Shadow work: entering the dragon, befriending our demons

Western culture is increasingly becoming mediated not by depth or span but by speed and data[1], information gathered that is then considered to represent and shape us, yet this information may only gather one side of us, the mask or persona that promotes a veneer caught up in societal preferences and vapid extroversion. But behind the mask is our shadow, alive with all of our unprocessed urges and needs.

This is how smart the shadow is: it does not belong to the world of work and productivity, to the domain of the glamorous extrovert or the merely seen, it is behind the lot, the freak behind the control freak we have become, the other side of our coin and the reality behind our simple desires and endless wants; it speaks in half seen images, metaphor, dream worlds, Freudian slips and inexplicable and contradictory, often paradoxical thoughts and feelings. It has no productive or economic value and it sets itself at odds with all we hold dear and yet this dragon side of us, this demonised aspect is where we truly meet ourselves in taboo, transgression and finally transcendence.

Unlike other forms of “work” this is not a “job that gets done” Shadow work is process without end, for it is in our very nature to create more shadow as we age and grow. Repudiation is a dynamic part of our psychological and spiritual framework; learning to more clearly differentiate and integrate these aspects of ourselves that we have disowned and have reduced us and often compelled us to self-sabotage is our real work, our life’s vocation.

How to make a start?

We cannot start by denying the shadow, we must be open, and accept and acknowledge that there is a significant part or aspect to us, an unknown depth to us that we have barely explored. This shadow stands at odds to our preferred social image or mask. This work, then, is a wholing a seeking to integrate the split off parts of us, it is human becoming-it is no coincidence that the word “whole” has a similar etymological origin to “holy” or healing, finding within ourselves that which is most precious or scared.

This a descent into mystery and wild nature.

This healing is not a linear activity, not an endeavour that will yield predictable results. Jon Kabat-Zinn[2] talks of this using the metaphor of “bucketing out the pond” -it is physical or somatic work and quite wearing. It is also about using our discriminating awareness and making clearer distinctions. The founders and pioneers of shadow work-Freud and Jung- illustrate some of the potentials inherent in shadow work. Freud viewed the shadow as cauldron of destruction impulses, Jung saw it as a holy and creative force. But the truth is that shadow work produces both; Ken Wilber[3] writes about the “pre/trans fallacy” where Freud reduces all the prepersonal and limbic drives and Jung elevates all activity here to transcendence. It is clear that twinkling in the coals seams there are diamonds, but also much sooty carbon.

Bucketing out the pond. There’s a kind of trial and error here, where we must be prepared to commit and keep going even when it appears that nothing is happening (in this case, when nothing is happening there’s probably quite a lot occurring in the dark).

Traditional approaches to shadow work involve degrees of restorying, finding a new narrative or myth within which to flourish. There is much that can be met or discovered, much glitter is this mine, yet this approach can become a mere recycling of story after story, contributing to a disabling rather that an enabling change. To swap a narrative for a narrative is just that, it is still, perhaps, to be lost in a story.

There is another way in.

Mindful shadow work encourages us to engage with our mindfulness practice to walk openly and compassionately into the depths of ourselves and meet the stranger behind the mask without a story.

[1] See Distracted by Maggie Jackson and The Shallows by Nicholas Carr

[2] Jon Kabat-Zinn Wherever You go, There You are

[3] Ken Wilber Sex, Ecology, Spirituality