9 Benefits of Shadow Work

And three crucial attitudes

There's a lot of buzz around shadow work these days. Most people who are seeking more information about it already have a basic idea of what it is and so I'm not going to go into the nuts and bolts of what shadow work is other than talk about how it's intended to help a person penetrate the deep parts of their psyche with the intention of bringing hidden things to light.

When we bring those hidden things to light, change becomes a lot easier. Quality shadow work is about getting to the core of your mind and addressing issues at the source. I love shadow work, absolutely love it. I've loved it for myself and I've loved it for my clients. It's like our own mystery or even a true crime story. The journey takes us to dark and scary places and what we get out of it is like a treasure or a big life changing reward because shadow work requires courage. It's a challenge and a personal quest where you get to follow clues to unravel a mystery.

The process of shadow work can be a bit long and arduous but it comes with the promise with big payoffs later. The first major benefit you can get from doing shadow work is getting to the root of issues rather than just addressing the symptoms. Shadow work can help solve all of our mental health issues by getting to the source of the problem. Think of it like computer software and shadow work is finding and rewriting the source code.

Here are some more benefits of shadow work:

1. Increased self-awareness - Self-awareness is necessary for change and having those changes stick and last. The more your self-awareness increases, the less you are going to run in a state of autopilot. Life needs to be navigated intentionally and with purpose. Don't just wing it. When you're doing shadow work, you're personal awareness naturally increases and your decisions become a lot more conscious rather than impulsive. The path to mental wellness is paved with self-awareness.
   

2. Greater authenticity - When you engage in quality shadow work, you naturally become more comfortable in your skin and when that happens, you become far less concerned about judgements from other people. As your awareness increases, you'll also realize that their judgements are just a projection of how they feel about themselves except they're afraid to face it. The more comfortable you get in your own skin, the less threatening people become. When you're less afraid of what people think, you stop putting on a mask or performing for an audience and so you become much more authentic. Authenticity is becoming a rare commodity these days. It's becoming more and more valuable because authenticity breeds greater connection. Your relationship will naturally improve because authenticity is only going to deeper those connections.
   

3. Breaking destructive cycles - I've found that breaking cycles is generally a difficult and slow process. People can logically pin down the problem and intellectualize it and yet they still struggle with breaking it. They know they need to do something different and yet, when it comes down to it, they compulsively do the same thing even though they want to change. The trouble is the source code. They have beliefs, defense mechanisms and trauma responses that are still running the show. Shadow work is intended to get to the source code and change it.

4. Improve self-esteem - Self-esteem, in my opinion, can be summarized as the relationship that we have with ourselves. Is it destructive, antagonistic, and highly critical? Is it just okay? In most cases, it could be a lot better. There's a lot of value in having higher self-esteem and can naturally clear up a lot of issues on it's own. Shadow work can do wonders for this issue. There are many positive benefits to having high self-esteem but that would be for a different article, perhaps.
   

5. Making the person whole - There's a theory in psychology that is generally considered to be fringe but I'm a total believer. The theory states that our psyche becomes shattered into pieces through big and small trauma as we grow up and so therefore, the objective is to put ourselves back together once we're grown up. Easier said than done, I know but the answer is obviously shadow work. It's truly the only way to put those pieces back together. There's a lot to be said about finding a sense of wholeness which is related to having self-esteem.
   

6. Improve connection - It's apparent to me that we have a pervasive and systematic emptiness problem. We are horribly unfulfilled and we keep turning to things for fulfillment that don't create fulfillment. There's not enough money that can buy connection. We are mostly disconnected from ourselves. We keep falling into the trap of believing that fulfillment will come from external things. The emptiness we experience isn't an external issue, it's an internal issue. We need to fix what's inside of us and then, almost magically, everything else just seems to sort itself out.
   

7. Liberation from shame - We have all experienced the deep dark feelings of shame. It's an intense feeling that resides deep in the shadow. It can be extremely frightening and painful to face shame. Shame can often direct your life without you realizing it as most people tend to avoid it. Shame is deep, dark and difficult. When a person has a lot of shame, we want to do shadow work with a lot of self-compassionate practices laced into the process. Going inward and facing it can be tough, no doubt about it but once it's worked out, the person can live free from it.
   

8. Finding true healing - Money isn't going to heal you, relationships won't heal you, the right job won't do it either. By now, you know where I'm going with all of this. External things can give you a sense of meaningful connection. Those things are usually going to be things like meaningful relationships, connection to a sense of purpose, connection to nature or animals or a connection to meaningful work to name a few. Those things are great but I've seen many individuals who are so scrambled and mixed up inside that it becomes impossible for them to recognize or appreciate the good. People who experience this issue need to get to the core of the issue and work to put themselves back together.
   

9. An increased sense of self - One of our mental health epidemics is based in the struggle people are experiencing a lack of self or identity. This is an abstract concept and I think it helps to think of it in the way of taking shape or form. When asked who they are, most people don't have any idea. They're usually looking outside of themselves for a sense of self or identity. We get far too caught up in thinking that clothing, or a car, or a job or money are the things that give us identity when identity is found within. Shadow work helps people figure out who they are by digging deep into their psyche getting a stronger intuitive sense of who they really are.

Shadow work is tough and it can be intense. It's not for those who want a walk in the park type of growth experience. I know that when people choose easy paths they tend to be more miserable. I tell people all of the time that they must do hard things. Doing hard things is what shapes us, builds us and forces us to grow. Facing yourself might be one of the hardest things you will ever do.

Along with some benefits to shadow work, I've also included a short list of proper and helpful ideas and attitudes that make shadow work much more helpful and effective. Consider these the basics that need to be in place in order to do it effectively.

1. Self-honesty - Quality shadow work requires a high level of self-honesty so one of the first steps would be to check in with yourself and gauge your individual ability to be honest with yourself. You can start by asking yourself how you feel about being completely honest with yourself and then watch your emotions to see what comes up. It's okay if looking more closely at yourself is difficult or it's not something that you're used to doing. I would strongly encourage you to start where you're at and begin taking some personal inventory as well as building your insights and increasing your ability to be honest with yourself. Some shadow work is fairly easy while other shadow work will require you to dig a bit deeper and ask yourself some tougher questions. Start small and simple and build.
   

2. Vulnerability - Shadow work is likely going to cause you to feel quite vulnerable at times. It's an extremely personal experience and should only be shared with the most trusted people and that includes your therapist, if you have one. Not every therapist is helpful in this way. Sometimes the best place to start with shadow work is working through vulnerability issues by examining any issue that might exist with your relationship to vulnerability. It can often be anchored to a sense of fear and pain which usually means that your vulnerability had been exploited by someone at some point. Shadow work is best used to address that pain and soothing it at it's source.
   

3. Self-compassion - You'll rarely hear people talk about cultivating a self-compassionate practice where we learn a different and better way to treat ourselves through difficulties and struggles. We tend to be extremely harsh on ourselves. I've noticed that some people think that being harsh and self-critical is somehow helping them when it's not. They might fall into the false attitude that being harsh on themselves is somehow motivating but that hasn't been my experience. The very culture that we live in seems to principled on being overly critical of ourselves and especially each other. Before diving into shadow work, it can be helpful for a person to develop a practice of self-compassion. I've found that it feels alien to a lot of people. It's an exercise their brain has never performed which is why it's helpful to think of it as something that needs to be practiced. If you had never played the piano before, you would have to sit down and start somewhere. One simple self-compassion exercise is to think of someone, other than yourself, that you have felt compassion for and practice applying a similar standard for yourself.
   

In short, shadow work is a means to create real change. There's a lot of noise in the therapy world. Therapists can't agree on the core of mental illnesses while engaging in hot debates about what therapy models are best. In my experience, shadow work helps create real lasting change. It's the real work of therapy and it helps create real change.

I've heard people recently comment that they have found therapy to be shallow and pointless. Their therapy sessions had been spent discussing events from the previous week when they want to take things deeper and get to the core of their issues and better yet, themselves. It's been my goal, as of late, to get back to some of the roots of what made therapy a rewarding and powerful experience.

I'm a big believer in shadow work, in part, because of what it has done for me personally. My clients also have benefitted greatly from doing shadow work. Shadow work is rooted in some of old school methods of psychotherapy that provided people with a deeply rich therapy experience and I believe that we need to get back to some of these roots because of how much benefit there is to be found there.

Thank you for reading, I hope this article was helpful and informative. I hope you will reach out to me if you'd like some help taking this journey.