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Explore five essential tools for shadow work to integrate hidden traits and cultivate a more authentic self.

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The Shadow is a part of our personality that is hidden deep in the unconscious mind. Once we bring light to the shadow, we realize that it has a lot of strengths that we can use to our advantage and become whole and complete. In this talk, Saqib will share five essential tools of Shadow Work. If you like the talk, join his course "Shadow Work For Healing," which you can find in his profile here on Insight Timer.

Shadow Work | 5 Tools

 Hello, Namaste and welcome to this talk which is called the five tools for shadow work. So let's begin by understanding what shadow work is. And then I will talk about five tools that are really powerful and the most important tools for doing shadow work for embracing our shadow. So the shadow is the disowned part of our personality. It is a part of my personality which I maybe don't even know that exists. It is deep down somewhere inside me. It is my shadow. And it is a part of my personality that I have neglected that I do not like maybe. And that's why I have neglected it or I judge it. For example, let's say that deep down I have some anger but I'm unaware of it. And this happens when I want to be a nice person. I'm going out for a social gathering. And in this social gathering I want to be nice to people and I want to be nice to people around me. So what will happen is even if somebody is passing a mean comment or saying something mean to me, still I will suppress that anger inside me. I will not let it come out. And I become so good at this that at some point of time I cannot even recognize that I have anger inside me until something happens which brings it out. Maybe someone pokes me too much or someone hurts me badly and then there is an outburst of this anger. Now what happened with this anger was that it became my shadow because I thought that it is wrong to express anger and I suppressed it and it became a part of my personality which was hidden. And likewise there are many other qualities in this shadow that we think are wrong or the society thinks are wrong but they are actually very helpful. They can be used in a helpful manner. They can be used as strengths. And this is the power of shadow work. That if I embrace my shadow I can become more whole, more complete, more authentic and I can have more qualities which will be beneficial for me. So the question is how is this shadow formed? This shadow is mostly formed in our childhood. That's because as a child when I was born and I was growing up it was okay for me to express any emotion. And when you look at a child you will see that that a small child can easily express their emotions when they are angry they will show that you know maybe they'll throw things here and there when they are sad they will cry when they are happy they will express that they can easily express all emotions they can be authentic more authentic than adults but then what happens is as we grow up we go through something called social conditioning which means that the society conditions us to believe that it is not okay to express certain emotions it is not okay to express certain qualities characteristics and traits and that's when we start suppressing those qualities. So for example let's say if my parents tell me that don't cry too much don't be a crybaby and don't be sad go back to your room fix yourself up come back with a smile on your face. Now when people in our childhood say such things we think that there is something wrong about being sad or crying so I need to always put a smile on my face and I need to hide this part of my personality which cries which is sad and then that becomes our shadow. Similarly disobedience for example is a major part of our shadow because if in my childhood I was I asked too many questions and I always questioned the status quo and I was like a rebel I was disobedient then people would judge that around me especially teachers right they say that don't ask too many questions just write in the exam what we are telling you just believe what we are telling you don't be disobedient don't be notorious and then what happens is that we think that it is wrong to ask questions but it is wrong to be disobedient and that becomes our shadow and then as we grow up we become really obedient submissive person and then we don't question things and that's how we become puppets that's that's how someone can control me because now I think that it is wrong to ask questions and be disobedient so I don't ask any questions to you know governments to my partner to people who can easily control me and that's how people control others because one becomes a person who submits the other becomes a person who dominates so if I think that disobedience is wrong to ask questions is wrong then I will become a submissive person and then anyone can control me so then is disobedience wrong it is not right it is a wonderful quality to have because that's how you can challenge the status quo that's how you can ask questions that's how you can become free an individual free person that's how you can prevent yourself from others controlling you and that's why even you will see that people have blind faith in others people don't ask questions people blindly believe in religions people blindly believe in what governments say people blindly believe in what their partners their parents anyone who has an intention to control whatever they say people blindly believe that and people don't question that and you know that's what that's how we become submissive so once I embrace my shadow once I embrace this part of my personality which has been judged once I embrace all those qualities which I think are wrong or which the society thinks are wrong then I can become more whole and complete now that doesn't mean that I need to display any qualities which can harm others for example if I am embracing my anger it doesn't mean that I harm others with my anger it simply means that I need to channelize that anger in the right direction I need to use that anger in the right way because it's important to express healthy anger also and that's when we can protect ourselves from being taken advantage of that's when we can also express our disappointment to someone when they are doing something hurting to us that's how we can draw healthy boundaries in relationships so once we embrace these parts of our personality which are disowned which are disliked that is what shadow work is all about and that's when we become whole and complete in ourselves so now I will share the five tools to do shadow work the first tool is awareness the first step is to become aware of what my shadow is really so how to do that to become aware of what your shadow is you can do a reflection you can go back to your childhood maybe you can do an inner child healing meditation or you can just visit your childhood reflect on it and see that what were those things that were judged about you what were those things which were disliked about you and maybe you suppress that you can ask this question what is it about me that I don't like and most probably and mostly you will find that all those qualities that I don't like about myself they might have an origin in the childhood maybe it was my parents that didn't like that about me and that's why I don't like it about me but is it really necessary that it is a wrong thing to have as I was talking about disobedience I was disobedient in my childhood and then that was judged about me it became a part of my shadow because I suppressed it I became really obedient but now when I embrace my disobedience I have become a free individual earlier I was very obedient and following everything that the society was telling me but now I follow my own path I am a free individual I have questioned all those things so what is your shadow what was judged about you in your childhood what is it that you dislike about yourself you can write that down you know maybe you can make a list you can go back to your childhood you can check what was judged about you by your parents by others by your schoolmates by your teachers by the religious preacher once you make a list of all those things those will represent the qualities of your shadow those will represent the characteristics of your shadow so that's the first step awareness the second tool is projections understanding projections what are projections projections once we understand them are a wonderful way to know what my shadow is what is it that I judge about myself so a projection is basically a judgment that we make about others the things that I judge about others those are what projections are and why it is called a projection because the things I judge about others are actually the things that I judge about myself those are the things that I judge about myself and I'm just projecting those judgments onto others now let me give you an example here if I was someone in my childhood who was disorganized or messy or a little bit shabby and now when I see such a person I get triggered by it for example if I'm if I go to someone's house and I see that they are not very organized the house is not maybe that clean and you know they are a bit they live in a in a bit disorganized manner so now what will happen is that I get triggered by it I'm judging that person this person is wrong this person has no manners this person is messy now the the very fact that I'm getting triggered by it shows that it is an unresolved in issue inside me and it shows that this was judged about me me maybe maybe I was judged in my childhood and maybe in my childhood my parents told me that you know it is wrong totally to be disorganized it is totally wrong and someone who is disorganized is a wrong person or maybe I was judged and I was scolded or this idea was given to me that somehow being disorganized is wrong so this means that being unorganized messy or shabby this is my shadow and because of this shadow of mine because it is inside me I am judging the other person so our projections whatever we judge about others they can tell a lot about ourselves what are those parts of me which are not healed what are those parts of me that I judge about myself there is a beautiful quote by Debbie Ford and she said that what we judge in others we judge in ourselves and what we forgive in others we forgive in ourselves so the world is like a mirror reflecting our own issues to us when I am judging others it means that there are certain qualities that I am judging about myself and I am just projecting them onto others so then what you can do is you can make a list of those judgments what triggers you about others what do we judge about others when you can make a list of that when you can see what those judgments are what those projections are this is how we understand projections the third step is understanding persona now what is persona persona is this outer personality that we create in front of others it is like a mask it is like a mask that we wear in front of others it is this personality of mine that I show to others so how does becoming aware of this personality this mask this persona can help me with shadow work that's the question to understand this I will talk about two types of masks that we have the outer mask is something which Osho calls the false positive and there is an inner mask which Osho calls the false negative so the false positive and the false negative now this outer mask is this mask that I have in front of others which this is the personality which I show to others usually it is the false positive which means that I show a positive personality to the outer world my persona is wanting to be a positive person a pleasing person so now what happens is that I go out in the world I go out on in a social gathering and I am being nice to people right I am smiling I am helping out others I have this charm on my face I am wearing wonderful clothes I have this wonderful persona but it's not necessary that this persona of mine is my true self because what happens then is I go back home and now my personality is totally different now what happens is that I am very different to the people who are close to me or in my loneliness maybe I am feeling some anger which I did not show in that social gathering so that others don't perceive me as someone who is angry or maybe I have some disappointment or maybe I am sad or maybe I am stressed and I avoided showing that to others but this is the second layer of the mask that we have which is called the false negative and this is that part of my personality which is slightly more authentic than this outer persona of positive this is the part of me which is angry which is sad and I show this true self or this slightly true self of mine to just myself and my solitude or to people who are very close to me my family or you know people who are living with me but what Osho says is that there is a third being there is this deeper part of our personality this is there is this pure essence of ours which is neutral which is neither negative nor positive which is neutral so where is the shadow here the shadow is this false negative this part this second mask that I was talking about because in my home I am comfortable showing those emotions being angry being sad being depressed being stressed but because I feel that it is wrong to have these emotions I create this outer persona of false positive and try to hide that by being pleasing to others by being positive to others so once we understand this we will understand what that shadow is and we can start working on it because now I can be more accepting maybe I can tell myself that it is okay to express sadness express anger I don't need to force this outer positive personality I can start becoming more authentic but the first step is to become aware of this persona how to embrace this persona I will talk about that in the fifth step but now let's come to the fourth step the fourth step is patterns patterns are the repeating things we do which can be harmful to us but which we might not even be aware of for example if I am very much into trying to decorate myself from the outside if my self-worth is dependent on my clothes let's say whenever I go out I always want to you know have the best clothes on because I don't feel confident if I wear ordinary clothes and that's when my self-worth is dependent on my clothes I don't feel comfortable being myself being authentic I try to hide that by you know decorating myself from the outside too much then this is a pattern this is a pattern of mine that I keep repeating and this pattern is that I try to just create this persona outside every time the question is why do I do that that's because my self-worth is dependent on my clothes I don't feel confident about myself that means that there is this shadow of me there is a part of me which I don't like I don't like maybe my body and because I don't like my body I try to cover up myself with those clothes with those shiny clothes or maybe I don't like myself as a person who I am maybe I don't feel confident without wearing certain kinds of clothes maybe I feel that I'm not good enough and that's why I have I try to cover that up with my decoration makeup clothes from outside this is what is happening for example in social media today that teenagers are trying to decorate themselves look the best on social media platforms because they feel deep down this self-worth issue so once we become aware of our patterns we can then embrace them we can then understand them and we can break those patterns and we can see that what is the root of the problem why am I doing this and then we can become aware of this shadow this part of me that I'm trying to hide so how to become aware of patterns to become aware of patterns I can ask this question to myself what are those things in my life that keep repeating and that keep causing problems to me that's one way to recognize patterns the other is you can also take feedback from someone who is very close to you whom you trust and you can ask them you know what is what what do you think about me what do you think that there is a pattern inside me which is unhealthy as per you it's okay to take some healthy feedback from people whom you trust be careful about that only from people whom you trust so this is how we become aware of the patterns and our patterns can help us embrace that part of me which I'm trying to hide and the final step is individuation individuation individuation is a term that was coined by Carl Jung he was one of the founding fathers of modern psychology individually individuation means to integrate the light and the dark within me to integrate this shadow within me to integrate those seemingly polar opposite personalities that I have the light and the dark the light and the shadow now let me explain this to you in society we have created polar opposites of everything it's a dualistic society good and bad right and wrong masculine and feminine democrat and republican liberal and conservative fast and slow successful and unsuccessful all these we have created these divisions these dualities and we kind of put people into these two categories we either support one category or we support the other and if I'm supporting one category I will fight with the other and that's why we see culture wars today that's why we see that how people on the left and right are fighting with each other what Carl Jung says is that we have to integrate both these polar opposites within us and that's what individuation is there is no good and evil as such good and evil is a subjective thing it is highly subjective what is good for one culture will not be good for the other culture it is also geographical what is good in one area in one part of the world is not good in the other part of the world what is good in the West is not good in the East and vice versa it is also temporal what is what was bad at some point of time is good today and it is highly subjective it also depends upon culture some there are some cultures some religions in the world where in in which music is wrong sex is wrong but other cultures embrace them and you know it's a divine thing to listen to music and to make love so it is good and evil are highly subjective things we can't label things as good and evil really in that sense for example if a child is stealing food now someone can look at that and can just label that child as evil but if he understand that child maybe that child is starving and if he doesn't steal that food he will die he will he will starve to death then is stealing food wrong in that case so good and evil are subjective things and this is what kalyung says that we label certain qualities of ours as evil and that becomes our shadow but once we understand that nothing is evil in itself it's all about how we use things my anger is not evil I can use my anger to protect myself and to also help others from being harmed disobedience is not evil disobedience helps me to be free boldness is not evil boldness helps me to express who I am good and evil are subjective things so once we integrate these two parts of our personality which are seemingly polar opposites which means that once we embrace our shadow that's when we have practiced individuation and this comes from self-acceptance how we can do that is by practicing self-acceptance this also supports the third point that I was talking about persona because how we can accept ourselves how we can gradually dissolve this persona is by totally accepting ourselves if I totally accept myself as I am I will not judge myself then and I will not have that shadow whatever qualities I have if I am angry I am angry there is nothing wrong about it if I feel sexual I feel sexual there is nothing wrong about it it's natural so when I totally accept myself as I am that's when I practice individuation that's when I embrace my shadow that's when I am authentic and this is how we do shadow work these were some really important tools that I shared with you I hope you found value in this topic and lots of love to you take care of yourself I will see you soon again