Hi Friends!
Some of you have asked me to explain further what I mean by shadow work as we approach the Shadow Work Retreat this October at the hOMe PYM retreat center in Berks County, PA. As such, I thought I’d take a moment to do a brief blog post to explain my conceptualization and relationship with this work:
Shadow work is a metaphysical, psychospiritual term that implies exploring the parts of ourselves we don’t normally want to see or don’t even know it would benefit us to inquire about. In some cases, it may even mean exploring parts we see but actively try to suppress on a daily basis. As some of you know, part of my background is in psychoanalysis—both in training and in terms of personal treatment—which means I have done “shadow work” since the first time I sat down on the couch as a ten-year-old. Psychoanalysis proposes that patients/clients can make radical changes in their lives by the attunement from the analyst and from the process of making the unconscious, conscious. Once something is made conscious, we now have the opportunity to do something with it. Unfortunately for the field of psychoanalysis, there is a shadow of it as a field must deal with in terms of its history and in terms of its often cost-prohibitive limited availability to the masses. Fortunately for psychoanalysis, many of its key principles, including making the unconscious conscious, have been adopted by other fields and other psychological disciplines and practitioners across training backgrounds, making the exploration of the buried parts of the human psyche common practice.
It’s likely then if you have ever engaged in ongoing exploratory psychotherapy that you have been doing a subtle form of shadow work all along. Just through talking to a neutral, confidential third party not involved in your everyday life, you discovered parts of yourself you might never have known were there (of course, it goes without saying, psychotherapy also includes many other very valuable benefits including but not limited to emotional attunement, grounding, reframing, and building your capacity to hold your feelings). Because therapists also have shadows and areas of discussion and exploration they unconsciously avoid in session (because they avoid these same areas within themselves), it behooves even the most committed psychotherapy clients to discover how to do this kind of work themselves. I assure you taking your personal evolution into your own hands by supplementing any therapy or coaching work you may be doing already with personal ongoing shadow work is truly far more empowering than it is scary. Knowing creates freedom.
When I specifically label a retreat shadow work, however, we are making the unconscious, conscious our exclusive focus—not just one outcomes and benefits, but THE OUTCOME. Also, we don’t just delve into the realm of the psyche, we also include the Spirit--the entire essence of a being that is seldom explored. Many of us keep knowledge of our spiritual inheritance, our intuition, our connection with the unseen world just as much a secret from ourselves as we do the parts of our personality we don’t like. We also keep knowledge of our latent gifts and talents secret from ourselves because somewhere down the line we were told not to be too much or not to outshine so and so.
Shadow work includes the whole shadow—the parts of our being that we might label at first good or we might label bad. The process is one of discovery and understanding, culminating in collecting all our parts into the whole of our being- and making it all loveable. We aim high in this work. We try for integration, so that less and less of us remains cut off from our awareness. We want to love it all. In loving all our dimensions, the parts of us that cause us the most trouble actually lessen their grip. An addiction for example decreases from understanding why it’s there and what its purpose is (What pain or hard truths is it actually helping us avoid dealing with by taking up so much of our mental space and numbing us out). The more we explore our shadow, the less we have to create clever ways to hide from ourselves and others. It makes us far more resilient because our mental and spiritual reserves don’t need to be spent on repression and avoidance of ourselves. Instead, we can use our life force energy towards fulfilling our goals, dreams, and desires.
And no…..we wont be sitting around divulging our deepest darkest secrets to complete strangers! Have no fear! I am still by training and experience someone who specializes in trauma informed care. If you’d like a copy of the retreat schedule, don’t hesitate to email us!
I’m excited to go on this journey with those of you who have decided to give this work a shot! For those of you still on the fence about the retreat, don’t hesitate to reach out with questions!
In Gratitude,
Caroline (“Carrie”)
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