Shadow Integration

Because of the duality of nature, we must accept that everything has both a dark and a light side. But the dark side isn’t inherently evil or bad, it comes from the same source as the good. It is the opposing force of the same expression, only one side of the duality is being observed. The darkness is the absence of light or observation.

This is the concept of the shadow first explained by the psychologist Carl Jung to describe the parts of the self that are denied, repressed, or unseen. Shadow integration is the process of bringing what is hidden into the light of awareness.

The Shadow

If you are in a dark room you are unfamiliar with, and there’s only a light directly in front of you, you could only understand what you can see, and are not aware of what is in the dark. It doesn’t mean there are bad, scary, evil things in the dark. It is scary because you don’t know what is there, so your survival response kicks in. We fear what we don’t know because we are intelligent beings with a logical mind that helps keep us safe.

Another aspect about the shadow is that when things are out of your awareness, or in the dark, they tend to become unhealthy. Just like mold and other toxins that thrive in dark places, those things in your life that are kept in the dark will become toxic and spread. The more time that passes where it remains in the dark, the more toxic it will become, and the harder it will be to “clean up”, so it is best to always work on shadow integration and awareness building.

Thoughts, feelings, memories, learned behaviors, conditioned beliefs, creativity, and intuition reside in the shadow. The shadow resides in the subconscious mind, which is everything outside of the logical mind’s awareness. Our logical mind is important for meeting our day-to-day needs like keeping track of time, managing our responsibilities, staying safe, and housing the ego. But it makes up only 5-10% of our mind. If we do not access the subconscious, then we are missing out on 90-95% of our mind. When we learn to value and use both the conscious and subconscious mind, we can reach our full potential.

Using both the conscious and subconscious mind is needed to maintain balance. We get out of balance when we only use the conscious mind to get through life. We learn that our logical mind does not have all the answers, and our ego can’t bring us happiness. We must consider the wisdom of the subconscious mind by bringing it out of the shadows and into the light.

Flexibility

The difficulty in doing this is the logical mind’s tendency to cast out of sight and into the darkness anything it doesn’t want to see, which is anything that brings shame or threatens the survival of the ego. Therefore the ego cannot always be trusted because we need to make mistakes and be wrong in order to grow and develop. This is good and healthy, but is labeled as bad and dangerous. We are more than just our ego mind, so we have to be able to accept information from the ego but still be open to other possibilities.

This requires psychological flexibility, or the ability to not assign a permanent label, expectation, or judgement on something, and instead, see everything as neutral. The labels we create to feel a sense of safety are called Thinking Traps in Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy. Thinking Traps are unhelpful beliefs that lead to many different problems because we are so sure that what we are doing is “good” or “right”. They are the filter we see life through and are not easily changed. We are responding to the situation from the perspective of “I already know what is going on here and this is what it is”, rather than “I am observing what is going on here, what does this mean?” This is called not-knowingness and is helpful to reduce confirmation bias.

Rigidity

Being closed off to seeing something in a new way results in psychological rigidity. Life force energy exists in flow, so being rigid goes against the natural flow of life. This resistance can lead to mental, emotional, and even physical health problems. When we have to always defend our way of thinking, we are putting the energy of resistance and fear into the situation. We get angry because we want to prove that we know what we are talking about and our beliefs and experiences are valid. We don’t want to think that we don’t have it figured out because then we can’t trust our judgement and we feel fear.

If you were invalidated in your early life then you will likely be quick to seek validation by holding on to your beliefs rather than remaining neutral and open to change. If you notice this, don’t shame it. Be grateful for it because it is trying to protect you from psychological harm. But we must accept that we have to experience psychological distress in order to grow, just like we need to experience physical pain and discomfort in order to strengthen our muscles through exercise. This is not a shameful thing, this is a natural part of life that can’t be avoided.

Integration

When we integrate our shadow, we are not trying to eliminate the ego mind, we are holding all aspects of ourselves with love. Shadow integration can actually be a pleasant experience! It doesn’t have to be difficult or scary. Unfortunately, modern healthcare does not address this, so finding answers and healing can seem difficult. Not addressing the subconscious mind (which is there even if you don’t address it or talk about it) makes it something to fear because it has been cast aside and therefore seen as “bad”. As children, we had access to our subconscious mind but it was shamed and labeled as weakness if we didn’t see things logically. The good news is that the brain has the ability to change and form healthier connections and beliefs, as long as we are open and flexible.

You aren’t meant to do this alone. Schedule a session today to begin your integration journey.