Shadow Work

[Traumwandlerin]

What is a Shadow?
The theory of Shadows is known in Magick and in Psychology, actually both fields work with similiar technics to encounter your Shadows. The psychology brach refers to Jung, who has written many interesting books about this topic. Everyone has a Shadow. The Shadow is the sum of all your repressed, thoughts, feelings, wishes, traits and memories. All those items were repressed for a reason. Having them on the light side hurted you in some way. Talking back to your parents may have earned you physical discipline. So talking back in general or even say your opinion was put in the Shadow. Maybe the kids at school made fun of you, cause you enjoyed gymnastics, so enjoying physical sensations went into the Shadow. It was easier this way. It was to protect yourself. To live a happy life without being beaten or being mocked. But you are a grown up now. Your parents aren't discipline you anymore, and if htey do so, you know how to change that, kids in school can't harm you anymore. But the items are still in the Shadow.

What is Shadow Work?
In the todays society due to nurture many things are hidden from yourself. Many feelings and wishes are repressed. They once had a reason, but your life changed, the reasons have gone, the Shadow still exists. So what we do is going into the Shadow and have a look on all those hidden thoughts and traits to see which things can leave the Shadow. Most parts of the Shadow can be brought to the light if transformed.

The risks of Shadow Work
Shadow Work is quite dangerous for almost all people. Your Shadow is full of repressed things. Every single item in the Shadow will hurt you. If you realize something in the Shadow and realize it's part of yourself, you probably gonna start hating yourself. Everything in the Shadow has gone there because you were afraid of it or it hurted you, or you were beaten to put it there. So every single item will hold a lot of negative connections. You probably don't even want those things out in the light because you are afraid or don't even regocnize how this could be a valuable piece of you.
So the risk is a serious change in how you think about yourself. A lot and lot of really negative feelings which could lead to depression and phobias. Also there is always the risk to find something that really should not be touched unprepared. Like a deep and repressed trauma which could lead to PTSD, DID and other serious mental illnesses.
If you are a highly suggestible type who believes in Demons, negative Spirits and the like, it's possible for you to hallucinate those in your life. Be aware they are not real and can't harm you. They are just a symptom of your inner feelings that start to awake and scare you. So don't fuel those fears with fearing even more or otherwise the hallucinations become stronger.
If you are not feeling safe, you will increase the risks of Shadow Work dramatically!


The gain of Shadow Work
You will develope and regognize your full potential. You learn how you are able to overcome your nurture and be the person you truly are. Your Ahadow influences you without you recognizing it. Sometimes you see you do things, but don't know why you acted that way. That's your Shadow doing it. But mostly you won't even notice, your Shadow has a great influence and you got used to it, think it's normal, but it's not. You think that's the way you are, but that's not you, that's just what you were made. Also the items in the shadow contain serious energies and it cost a lot of energy to hold them there. All this energy can be freed of you bring those items to the light.

When to do Shadow Work?
When you are feeling unhappy, not satisfied with your life, restless, don't know what you want, are sad for no reason over a longer period of time, there is certainly something lingering in your Shadow which makes your life miserable. Shadow Work is especially recommended if you have already a minor disorder, but you probably need help by a therapist then. With major disorders (those which makes you think suicide is a valid option) you should stabilze yourself first.

How to find your Shadow
There are hundreds of ways to find your Shadow, but all starts with watching yourself. How do you act? Is this congruent to what you are thinking? Are their situations or people where you think you overreact? Or where negative feelings, body reactions or thought occur? What are you thinking all the day long? Which words do you use when you are thinking? Are those thoughts nice?
What are you dreaming? Shadows tend to manifest itself in dreams, mostly as something hunting yourself or threatening your life. Those are mostly nightmares or really strange dreams.

Whatever you do, always do it from a state of mind, where you feel safe. If you have trouble feeling safe (which would be naturally since you know Shadow work can have serious risks), you need to work on feeling safe first! Things that can help you feeling safe: Cast a circle, Call to your personal Gods, Ask your spirits guides for help, visualize and strenghten your Aura, lay out some protecting stones, drink a protective potion, start the journey from your inner safe place, visit a strong and magickal real world safe place, and so on.
If you are not feeling safe, you will increase the risks of Shadow Work dramatically!

If you are trained to see those little incongruencies and hints in your life, you can start with other technics. Those really depends on what you like. You can meditate and learn more about your thought patterns, make you more aware about yourself. You can journey to find your spirit guides to hunt your Shadow together. You can use a Tarot to find out more about those items. I'm giving an example for Trance-Technics:

Go into a Trance and visit your safe place. Call your spirit guide and say to him you want to hunt down your Shadow. Since you've already watched yourself carefully you can already use some information about the Shadow. "I'm always feeling ashamed when my girlfriend is drinking in front of others. I'll get mad and want to leave the party". Then you go hunting. Probably you visit the mentioned party with your guide, watch yourself and your girlfriend, getting drunk. You can see how weird you are acting. Your guide will help you to see the layers below. You suddenly realize you are fearful. You are fearing your girlfriend might loose too much control and something bad will happen to her. You only want to protect her. But you are not there already. That is only a message about her, not about you. Why do you think you need to protect her? You realize you are afraid of losing control over yourself when drunk. You are afraid of losing control in general. Seeing your girlfriend losing control reminds you of your own fears. You realize you think you need always to be in control. But you are still not there. What should you control? It's the shadow parts. Which part of the Shadow is it, that wants to break out when you get drunk? You realize you don't have full control over your body and your feelings. You tend to get way to emotional, easily angry, a bit aggressive, that in combination with the loss of body control, you tend to hit people way harder than you actually intended. The friendly slap will end in pain. You don't want that, you are ashamed of getting angry that easily, you are ahsamed of the loss of bodily control. You've stopped drinking at partys and can't stand your girlfriend drinking either, even though she would never slap anyone.
You can know traveling further, to seek the origin of why you tend to become angry and why you are ashamed that you can't control it. All those will give you valuable information.

All technics will only work if you are open to the messages. If you don't want to see how stubborn you are, the Ouja-Board can spell you "stubborn" and you wouldn't see it. If you won't get any results in your technic, than it's probably because you are not willing to see them. You can enhance your acceptance with many methods:
-You can meditate to enhace loving yourself the way you are. Learning that you are ok even the Shadow parts are worthy and valuable and you can accept your flaws, cause everyone has many, many, flaws.
-You can use affirmations to do the same
-You can use a Chakra-opening-meditation enhanced with some gemstones.
-You can read books about loving yourself (reading about this is a very powerful affirmation for a short period of time)
-You can pray to your Gods and feel how they love and accept you with all your flaws and how they love the Shadow, too


Confronting and transform your Shadow
Once the time has come, when you have learned enough about one item in the Shadow and you are ready to act. Again, there are many ways for you depending on your technic. Again I'll write the example for Trance-Travel-Technics:
Journey to your safe place, ask your spiritual guide to help you confronting and transforming this specific item in the Shadow. Both of you will call it now, see how it manifests itself. Isn't it gruesome and disgusting? That's the specific item in the Shadow. You spirit guide makes sure you still feel safe. If you feel your Shadow attacks you, you're spirit guide is able to make a cage around the Shadow so it can't do any harm. Look at it, this is the Shadow and you will destroy everything that is not you and keep everything that is valuable. Get yourself a nice bottle, look at the Shadow, say "You are anger. You make me do all the stuff that's bad (like hitting people, crash glas), but you are not totally bad. Anger is a valuable feeling. Whenever I feel you, I know that something hurts me, that I'm fearing, that I need to act. Anger will give me the energy to act, but of course violence is not an appropiate reaction in most cases. "
Go on like this. Say and feel the good aspects and the negative aspects of this Shadow. Visualize how the good aspects will emerge of the Shadow and go into the bottle as a glowing light and pure energy. The Shadow becomes darker. Proceed as long as there is something positive about the Shadow to find. After you've extracted all the positve thing off the Shadow you are going to destroy it, it's only a negative pattern now. If you feel like you don't wanna destroy it, there is still something positive left in the Shadow you haven't find yet. So look further until you are willing to destroy the negative pattern that was once a Shadow.
Your guide will help you destroying it and will provide you with ideas how to do it. For example burning, so you can free all the energy in the negative pattern.
Afterwards you've earned a bottle full of the positive essence of the former Shadow, that is the transformed Shadow. Keep in in your safe place. Know you've gained something valuable, a new part of yourself. Honour it.

Firming the transformed Shadow
Transformed Shadows have the tendency to walk back into the Shadow, so it's esential to firm them here. For example have a small party to honor the appearences of a new ability or part of yourself. You can do this alone, invite your guides or friends that helped you on the way. Then use this ability, see it in action. Wait a few weeks before transforming a new Shadow. You need to firm this one first. Be aware how this transformed Shadow influences your life in a positive way. Be aware which times it acts negative. Everything has a downside, learn to deal with it. The positive effect overweighs and you can minimze the negative effects if you know and train your transformed Shadow.

[Traumwandlerin]

So, this is the first version of how to do Shadow Work. You can point out flaws, mistakes, things you want to know, things that should be changed. After that I'll post a new version. So discussing the topic is probably sensable in this thread. I'm gonna change the layout (I know, it sucks). Please be sensible with my language abilities, but also make sure to point out the mistakes. I'm not a native speaker, so there are surely many mistakes in it.

[Kitty]

I've not heard much about Shadow work before, just Jung's general theory so this was really interesting.
I don't think I'm nearly ready for it though tbh but I'm gonna add this page to favorites and hopefully come back when I'm more confident.
I actually didn't notice many mistakes as all, not more than most people make ... I so wish I could speak anoter language
xx

[Traumwandlerin]

I'm glad if it's readable and even more glad if it's helping and inspiring I guess I leave this version up, if there are no complains. I also have some additions in my mind, more examples and more of the practical side. I always think one is learning more by doing and trying than by reading theory.

[Earth Ritual]

BRILLIANT!!! par usual and as I suspected!!! mhahahahaha!

I am grateful you chose to grace us with your knowledge. Many of the people on this board do not even have an awareness that "second" languages exist, yet alone the ability to teach and form complex thought in such languages. BRAVO!


If anyone really cares about creating some REAL magick, this is the stuff to get into!!

[WhiteOne]

Around five years ago I was having a series of dreams. They would go like this: I would come to a river crossing. Then there would be something blocking me from it. Once it was a dark colored baby doll that was scaring a little girl, who complained to me that it wouldn't let her cross. It wouldn't stop coming even when I told it to stop and that I was calling the police. Then it was my cousin picking on her scabs until they bled (this seems like a real behavior of mine that I could have cast into the shadow instead of transforming it.) Then it was this strange creature that looked like it was made out of black worms. This is the one that made me suspect I was dealing with my Shadow. I tried to run across the bridge, but it turned into a black-writhing deer at the other side and it mirrored me. So I swung across the side of a bridge and it turned into a monkey and came after me. On the other side I started wrestling with it and I got a hold on it. Its teeth were snapping like it was trying to bite me, but I just grabbed harder on its face, then it squeaked out something like, "You're hurting me" or "why are you doing this?" Do you think this could have represented my shadow? Thanks for posting all this information Traum. I wish I would have known about it when I was having the dreams. I remember being really confused at how to deal with this creature. I suppose that if it is my shadow, by hurting it, I would have been reinforcing its "shadow-ness" because it got cast into the shadows that way to begin with. I remember feeling really guilty for grabbing it like that, do you think that Shadows will try to confuse you by making you feel guilty for getting rid of them? I remember being upset because I don't like to fight, but I had to do something about it, and I didn't know what to do. Now I see that a shadow can be transformed. Do you think that my mind brought it into my dreams because it wants to be transformed? Thanks again for posting this informative thread.

[Traumwandlerin]

No, I don't think the Shadow will let you feel guilty for trying to get rid of him. But it will try to protect itself, so you won't find it. The parts of the Shadow are hiding for a reason and some part of you will furiously protect it and will also boycot yourself in every activity finding out more about the Shadow.

The Shadow will show of a lot in dreams. That's not because it wants to be transformed but rather because you repress it. Repressed stuff tends to come out in dreams because the repressed things are in the sub- or unconciouss and in dreams you are directly connected with the subconciouss. So the world of your dreams rather belongs to your Shadow than to your concious self.

I would guess the dream you had, would be about a part of your Shadow that was hindernig and hurting you in your everyday life. Cause even if your Shadow is repressed, it still controls your action. Sometimes you act in a way you don't really want. Like still smoking or being bitchy. You act that way despite you want to act different. That's your Shadow at work. So I guess some part of your Shadow was acting out when you had this dream and was really hurting you. You were angry at that, that's normal. But you wont solve anything by grabbing and beating it.

[WhiteOne]

Ok. Thank you.
I made an effort to do some of the things you suggested. I had actually had a dream the night I last posted--that was why I was posting at 2:30 am PST. What a coincidence--to wake up sweating from a dream someone killed my mother and was trying to kill my whole family! Fortunately, I stumbled into your writings, and was able to see from them, that I had a dream in which I encountered my shadow (which was in the form of a "neighbor" who took care of a deformed daughter). Since I have seen my shadow before--and I don't know how to do trance or have a spirit guide--I just imagined it and threw a large glowing bag of "transformation" over it. Then I said things like, "I am socially awkward sometimes, but that doesn't make me deformed, everyone is different from each other and there is nothing wrong with it. I will just learn from those situations and do things differently, if I want. But this is still part of me." Then I think the shadow went into the bottle to be transformed--now I am seeing that I did this differently. Next time I will direct the transformed shadow into the bottle and store it--like you said. Then there were more shadows-I threw the bag over one and I asked what it was--I heard the word "shame." So I extracted a little of it by saying "it is normal to feel shame and I do also, but I do not need an excess of it." Then I burned the shame and did not feel bad. Then I threw the bag over another which said it was "purity" and I said "nothing that we do is impure. Sex is not impure, but natural. Because I have done things that may have seemed impure only makes me human, not impure." But I was kind of confused because its name was "purity", not "impurity." Then I threw the bag over the last one. It said its name is "death." I said, "I know that I will die, and I accept this." Then it came out of the bag at me and, smiling like one of my dead relatives, it started to poke a needle into me. Then I said, "I will die, but you do not know when that is. That is in the future and you will not decide when it is." So I burned it.
I have been trying to be more accepting of myself too. Like, last night I dreamed about talking to my son's old teacher. He is married, and I seemed to be flirting with him. So when I woke up this morning I said to myself. "It is normal to be attracted to men. Even married men. That doesn't mean I will flirt with them or cause them to betray their wives, but that I am only human and it is not wrong to have feelings.However, I am in control of my actions and I choose not to commit adultery or to tempt myself or others to do so."
So, your shadow might sabotage your efforts to quit smoking, or to drink and eat healthier. But does it do this because your ashamed of smoking and drinking etc? So it feeds the shadow because you are trying to repress that side of you that smokes sometimes--because you really need to say to yourself, "Yep, I'm not perfect. I have the capacity to be a smoker even though I thought I learned my lesson and I know its bad for me. I accept this about myself, but I also reserve the right to make the decision to stop smoking." Or does smoking indicate that there are other repressions that one needs to deal with within the shadow? That there are parts of yourself that are smoking--and you need to understand them.
Also, to monitor the progress of shadow work--I plan on noticing if I feel calmer, and noticing a decline in "hunt" dreams, and noticing that I get pointlessly frustrated with other people less--because I am not going to be getting upset at them for exhibiting some repressed quality of mine. But the shadow never really goes away, right? Are there other ways to measure the success of the work?

Thank you again, Traumwandlerin. I really appreciate the work you put into posting this. I didn't even know I had this many problems before I found this message board--and now I even have instruction for how to fix them!

[Traumwandlerin]

Congratulation, you've done a big step

Things like smoking mostly is a symbol of things that are repressed in your Shadow. If you want to quit smoking, maybe you still need it, cause it's a stress relieve and you don't know how to do it otherwise. Or you just can't stop, and always fail (and try again, and fail again and try again and fail), cause your Shadow wants to show you how you are not able to change. You maybe repressed your feelings that you can't control your own actions and lives, that you always fail in everything you do. Cause when you were young, you were probably failing a lot, your parents made you feel ashamed. You've hided failing in the Shadow. But now it strikes back with letting you fail all the time, like when you try to quit smoking. The problem is not in the smoking. The problem is in the repressed believe that you are always failing. If you can see this, accept that you were failing a lot as a child (because every child has to learn) and have improved, but will always fail in new or difficult things, cause this is how we learn. You can get rid of this pattern. Still you will fail sometimes, but there is nothing wrong with it, no need to feel ashamed or bad.

Just an eample for what could be in the Shadow to hinder you stop smoking.

Also there is no need for trancing, I think your approach is as well, too. It has to fit yourself.

And yeah, it is ok to flirt with men, even if they are married. It could even be ok to have sex with thef if you wanted. Those rules are part of why the Shadow exist. If you think you are bad if you would doing so, but would still like do to it, than something goes into tha Shadow, cause you couldn't accept it. If you think, well, it's ok if I want to have sex and I would not be a bad person if I would do it, but I will refuse from doing so, cause I think that would hurt people, it stays in the light. The key is really accepting your desires even those which seems gross, unethical and stuff. And then decide conciously why you aren't act on some of the desires. "Cause it's bad/forbidden" is still Shadow talk. "I don't want to hurt Mary with sleeping with her husband cause I like Mary" is Light talk.

I guess Purity is in your Shadow, cause it's one of the thought patterns that defines how you should live your life without actually seeing the impact it has on you. You probably think Purity is about caging you, only tells you what to do and what not. Maybe you want to repress and forget about the cage but still be the pure ideal. So befor you would meet Impurity you would probably meet the Cage.

The Shadow will never really go away. Sometimes it's good to have something in the Shadow. It would not have developed if it wasn't necessary in some parts. Some memories needs repressing. Some thought patterns are better be left in the Shadow for a while. Sometimes you need to repress feelings, thoughts and the like for a while to live a healthy life. But for some reason almost no one does a regular clean up to have a look if those things can come out of the closet again. But still, there are new things going into the Shadow. At the moment, I repress sexual feelings towards others, cause I know my partner couldn't handle me sleeping with other people and I couldn't deal with all those seual feelings without acting them out. But I know in a few years I will let it out again in a way that both of you will be able to deal with.

Normally things in the Shadow are quite safe and won't come out. It's only that we put more and more stuff in without letting anything out. It's just overflowing uncontrollable.

[WhiteOne]

I was curious. My cousin is experiencing hallucinations and delusions. They seem very similar to the "hunt" theme in shadow dreams. She talks about "the people" or "the man" who wants to hurt her and everyone else. She thinks that children hate her, and growl at her, and that people are always putting drugs and poison in the food. Do you think that her being bombarded with frightening and ugly delusions and hallucinations is like, as if the shadow world--or the dream world--has come out and taken over her conscious mind? I couldn't help but think about the shadow work when I was visiting with her yesterday. I know that she is in no state to be pushed into confronting her shadow, but I tried to say some positive things to her, like "No one is absolutely 'sane', or 'normal', everyone is different. And none of us know everything in the world, it is normal to be confused about things. Everyone around you may seem like they know things that you do not know, but they are just like you in that they don't know everything."(She has delusions that everyone knows whats going on, but they won't tell her.) She seemed to benefit from hearing these things, because she can hear things very well--and she seems to understand, even though she says things that do not fit into the conversation--I can tell that she gets upset when she is not understood the way she wants to be. I told her that one thing that people might notice about her --is that she seems to need to focus on keeping herself healthy right now. Do you have any suggestions for me to indirectly help my cousin deal with her "shadow world" which seems to have taken over her reality? You are in post-graduate school (I think I read that in one of your posts), right? Are you planning on becoming a psychologist or a counselor?

[Traumwandlerin]

I'm currently making my PhD in Physics, but I have a lot to do with psychology though, I'm studying how the mind learns physics So I don't want to become neither professionally. Professionally I want to help teachers becoming the best physics teachers they can be

And to your friend, I'm sad but I guess she has a mental illness like shizophrenia. This is treatable with meds and therapy. It can well be her Shadow that appears, but the root for the hallucination is in unbalanced hormons in her brain. The Shadow can take advantage of her this way, but you really can't confront or transform your Shadow, when you are not treating shizophrenia. Of course I don't know what she really has. But any way it sounds serious and she should visit a Psychatrist. But you are doing good if you show her, you still are her friend and stick with her through this dark time. I want to encourage you to help her visiting a Psychatrist (or a psychological therapist for crossreference, to rule out other illnesses).

[[SILVERCROSS]]

But the thing is................
I never ever suppressed any feeling or for that matter sent any of negative feelings into the Shadow.
When I felt repressed I spoke out loud and curse and used foul language.Even now getting into brawl is very common to me.

But I really hate people consuming alcohol,picking at women or violence or lewdness targeted at them,disrespect shown to decency,show of pride,arrogance and betrayal or offering animal slaughter to God's as sacrifice.I openly express my disgust for these and perhaps theres nothing that I rejected from any side of my character.I often lose my temper which translates itself into rash driving,bashing up,getting into verbal exchange(even with my parents and friends !!!) and often feel that I am too small to be of any effect and I feel neglected too.Has also suffered Love trauma when I was forced out of relationship with my first Love,4 years ago.

I just feel I always walk the thin line between order and chaos and there is no peace for me.

So what do I expect to find while looking for my Shadow ?????

[Traumwandlerin]

Well, lok at what you've got. Everyone has a Shadow, the difference is betwenn people who know their Shadow and can deal with it, or people who can't see it. You hate people who consume alcohol? Maybe a sign of being afraid of loss of control, or that you have the feel you always should be responsible or clear. Being cruel against women, animal or perhaps others that are weak? Maybe your own fear of being weak one day, which also translate into being strong and protecting others.

Love trauma? Fear of being neglected? Some people need to confrot their selfworth some people just need to accept that neglection and trauma is part of the life and fear is useless.

There are many things you can find in you Shadow. Sometimes it's hard to accept and therefore hard to see. You seem to have a pretty complete picture of yourself, this hinders you to see the true self. People are good at telling themselves who they are and ignoring what's really there

[[SILVERCROSS]]

So,I go looking for the shadow with nothing on mind ????................and then return confused all the way back !!!!
Sounds like nothing to gain

[WhiteOne]

How can you fill up a cup that is already full?
The shadow work helps you to see what you do not see. For example, I get irritated every time I see a super thin, tan, college girl jogging in a sports bra. Why? Is it because I don't believe women should be so pre-occupied with appearances--that they should be thinking about more important issues than the shape of their buttocks?
Why does it make me so angry? Its easy to give excuses. "Because I am not like that. I don't care about appearances. I am too smart to want men three times my age gluing their eyes to my back side and hollering out their windows."
These are all great explanations. However, when I look deeper, I acknowledge that actually--I really do care about appearances. In fact, I used to care about them so much that I developed an image disorder and was chronically under-weight and self deprecating. So I completely rejected that side of myself that cares about appearance.
The reason why I get angry at women who keep up appearances is because I exiled the part of myself that wants to do so. It isn't as simple as I thought. It isn't as self-glorifying.

You said,

I never ever suppressed any feeling or for that matter sent any of negative feelings into the Shadow.
When I felt repressed I spoke out loud and curse and used foul language.Even now getting into brawl is very common to me.

Yet you hate lewd behavior, and shows of "pride"? Doesn't it strike you strange that you do the things you do, yet you hate it when people do very similar things (because maybe they do it for a different reason)? Being aware of one's shadow doesn't mean that you should act out any impulse that crosses your brain. But it partly means that you accept --"yes, I guess I do act a little offensive and prideful sometimes. People probably see me a little belligerent some times, even if I am not drunk." I'm just guessing these things.
I am not the expert on shadow. But, I have heard that when shadow gets too full of things that you don't accept about yourself, it starts to sabotage your life by causing you to do and say things that you know you shouldn't. The original post describes how to prepare for shadow work, or what to "look for."

I have done shadow work, and the short term effects were that I stopped having nightmares and I felt more happy and appreciative in life. However, recently I have been having visions before sleep of someone trying to hurt or kill me. I am not sure if this is my shadow, but it seems like it (it doesn't seem like premonition). I had had a vision a few days before the killer visions, that I pulled out my anxiety and fears (from my head), and that I placed them in a cage in the ocean, guarded by Greek gods. I think this was probably the wrong thing to do, since I was kind of banishing part of myself. The fact that I am having visions of a man coming at me and trying to strangle me before sleep suggests that my shadow is reciprocating the brutal behavior. Its hard to change old habits of rejection, but I will try shadow work again to try to deal with this.