The self-reflection and introspection of shadow work can increase your compassion for others.
Shadow work can promote self-awareness by helping you get in touch with suppressed emotions.
Exploring and acknowledging “shadow” traits that prompt discomfort can lead to self-acceptance.
Explore shadow, or unconscious, traits through art, journaling, and paying attention to dreams.
Shadow work is a psychological approach to becoming more in tune with what Carl Jung, the method’s founder, calls your shadow.
Your shadow is a hypothetical concept that represents repressed parts of your personality, says Sylvia Kalicinski-Don, PhD, a therapist in private practice.
For example, when you feel ashamed, you may suppress that emotion deep into your unconscious, which can make you less self-aware.
The point of shadow work is to bring suppressed emotions to the forefront to help you better understand yourself and how you approach the world around you.
The end result, according to limited research, could mean handling negative conflict more effectively as well as improvements in overall health.
What is shadow work?
Shadow work is a part of Jungian psychotherapy, a method for addressing mental health issues and life pain points through personal growth. A key focus of Jungian psychotherapy is reaching your full potential by bringing the unconscious, or unknown, parts of yourself together with the conscious, or known parts of yourself.
Shadow work centers around the unconscious parts of yourself — your shadow, in other words.
Your shadow can have both negative and positive aspects, says Nathan Brandon, PsyD, a licensed clinical psychologist in private practice.
A negative aspect would be traits or impulses that people generally disapprove of, like greed. Because openly negative traits are more likely to be met with disapproval from others — and so more likely to be repressed — they tend to play a bigger role in your shadow than positive traits.
A more positive aspect might be an underdeveloped or stifled trait. For example, a child frequently scolded by teachers for acting too quickly might grow up to believe that acting spontaneously will only bring negative attention from others. Over time, spontaneity becomes a repressed part of their personality, making it harder for them to act without worrying about what others think of them.
Shadow work and projection
Shadow work can help you connect with these traits by making you more conscious of them. One way it does this is by addressing the issue of projection.
People commonly deal with traits they don’t like about themselves through projection, which plays a key role in how your shadow functions. Projection happens when you call out a specific trait or behavior in someone else, while ignoring how it plays out in your own life.
For example, maybe you often feel jealous when your partner spends time with friends. Not hearing from them for a while leaves you anxious and irritable, but you have a hard time acknowledging your jealousy. But when they ask a few questions about the time you spend with a close friend, you say, “What, are you jealous?”
Since projection causes us to attribute thoughts and feelings we recognize as “wrong” onto others, it follows that a person in your life who irritates you could represent your shadow, says Brandon. This is because your strong feelings about the person can be a sign they’re actually reminding you of a part of yourself you don’t like.
Shadow work, then, can help stop this cycle of projection by helping you become aware of these repressed parts.
How to do shadow work
There’s no standard way to do shadow work, but Brandon says the following methods that encourage self-expression can help you get started on your own:
List your shadow parts. Without judgement, list some of your potential shadow traits, such as aggression, selfishness, or cowardice. Consider how these traits inform your actions, reactions, and values. If you’re having trouble identifying your shadow, thinking about which people or situations cause you to respond with strong emotions could offer some insight since this can be a sign you’re projecting an unconscious trait onto that person.
Journal. Keeping a journal of your emotional responses to different events could help you pinpoint some of your shadow traits by increasing your self-awareness. There’s no set amount of time you need to journal in order to get results, but some research suggests journaling consistently even once a week can make a difference.
Dream interpretation.Paying attention to your dreams — or even writing them down — could help you discover aspects of your unconscious to reconnect with.
Create art. Carl Jung emphasized the importance of creativity in connecting with all the parts of your self, including your shadow. You can express yourself artistically in whatever way works best for you. Some research suggests creating mandalas is a helpful way to practice self-reflection through art.
When dipping into shadow work, Brandon says it’s important to be willing to look at all the parts of yourself — especially the ones you’re uncomfortable with.
“Remember that the shadow is a part of you, whether you like it or not. You may as well learn to accept it and deal with it in a healthy way,” says Brandon.
According to Jungian psychology, acceptance is key to success because accepting your shadow traits allows you to control them, rather than the other way around. For example, becoming aware of repressed aggression might allow you to more effectively harness that energy in situations that require it, such as responding to a threat to your safety.
Important: Accepting your shadow traits doesn’t mean celebrating qualities that harm yourself or others. Instead, it involves acknowledging that those parts of yourself exist.
Still, it can be tricky to practice shadow work completely on your own.
“It can be helpful to have a therapist or trusted friend to help you navigate these waters. It is also important to be patient and gentle with yourself. Allow yourself time to process and integrate the material you uncover,” says Brandon.
Benefits of shadow work
Shadow work is designed to lead to personal growth and development, but it may also benefit you in these additional ways:
1. Moving toward self-realization
Self-realization is a Jungian term that means achieving the best possible version of your personality. In fact, Jung suggested that becoming conscious of your shadow self is a key step toward reaching self-realization.
2. Growing your self-awareness
“Doing shadow work can help someone become more aware of their projections and judgements,” says Kalicinski-Don.
When you’re not aware of your shadow, it’s more likely those traits will guide your thoughts and actions without your knowledge.
Gaining an understanding of your own inclinations, even unpleasant ones, will help you recognize when they’re driving your actions, allowing you to make a change if you want to.
In fact, research from 2011 shows a strong connection between self-awareness and self-regulation, or self-control.
3. Empowering yourself
Since shadow work involves taking responsibility for parts of yourself you weren’t previously aware of, it can also be empowering, says Brandon.
“It can stop people from seeing themselves as victims of other people and circumstances and help them to see the power they have to change their situation,” says Brandon.
For example, your shadow work might reveal that while you tend to blame coworkers for projects you turn in late, you also have a tendency to procrastinate. Realizing and accepting this truth about yourself gives you the power to address your procrastination, allowing you to feel more control over your own workflow.
4. Becoming more well-rounded
Shadow work could help you become more well-rounded by allowing you to accept parts of yourself you’re disconnected with, says Brandon.
Perhaps you’re a great listener. Still, that positive quality often comes at the cost of staying quiet in situations where it would be more helpful to speak up. Shadow work could help bring out your assertive side, if you’ve repressed that part of yourself, so you feel comfortable both listening and speaking up.
5. Boosting compassion
Shadow work can decrease tendencies you might have to judge harshly and increase your compassion for others, says Kalicinski-Don.
One possible reason? When you’re not aware of a part of your shadow, you might be more likely to become irritated with another person who displays that quality.
Shadow work can help reveal when getting upset at someone says more about your traits than theirs.
Since shadow work involves uncovering parts of yourself you might not have even known existed, it can be a bumpy journey — but that doesn’t mean it’s not worthwhile.
Most experts suggest shadow work is a lifelong process. One reason for this is that Jungian psychology places more importance on continuing to seek growth throughout your lifetime rather than reaching perfection, or a point where no further growth is needed.
It’s normal to get stuck every once in a while, but shadow work shouldn’t become a burden. You might find, though, that you make more progress at certain points in your life than others.
“The shadow will continue to present itself throughout our lives if we pay attention and keep exploring. Be patient and let the process unfold in its own time,” says Brandon.
Five Powerful Ways Abusive Narcissists Get Inside Your Head byShahida Arabi
In popular culture, the term “narcissistic” is thrown about quite loosely, usually referring to vanity and self-absorption. This reduces narcissism to a common quality that everyone possesses and downplays the symptoms demonstrated by people with the actual disorder. While narcissism does exist on a spectrum, narcissism as a full-fledged personality disorder is quite different.
People who meet the criteria for Narcissistic Personality Disorder or those who have traits of Antisocial Personality Disorder can operate in extremely manipulative ways within the context of intimate relationships due to their deceitfulness, lack of empathy and their tendency to be interpersonally exploitative. Although I will be focusing on narcissistic abusers in this post, due to the overlap of symptoms in these two disorders, this post can potentially apply to interactions with those who have ASPD to an extent.
It’s important in any kind of relationship that we learn to identify the red flags when interacting with people who display malignant narcissism and/or antisocial traits, so we can better protect ourselves from exploitation and abuse, set boundaries, and make informed decisions about who we keep in our lives. Understanding the nature of these toxic interactions and how they affect us has an enormous impact on our ability to engage in self-care.
Watch out for the following covert manipulation tactics when you’re dating someone or in a relationship.
1. The Idealization-Devaluation-Discard Phase
Narcissists and those with antisocial traits tend to subject romantic partners through three phases within a relationship. The idealization phase (which often happens most strongly during the early stages of dating or a relationship) consists of putting you on a pedestal, making you the center of his/her world, being in contact with you frequently, and showering you with flattery and praise. You are convinced that the narcissist can’t live without you and that you’ve met your soulmate. Be wary of: constant texting, shallow flattery and wanting to be around you at all times. This is a technique known as “lovebombing” and it is how most victims get sucked in: they are tired of the “games” people play with each other in communication and are flattered by the constant attention they get from the narcissist. You may be fooled into thinking that this means a narcissist is truly interested in you, when in fact, he or she is interested in making you dependent on their constant praise and attention.
The devaluation phase is subsequent to this idealization phase, and this is when you’re left wondering why you were so abruptly thrust off the pedestal. The narcissist will suddenly start to blow hot and cold, criticizing you, covertly and overtly putting you down, comparing you to others, emotionally withdrawing from you and giving you the silent treatment when you’ve failed to meet their “standards.” Since the “hot” aspect of this phase relies on intermittent reinforcement in which the narcissist gives you inconsistent spurts of the idealization phase throughout, you become convinced that perhaps you are at fault and you can “control” the narcissist’s reactions.
Even though the narcissist can be quite possessive and jealous over you, since he or she views you as an object and a source of narcissistic supply, the narcissist is prone to projecting this same behavior onto you. The narcissist makes you seem like the needy one as you react to his or her withdrawal and withholding patterns even though the expectations of frequent contact were established early on in the relationship by the narcissist himself.
You are mislead into thinking that if you just learn not to be so “needy,” “clingy,” or “jealous,” the narcissist will reward you with the loving behavior he or she demonstrated in the beginning. The narcissist may use these and other similar words to gaslight victims when they react normally to being provoked. It’s a way to maintain control over your legitimate emotional reactions to their stonewalling, emotional withdrawal and inconsistency.
Unfortunately, it is during the devaluation phase that a narcissist’s true self shows itself. You have to understand that the man or woman in the beginning of the relationship never truly existed. The true colors are only now beginning to show, so it will be a struggle as you attempt to reconcile the image that the narcissist presented to you with his or her current behavior.
During the discard phase, the narcissist abandons his or her victim in the most horrific, demeaning way possible to convince the victim that he or she is worthless. This could range from: leaving the victim for another lover, humiliating the victim in public, being physically aggressive and a whole range of other demeaning behaviors to communicate to the victim that he or she is no longer important.
2. Gaslighting.
Most abusive relationships contain a certain amount of gaslighting, a technique narcissists use to convince you that your perception of the abuse is inaccurate. During the devaluation and discard phases, the narcissist will often remark upon your emotional instability, your “issues,” and displace blame of his/her abuse as your fault. Frequent use of phrases such as “You provoked me,” “You’re too sensitive,” “I never said that,” or “You’re taking things too seriously” after the narcissists’ abusive outbursts are common and are used to gaslight you into thinking that the abuse is indeed your fault or that it never even took place.
Narcissists are masters of making you doubt yourself and the abuse. This is why victims so often suffer from ruminations after the ending of a relationship with a narcissist, because the emotional invalidation they received from the narcissist made them feel powerless in their agency and perceptions. This self-doubt enables them to stay within abusive relationships even when it’s clear that the relationship is a toxic one, because they are led to mistrust their own instincts and interpretations of events.
3. Smear campaigns.
Narcissists keep harems because they love to have their egos stroked and they need constant validation from the outside world to feed their need for excessive admiration and confirm their grandiose sense of self-importance. They are clever chameleons who are also people-pleasers, morphing into whatever personality suits them in situations with different types of people. It is no surprise, then, that the narcissist begins a smear campaign against you not too long after the discard phase, in order to paint you as the unstable one, and that this is usually successful with the narcissist’s support network which also tends to consist of other narcissists, people-pleasers, empaths, as well as people who are easily charmed.
This smear campaign accomplishes three things: 1) it depicts you as the abuser or unstable person and deflects your accusations of abuse, 2) it provokes you, thus proving your instability to others when trying to argue his or her depiction of you, and 3) serves as a hoovering technique in which the narcissist seeks to pull you back into the trauma of the relationship as you struggle to reconcile the rumors about you with who you actually are by speaking out against the accusations. The only way to not get pulled into this tactic is by going full No Contact with both the narcissist and his or her harem.
4. Triangulation.
Healthy relationships thrive on security; unhealthy ones are filled with provocation, uncertainty and infidelity. Narcissists like to manufacture love triangles and bring in the opinions of others to validate their point of view. They do this to an excessive extent in order to play puppeteer to your emotions. In the book Psychopath Free by Peace, the method of triangulation is discussed as a popular way the narcissist maintains control over your emotions. Triangulation consists of bringing the presence of another person into the dynamic of the relationship, whether it be an ex-lover, a current mistress, a relative, or a complete stranger.
This triangulation can take place over social media, in person, or even through the narcissist’s own verbal accounts of the other woman or man. The narcissist relies on jealousy as a powerful emotion that can cause you to compete for his or her affections, so provocative statements like “I wish you’d be more like her,” or “He wants me back into his life, I don’t know what to do” are designed to trigger the abuse victim into competing and feeling insecure about his or her position in the narcissist’s life.
Unlike healthy relationships where jealousy is communicated and dealt with in a productive manner, the narcissist will belittle your feelings and continue inappropriate flirtations and affairs without a second thought. Triangulation is the way the narcissist maintains control and keeps you in check – you’re so busy competing for his or her attention that you’re less likely to be focusing on the red flags within the relationship or looking for ways to get out of the relationship.
5. The false self and the true self.
The narcissist hides behind the armor of a “false self,” a construct of qualities and traits that he or she usually presents to the outside world. Due to this armor, you are unlikely to comprehend the full extent of a narcissist’s inhumanity and lack of empathy until you are in the discard phase. This can make it difficult to pinpoint who the narcissistic abuser truly is – the sweet, charming and seemingly remorseful person that appears shortly after the abuse, or the abusive partner who ridicules, invalidates and belittles you on a daily basis? You suffer a great deal of cognitive dissonance trying to reconcile the illusion the narcissist first presented to you with the tormenting behaviors he or she subjects you to. In order to cope with this cognitive dissonance, you might blame yourself for his or her abusive behavior and attempt to “improve” yourself when you have done nothing wrong, just to uphold your belief in the narcissist’s false self during the devaluation phase.
During the discard phase, the narcissist reveals the true self – the genuinely abusive and abrasive personality beneath the shallow veneer rears its ugly head and you get a glimpse of the cruelty that was lurking within all along. You bear witness to his or her cold, callous indifference as you are discarded. You might think this is only a momentary lapse into inhumanity, but actually, it is as close you will ever get to seeing the narcissist’s true self.
The manipulative, conniving charm that existed in the beginning is no more – instead, it is replaced by the genuine contempt that the narcissist felt for you all along. See, narcissists don’t truly feel empathy or love for others – so during the discard phase, they feel absolutely nothing for you except the excitement of having exhausted another source of supply. You were just another source of supply, so do not fool yourself into thinking that the magical connection that existed in the beginning was in any way real. It was an illusion, much like the identity of the narcissist was an illusion.
Available for purchase on Amazon, Barnes and Noble, NOOK, and other major online retailers. It is available in paperback, as an e-book and as an Audible book.
