness means that you don’t have the ability to regulate it—when you might otherwise desire to do so.

 

As we progress through this integration, you will begin to catch your shadows operating through you. Witnessing your shadows in action is big, because you’ve started a process of reducing the split between your conscious personality and your unconscious. There may be a period where all you see is the shadows in others. The good news is that you will begin to see yourself in a new light. Sometimes more critical and judgmental, but eventually, you’ll gain a greater acceptance and understanding of self.

 

How to Get Started

 

1. Identify an Aspect of Your Shadow

 

Remember that the shadow is elusive; it hides behind us. We each have hosts of defense mechanisms designed to keep our shadows repressed and out of view. Shining a light on it takes a little effort and consistent practice. The more you pay attention to your behavior and attitudes, the better chance you have of catching your shadows in the act.

 

One of the best ways to identify your shadows is to pay attention to your emotional reactions toward other people. Sure, your co-workers might be aggressive, arrogant, inconsiderate, or impatient, but if you don't have those same qualities within you, you wouldn’t be able to have a strong reaction to their behavior or the conditions in their personality.

 

Whatever bothers you in another is likely a disowned part within yourself. Get to know that part, accept it, make it a part of you, and next time, it may not evoke such a strong emotional reaction when you observe it in another.

 

Exercise: Think of someone you know (your partner, friend, relative, boss, etc.) and select something about them that irritates you. (You probably already have it at the top of your head.)

 

2. See That Attribute or Behavior Within You

 

When working with your shadow, it’s helpful to remember that what’s in one of us, is in all of us. Of course, we don’t all express every behavioral attribute all the time, but every quality—the good, the bad, and the ugly—is in all of us, waiting for the right conditions to trigger them.

 

So, the next step is to bring that quality you see in another (from #1) back into you.

 

For example, let’s say you’re judging your friend for being lazy. She just sits around all day, doesn’t want to work, completely disregards her physical health, and the list goes on and on.

 

Can you remember a time in your life when you were “lazy”? Maybe, things weren't going your way, and you started to lose hope or give up? If not, go back further into childhood. Were you proactive then? Or did you want to sit on the couch and watch TV whenever you could?

 

Laziness is something that has the ability to reside in all of us. We all have a part of ourselves that just wants to do nothing, that only wants to experience things that feel pleasurable in the moment. Someone else's laziness wouldn't bother you unless you're repressing your own laziness. Once you see the laziness within yourself (in whatever way it’s manifesting), you'll have less frustration with your friend.

 

3. Engage in Inner Dialogue

 

Many forms of inner work call you to engage in an active dialogue with various parts of yourself. At first, this might seem like a scary idea since we have a belief that only “crazy people” talk to themselves. But, the reality is that we all have many subpersonalities—numerous unrecognized and unacknowledged parts in our mind.

 

The parts within us that we don’t know are aspects of our shadow. When we don’t pay attention to these parts, they have a way of influencing our behavior.

 

Have you ever said or done something and then wondered why you said or did it? Your shadow has now taken control. Although, this can sound quite scary at first, our disowned parts (shadows) aren’t trying to hurt us, but when we ignore or deny them, they often do.

 

By dialoguing with these various parts in our imagination or a journal, we can integrate them into our conscious mind. Then, they become our allies instead of our enemies.

 

Exercise: Talk to that part of you that you acknowledged in #2. For example, get to know that “lazy” part of yourself. See what she wants from you, what she likes, and how she feels about how you live your life.

 

A few key questions to ask are:

 

• Who are you?

• What’s important to you

• What do you want/need from me?

• What are you trying to show me?

 

Be patient and open to what this part has to say.

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4. Bring Your Shadow Back into Yourself

 

Finally, become this quality or attribute. In the case of laziness, see yourself as a person that’s sometimes lazy.

 

Remember, no single quality defines you. The mistake we make by repressing our shadows is that we deny that many of these qualities exist within us. We are multi-faceted beings, Queen; begin to see yourself as a prism. That's why we project our shadows onto others, get irritated, and judge them.

 

Like in #3, owning a "darker" part of you may feel uncomfortable as you're acknowledging something inconsistent with your self-identity. As such, your ego will naturally resist it.

 

You can make statements to yourself or say out loud, for example:

 

• I am lazy.

• I am arrogant.

• I am negative.

• I am jealous.

• I am boring.

• I am smart.

• I am funny.

 

The last two examples are positive attributes, as our shadows can also reveal positive repressed qualities that we project onto others as well.

 

Experiencing these parts of you expresses these traits as fully as possible. Avoid making the process abstract or conceptual: just be it . Now, you can re-own and integrate this quality in yourself.

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For more information on shadow work/integration and how you can apply it to your own life, contact us today.