How to recognise your shadow?

Shadow. When you imagine your shadow side, perhaps what comes to mind is a phantom mixed with black smoke made from your terrible desires, obsessive thoughts, sins, etc. And this ghost follows you around, hiding in the corners from the white light of love and compassion, giggling like a little devil on your left shoulder, rubbing its paws when you do something sinful, and appearing to you in nightmares like sleep paralysis, suffocating you and giving you no hope for help.

Of course, you can call your shadow the devil-tempter, trying to "exorcise" it as in the good old religious customs, imposed on us by society and our environment, but this will not make much sense for working with the shadow.

The shadow side of your personality is more than just your flaws and dirty thoughts.

It is what makes you who you are. A complex creation of neurons, functioning day after day, encountering a palette of emotions, conflicts, deeds, and dreams.

The shadow is your traumas, your suppressed qualities, your unfulfilled dreams, toxic patterns, phobias, and much more.

And first and foremost, it is the archetype in your personality that you want to tear out of yourself with all your might, like weeds in a perfect field that interfere with the overall beautiful picture.

You want to hide it, throw it away, "cure" it, change it. These qualities, which manifest themselves in other people without shadow or shame, annoy and anger you on a primitive, instinctive level. Those very emotions and situations when you cannot understand, "Why does this particular person annoy me so much?"

And suddenly, someone may point out this trait in you. It may even be a trait that you didn't think about, didn't realize, didn't suspect in yourself. What will your first reaction be? "No, that's not me! I couldn't behave like that/ that's not me you're describing/ how dare you call me that!"

A simple example: your friend noticed that you always walk around with a dissatisfied look on your face. And all this time, you thought you were socially open, cheerful, smiling, and just a ray of sunshine. Of course, your reaction will be outrage and incomprehension in most cases, if this is your shadow. If you thought you were masterfully hiding this discontent every day, perhaps even on an intuitive level, without noticing it in you.

Here it is, the Trigger. The first and important step in recognising your shadow. Yes, it's not just your flaws that you already know about. It's what you try to mask in society, playing a special role so that, God forbid, you feel ashamed that someone will see it — that's your shadow. Instinctive, hidden, based on the skeleton of your personality.

And it's a complex psychological process that forces you to open your eyes, look at yourself in a new way, from a different angle.

So when you finally want to embark on this difficult journey of working with your shadow, be patient and bring a lot of love for yourself. All your parts and archetypes.