Shadow work is a term used often in spiritual and psychology circles to describe any process (of which there are thousands) that makes the subconscious conscious. The tool of shadow work is one of the most powerful tools in existence. But with any tool, it is important how you use it. And even more important than that is what you use it for. It is very easy to use shadow work as a tool to resist yourself and try to escape away from yourself. And nowhere is this truer than it is with regards to your pain. When this is the case, your pain will get worse. Let’s take a look at one of the most common pitfalls of shadow work, so that you don’t find yourself falling into it and so that you can get yourself out of it.
Years ago, the revolutionary psychologist Carl Jung (while studying with Freud), observed the fact that there were parts of his patients that they, themselves were aware of and to the contrary, there were parts that they, themselves were unaware of. Consciousness has long been referred to as a light. To become conscious of something is to be able to see it in the same way that we see something that is exposed to light. When something is unconscious, we cannot see it. It is as if we are trying to see it in the dark. And so, Carl Jung began to refer to the unconscious aspects within a person that they, themselves are unaware of or could not see as their ‘shadow’. The human shadow is any aspect of a person that is not exposed to the light of consciousness.
Every human in existence that was ever socialized (which is everyone), went through this process of splitting themselves into parts. Parts that are owned and parts that are disowned. This self-rejection is the birth of self-hate. The emptiness that we feel is the result of those missing rejected or disowned parts of our self. And the soul wants one thing, to make us whole again. We will be provided every single opportunity to become whole again and to make the subconscious conscious. But in order to become whole again, we need to see and accept the aspects of ourselves that we disowned and denied and rejected. This is what shadow work is all about.
How does all this relate to pain? Well, shadow work is excellent at reducing and even eliminating pain. Most people who start doing shadow work, start doing it so that they can stop being in pain. In order to make things better or solve a problem, you have to know what is going on. A lot of what is causing a person pain, is not known to their conscious mind. It is “in the shadow” so to speak. There are many shadow work processes that help you to become conscious of the causation of the pain you are experiencing. And many that help you to directly resolve what is causing you pain. Pain alerts us to a great many things that we have disowned, denied and rejected within ourselves. It alerts us to subconscious processes that are taking place within us that are making our life painful.
When people hear about or experience the pain reducing promise of shadow work, they associate shadow work with an end to pain. And here in lies a pitfall. This pitfall resides between a distinction. The distinction between getting out of and away from pain so that the pain goes away vs. coming in and closer so as to lovingly take care of pain; and in doing so, the pain is eased. This may seem like splitting hairs until you see it played out in an example. So, i’m going to use a common one.
Imagine that you are a little kid and you are crying because you are in emotional pain. Now imagine that your parent really can’t handle the way that you being upset makes them feel. They want the pain they are feeling because of you to go away. And the only way to make that happen, is to make you stop crying. So, your parent comes over to you to “comfort you or fix your problem”. But it doesn’t work. Why doesn’t it work? Because if you could hear the truth of the matter, it would be “Hey kid, I’ve come over to be here with you now so that you stop crying and are no longer a problem for me.” In this scenario, your parent is in resistance to you and they want to get out and away from the you that is hurting.
Now imagine the same scenario. You are crying because you are in emotional pain. Now imagine that your parent empathetically feels pain when you are in pain. The care they have for your life experience and also for theirs, makes them want to be there with you if you are in pain. It makes them genuinely want to understand what is causing your pain, so that they can take genuine positive ownership over your wellbeing and by doing so, find a way to help you to feel better. In this scenario, your parent is coming in and closer, so as to lovingly take care of your pain. With these examples, you can clearly see that the energy and intention behind the action is everything.
When we are in pain, that pain we are feeling can be compared to a child within us that is crying out for our help. The fact that we feel the pain, means that we are hearing those cries. This aspect of us needs us to empathetically care and to want to come closer so as to understand it and learn from it and caretake it. But so many of us approach shadow work like the parent in our first example. We use it as a tool to try to get our pain to shut up and go away. In fact, we are desperate for it to shut up and go away. But this attitude we have towards our pain in and of itself, only adds fuel to the fire of our pain. And so, our pain only intensifies.
When we do shadow work to try to get out of and away from our pain, we are in resistance to ourselves. We are trying to escape from ourselves. This is a profoundly un-self-loving act. We need to do shadow work from a space of love. To love is to consciously choose to take something as a part of ourselves. It is a state of deep positive ownership and integration. We need to do shadow work so as to deeply feel, see, hear and understand our pain. And to use this understanding to inform our choices and actions so that we are caretaking our wellbeing in the ways that will ease that pain. The pain itself is not the problem. The pain is simply the alarm bell alerting us to something in need of our presence, our attention, our curiosity, our focus, our love and our assistance.
If we are using shadow work to get away from our pain so we don’t feel it anymore, this means we have a part of ourselves that is in resistance to coming closer to and caretaking our pain. I highly suggest that you do parts work with this aspect of yourself. After all, this part of you is in and of itself in pain and doing so would be the first step to coming closer to and caretaking your pain. It is the pain behind your resistance to your own pain. To learn how to do this, you can watch my video titled: Parts Work (What Is Parts Work and How To Do It).
Each one of us needs to take a good look at the way that we are using shadow work and what for, in order to make sure that we haven’t made pain the problem. And in order to make sure we are not using shadow work as a tool to get out of and away from our pain or to get it to shut up. Essentially, to make sure we are not using shadow work as a tool of self-resistance.
