Shadow work is not just a practice of psychology. Most shamanic, spiritual, and esoteric teachings and initiations are based on the experience of being reborn through spiritual death (going to the bottom of our darkness) and healing ourselves.

Shadow work meaning is to become aware of your emotional reactions to others/situations/phenomena and get to their root causes. Anything that shocks, anger, excites you, and causes you to overreact will give you important clues about your shadows.

1. Observe Your Mood Swings for Shadow Work

Something that bothers you in any person/fact/situation most likely indicates a quality in yourself that you deny. Try to understand this part of you, accept it, and include it in your being. That way, the next time you won’t have an overly emotional reaction to what’s bothering you. To react emotionally to something indicates that it has a certain power over you. Observe what you are reacting to and try to understand what this shadow is trying to teach you.

For example, if the sex scenes in the movies and TV shows you watch embarrass or anger you, this may indicate repressed sexuality, or if the scenes of violence and war make you happy inside, this can be interpreted as suppressed anger/hatred.

“Usually we punish the things that remind us of the parts of ourselves that we disagree with and that we are most uncomfortable with, and we often see these parts of ourselves that we deny.”
Robert A Johnson

“If you hate a person, you hate something inside that person that is a part of you. Something that is not part of us cannot disturb us.”
Herman Hesse

2. Take Note of Your Inner Conversations

Throughout your life, you have exhibited some behaviors, said words that you cannot understand, and then wondered why you acted or spoke this way. An archetype/sub-personality/fragment within you has taken all control.

With these parts; We can communicate through internal dialogue and/or active imagination, or simply by writing on paper or computer. In this way, we integrate these parts of us into our conscious mind.

The simplest shadow works exercises can be done within the inner dialogue. It is to sit quietly and close our eyes and focus on the present moment. Then start talking calmly in your mind with a shadow part you have identified and ask questions. Quietly listen to yourself and your shadow parts.

1.  Is your shadow piece trying to tell you something?
2. What can’t you see and notice?
3. Does it represent an emotion you suppress?
4. Which traumas could you not solve?
5. What emotions do you need to feel?

There are no limits to inner conversations and questions to be asked.

Also, one of the best ways to shadow work is to write down your feelings (especially when you feel any emotion) and your thoughts.

3) Accept Your Shadow Self and Integrate It into Your Being

Confront what you have discovered in your subconscious mind through shadow awareness and shadow work. The next step is integrating the shadow into your psychic field and/or releasing what you need to.

Please note that any attribute cannot fully describe you. You are multidimensional beings, and you have innumerable qualities within you. The mistake we make by suppressing our shadows means denying these qualities that exist within ourselves. That’s why we project these qualities onto others, get emotionally triggered, and judge them (both qualities and others).

“Unless we make our unconscious parts conscious, these parts guide our lives, and we call it destiny.”
Carl Jung

Filling our conscious mind with perfect/ideal thoughts is characteristic of most Western philosophies/theologies, and these philosophies generally do not face the shadows and dark side of the world. A person cannot become enlightened simply by imagining the light, but rather by making the darkness conscious.
Carl Jung, ‘The Philosophical Tree’, Alchemical Studies (1945)

4) Do Creative Things

Art is one of the best ways we let shadow self come to the surface.
Doing creative things or any act of creation can be intensely compulsive and cause impatience, nervousness, competitiveness, insecurity, obsession with perfection, instability, obsessive behaviors, etc. While it can cause your dark sides to come out, such as patience, self-confidence, balance, compassion, etc. It allows you to see your positive qualities as well.

5) Reflection Work: See The World As a Mirror

Others act as mirrors by which our subconscious desires and fears arise or are triggered.

You can start this practice by observing your thoughts, feelings, and feelings about the people you are communicating with. Pay particular attention to when you are emotionally triggered and ask yourself: ‘Why am I triggered right now?’ ‘Am I projecting something right now, or is the other person projecting something?’

It is also a possibility that two people may reflect similar qualities. Or, qualities that complement each other may be mirrored mutually. For example, one person tends to be overly self-sacrificing and another tends to control others. From the collision of these two, one may be the controlled and the other the controlling, where opposite but complementary qualities may be mutually projected onto each other. Examples can be multiplied. A person may be projecting jealousy, anger, greed, and all the qualities we can think of to the other side and the world.

‘How can I be aware of my shadows?’, not all shadows that we encounter may belong to us. Here, ask yourself, “Which of these shadows are mine, which are others, which ones are there in common, or are there other things that I am not aware of?”

Not all trigger states indicate reflection. For instance, when there is a ruth behavior and it makes you angry, then you are not projecting your repressed anger, but you are experiencing your naturally developing anger. However, when no situation will make you extremely angry, feeling like this indicates a reflection and subconscious.

6) Shadow Work Therapy with a Psychologist

Shadow work spiritual method is part of psychotherapy. Carl jung shadow work books are great sources for learning this method. Most psychologists and therapists are experts in subconscious and shadow work.

These experts are objective third parties who help you transcend unresolved mechanisms between you and your subconscious. Do not hesitate to get help from experts on any subject.

To own your shadows is to own your life and yourself.