When I'm chatting to people about what I do they often express a fear of looking at their shadow or doing shadow work as it sounds scary and confronting and I can understand that.
It doesn't have to be like that though. Imagine that the shadows come from objects that were created when you were a child and put in a cupboard. Whenever you open the cupboard, even just a crack, you see the scary shadows looming at you, so you quickly shut the door again. In this analogy the objects are the fears, beliefs, experiences. These form a part of us that we have cut off and no longer acknowledge.
Of course addressing these can feel scary. Those things that live in the dark cupboard were put there when you were young and you didn't have the capacity or resources to deal with whatever it was, so you put it in a cupboard to enable you to carry on with living your life as best you could. So, whenever you think about doing shadow work or opening the cupboard door it feels as scary as it did when you were young.
The shadows in our psyche are the same as the shadows created by light and dark. When you turn the light on the scary monster, it reveals itself as just a piece of clothing on a chair. In the same way once the light is turned on in the cupboard, its contents can be seen in the same way, and not as scary as you thought it was. Everyone that I have worked with has felt better once the scary shadows have been seen, acknowledged, processed and the young part of them comforted. This work can resolve coping mechanisms and distraction techniques that are now unhelpful or even harmful as they are now out of date. You are now an adult with choices available to you that you didn't have when you were a child. Working with me means that I can support and help you regulate and stay calm when doing this work so you don't become overwhelmed, like you did as a child.
Shadow work could also be described as parts work and inner child work. We all have beliefs that were created in childhood that aren't factually true, but which we hold on to anyway. Beliefs for example like; 'I'm not good enough', 'I need to try harder', 'if I just …… then I'll be okay'. These beliefs might not be in your conscious awareness anymore, or the events that lead you to create them may be long forgotten, yet they are still running in the background, in the shadow of your psyche causing you to make decisions and behave in ways that are no longer helpful and are perhaps hindering your life.
An example:
Imagine a young child, Adam, whose father leaves his mother with no explanation never to be seen again. Adam believes that it was his fault somehow, that he 'wasn't good enough' for his father to stay or to see him again. It also created the belief that 'people I love leave me, unexpectedly'. This feels so painful that he pushes it away and puts this pain into the cupboard meaning that he no longer thinks about his father and has created a defense around thinking or feeling about him. Adam turns to food to distract himself whenever he feels lonely, rejected or not good enough.
Adam grows up and starts having romantic relationships – to start with these flings are fun but short lived because as soon as Adam grows feelings for the other person, he starts pushing the other person away so that they leave. Adam also starts to binge eat to help manage the feelings of rejection and loneliness. Unfortunately, Adam is unable to recognise his own behaviour or to take seriously his partners complaints so, to Adam, it always feels that they leave unexpectedly, reinforcing his belief that 'people I care for/love leave me unexpectedly'.
The pain of rejection in the cupboard is the shadow that needs to be brought into the light. Adam's inner child needs to be shown and reassured that his father leaving wasn't his fault and that it was nothing to do with not being good enough. By healing this experience and the beliefs it created, Adam was able to meet someone and is now in a committed long-term relationship no longer fearing that his partner will unexpectedly leave him. He also has a much better relationship with food, no longer turning to food to give him the comfort he craved when he was young.
If you want to look at your own shadows please contact me, I look forward to meeting you and working together.