*1st of many posts as we help educate on this topic *

One of the missional offerings of Light House is psychospiritual work. Psychospiritual work emphasizes the relationship between the psychological & the spiritual and explores how we relate to ourselves, each other, and the sacred in an interconnected way.
One large aspect of psychospiritual work is SHADOW WORK.

Shadow work is a therapeutic concept developed by the prolific Psychoanalyst, Carl Jung, who contributed his research in the late 1800’s and 1900’s until he died in 1961.

He taught that everyone has a shadow side in the psyche (which actually consists of many shadow parts) that we learned to repress in childhood (and sometimes in adulthood) in order to survive, fit into the family and cultural structure, and to be generally loved and accepted by ourselves and others.

So, we have a more idealized self (persona) that we generally allow into our conscious and present to others, and also the counterweight of our shadow parts, that we generally store in our unconscious, and do not always even see in ourselves, much less show to the world.

The shadow parts of our psyche typically remain hidden and private. And they are deeply influenced by the collective unconscious of the local and nonlocal societies in which we live, which may include qualities like violence, prejudice, capitalism, and/or disempowerment.

That shadow self holds negative impulses like resentment, fear, greed, jealousy, anger, and judgement (most of which come from our small and large traumas) as well as positive impulses like creativity, self-assuredness, leadership, sensitivity, intuitive senses, and strength of character.

The goal of shadow work is NOT to make the shadows bad or reject them by casting them away from us and relegating them to a past where we no longer technically live, but to get to know them, to bring them into our conscious mind, to learn from their wisdom, memories, and gifts. After all, God/Spirit/Consciousness/Life Force is in ALL things, including the shadow.

By doing the self-realization process of shadow work, we’re able to learn to accept ALL of ourselves, get out of chronic shame and guilt cycles, confront trauma and grief in order to transmute it, quit the neurotic self-fixing & perfecting process, understand and release our implicit biases and underlying self-protective motivations, access our talents and strengths with more ease and clarity, and embrace our whole selves. And that’s just the beginning! In essence, we’re able to see ourselves clearly with God’s eyes.

When we’re able to do this process with ourselves, over time we’re able to more easily do it with others, creating more harmony and authentic connection in our relationships.

However, shadow work is just one part of the path of spiritual self-actualization and practice. In fact, in order to maintain balance in one’s life, many psychospiritual teachers/leaders now agree that it should only take up about 10-20% of our energy and focus, so as not to overtake the rest of the psyche and spiritual path and our inherent needs for rest, balance, inner peace, beingness/nondoing, and other opportunities for communion with life, others, and our Higher Power.

Certainly, there are cases where more energy towards shadow work may be required or seasons of our life where acute circumstances may require deeper introspection. But our perceptions can also be distorted by too much shadow work. The idea is balance.

Additionally, bypassing shadow work all together in favor of an inner experience that feels more favorable, regulating, controlled, or hyper-focused on the positive, light, and love eventually exasperates the shadows of the psyche, resulting in behaviors incongruent with one’s spiritual ideals, covert and overt fear patterns, incessant triggers, negative self-image or negative self-image projected onto others, chronic anger and irritability patterns, contraction, addictions, disassociation, and many other aspects of emotional/spiritual turmoil.

In preparation for our shadow work program launching this Fall, I invite you to follow along and share these blogs as I help demystify shadow work and honor its place in the spiritual/healing landscape.

We’ll go in together – feel free to comment or DM with your questions, as I will respond & answer them in future blogs.

In the meantime, there is always sun and there is always shadow. Find a place in-between and you can enjoy everything that is available!