Step out of your SHADOW

The shadow self is that which is buried deep in our subconscious and which manifests as negative traits. Sharmila Bhosale reveals how we can turn this shadow from foe to friend by practising awareness

- Sharmila Bhosale

Do you know that there is something walking along with us all the time, casting its influence on our thoughts and behaviour throughout our life? We cannot escape its control over us. It is this entity which dictates our destiny, which calls the shots for us, presents our face to the world, and determines our decisions. The only way to curtail its charge over us is to befriend it. Make it our ally. Get to know it deeply. Trust in it so that we can walk tall into the brightest sun where our shadow is at its smallest.

It’s no wonder that this being that we carry along with us in all our moments is called ‘the shadow.’ It is at its deepest and darkest when we fail to shine the light of awareness on ourselves, just like the long eerie enveloping shadow cast at twilight.

The term ‘shadow’ was coined by the famed Swiss psychoanalyst Carl Jung.

What is the shadow self?

According to Jung, ‘the shadow’ is the uncivilised, even primitive side of our nature. He believed that we needed to fully see this dark side of ourselves if we were to be a fully integrated human being. It is the side of our personality that contains all the parts of ourselves that we don’t want to admit having. “Most of our subconscious mind is the shadow— stuff which we don’t know about, since it’s been repressed or denied during childhood. It surfaces due to some triggers, and then it rises like a demon and takes over everything. That’s when you act it out, like someone who is possessed. You are taken over by blinding rage or a sudden crippling sadness,” says Leena Jacobs, PLR therapist, Inner Child healer and Meditator for the past 11 years.