Things to Know About the Shadow 

A shadow is always standing right behind us. It is simply out of our sight. People cast a shadow in any direct light.  

A psychological term for every single thing we cannot see in ourselves is called the shadow. To protect our self-image from anything that is unfamiliar or unflattering, most individuals go to great lengths. Thus, before you acknowledge your own shadow, it is simpler to observe the shadow of another person.  

All people are vulnerable to this.  

It can direct to better personal awakening, energy, creativity, and authenticity if you explore your shadow. So, what is shadow work therapy? Before we can answer that, there are several things you have to know: 

What’s The Shadow? 

Since it contains mainly negative and primitive human impulses and emotions such as striving for power, desire, selfishness, greed, envy, and rage, the “bad side” of our personality is called the shadow. 

Every single thing that isn’t compatible with our selected conscious behavior about ourselves refers to this bad side.  

Your disowned self is your personal shadow. It self-embodies the areas of a person that he or she no longer claims to be his/herself. This includes integral positive qualities.  

These disowned or unchecked components of our personality will not go anywhere. While we reject them in our effort to get rid of them, we simply cannot cast them out.  

How is it created? 

Each young kid understands generosity, love, and kindness. However, he or she also expresses greed, selfishness, and anger.  

These feelings are a fragment of our collective mortality. However, something occurs as we grow up.  

Traits associated with “being bad” are neglected. On the other hand, traits associated with “being good” are accepted.  

Every single person in the world has basic human needs. These needs include needs for belonging, security and safety needs, and physiological needs. These needs are instinctual and biological. 

As kids, we get negative signals from our surroundings whenever we expressed particular areas of ourselves. Perhaps we threw a tantrum and got mad. Our parents scolded us and sent us to our bedroom/  

Or maybe we acted silly, randomly, playfully, or boldly in our classroom during the first grade. Our lecturer disgraced us for our lack of modesty in front of everyone in the classroom and told us to behave.  

This threatened one of our basic needs when it happened. Of course, it has occurred a lot of times in our life.  

What Happens Whenever You Contain the Shadow? 

We see in other people whatever traits we reject in ourselves. This is also known as projection in psychology. We distend onto others anything we hide within ourselves.  

For instance, it is an excellent bet you have not owned your own rudeness if you get annoyed whenever a person is rude to you. Of course, it does not mean that the individual is not being rude. But, the rudeness of another person will not bother you a lot if the rudeness was not in your shadow self. This process happens subconsciously. You will not be aware of it.