How to Dance with and Integrate Your Shadow Self
Our inner shadows, we all have them. Some of us run from them, some of us run towards them, and some of us have yet to meet them.
I’m no stranger to shadow work. Because of the trauma, sexual abuse, and violence I’ve experienced at an early age, I’ve been doing it most of my life. With every season of life and major life change, you’re faced with new shadows to dance with or different sides of previous shadows you have yet met. I’ve been deeply learning how to get into a deep intimate relationship with my shadows through embodiment and let me tell you, it is intense and it is seductive, delicious, and enticing all at the same time.
Dancing with my shadows feels like a seductive dance of pleasure and pain. A slow deep movement that weaves the most ravishing feelings in the body as it awakens your senses giving your most authentic self a moment to move to the rhythm of your soul.
WTF are shadows?
The ‘shadow’ is the side of your personality that contains all the parts of yourself that you don’t want to admit to having. Some see the shadow parts as being negative and that's not true at all. Your shadows are what you yourself perceive as dark and weak about yourself, and therefore need to be hidden, rejected, or denied. Others say it’s the disowned self. It is at first an unconscious side and only through the effort to become self-aware that we recognize our shadows.
“One does not become enlightened
by imagining figures of light, but by making the darkness conscious.”
— Carl Jung
The term ‘the shadow’ was made popular by Carl Jung. He believed that we needed to fully see this dark side of ourselves if we were to be a fully integrated human.
Most of us go to great lengths to protect our self-image from anything unflattering or unfamiliar. When you ignore your shadows they can take on a life of their own and act out without awareness. It’s as if your conscious self goes on autopilot and the unconscious takes over. They can show up in a variety of different areas in your life holding you back from living your most authentic and fully expressive selves.
Exploring your shadow can lead to greater authenticity, creativity, energy, and personal awakening. Getting intimate with it allows you to foster a deeper relationship with yourself and can help strengthen the relationships you have with others.
The Four Shadow Selves
The lost self, false self, and disowned self come from the work of Harville Hendrix.
The Rejected Self
The rejected self is a part of ourselves that we judge or reject because we feel that it is not acceptable for some reason.
The Lost Self
This is abilities, natural talents, or inclinations that we have been conditioned out of, that we no longer know exist.
The False Self
This is what you create to compensate for a lost self.
The Disowned Self
The negative parts of your false self have been met with disapproval that you’ve also denied.
Examples
In terms of sexual desire, the shadow selves can show up like this:
I was slut-shamed, so I reject my sexual desire. This is the rejected self.
Over time, I forget I ever had sexual desire. My desire becomes my lost self.
I am an empowered woman, though, so I create a self that is super sexual to make up for this lost self. This super sexual self is the false self.
Then I am rejected for being too sexual; this is the disowned self.
In pleasure, the shadow selves can show up like this:
If I experienced pleasure in an abusive way when I was young, I know I will be unsafe when I experience pleasure, so I reject pleasure. This is the rejected self.
I forget what it’s like to experience pleasure; this is the lost self.
I replace my pleasure with numbness during sex; this is the false self.
But if I identify as a sexual human being, I will reject the numbness I feel. This numbness becomes a disowned self.
In love, the shadow selves can show up like this:
If someone grows up with an emotionally abusive father, he might not feel safe to show love. The self who loves becomes the rejected self.
Over time, his capacity to love becomes his lost self.
On top of that, he might build a false self of being misogynistic, to cover up the experience of not being loving.
He will further disown his loving self because he now identifies as an alpha who is beyond experiencing love.
Triggers and the Shadow
Triggers can work in two ways here: people who haven’t integrated their shadow can be easily triggered by others AND it’s easy to be triggered by people’s unintegrated false or disowned selves.
Integrating the Shadow
Shadow integration work can feel very vulnerable; this can be for a lot of reasons, but it might be because it’s trauma-related. That can bring up defensiveness, and it can put you into a trauma response like fight, flight, fawn, or freeze. So when you embrace something that you notice has put you into a trauma response, you can get access to deep shadowy parts of yourself, like:
Your identities and sub-personalities
Your emotions
Your sensations
Your life experiences
When we meet any and all of these things with compassion, loving presence, and safety we see that our highest consciousness accepts and embraces all of these things already. This gets us closer to radical self-acceptance.
There’s a ton of wounding around your shadow self, and your brain becomes invested in steering you away from experiencing these emotions. When you express radical self-acceptance and love for all that you are, you liberate a ton of energy by moving yourself into full presence.
Tools for Shadow Integration Work
Integration is crucial and powerful. The less connected you are, the harder it is to make choices that are in alignment choices for your body, your love life, and your business, which will lead you to thrive rather than just survive.
Pendulation
Pendulation is from the work of Peter Levine. This tool allows you to move your awareness between uncomfortable experiences and pleasure, love, and/or turn on. With practice, you grow your ability to tolerate uncomfortable experiences and builds resilience.
Rewiring
“Neuroplasticity” refers to your brain’s ability to restructure or rewire itself when it recognizes the need for adaption. In other words, it can continue developing and changing throughout life. Rewiring is my favorite tool to use with my clients. This process helps to build a new relationship to the shadow side or uncomfortable experiences you have.
Rewiring takes time for the brain to repattern this new thinking and feeling. So repeat the process until it feels like the thought or feeling has been fully rewired.
“Until you make the unconscious, conscious, it will rule your life and you will call it Fate.”
— Carl Jung
THE EK METHOD (Existential Kink Method) BY CAROLINE ELLIOT
The EK Method was introduced to me earlier this year through the Tantric Institute of Integrated Sexuality. The EK Method Meditation is a rapid-shadow integration process developed by Caroline Elliot. The Existential Kink Method means looking inside, into the unconscious, into your fears and triggers and pain, to admit that you actually take some sort of joy in standing in your own pile of shit. You can learn more about it in her book.
Through embodiment work of the shadow side, you’re able to bring the darkness to light, dance with the emotions that come alive during the process of it, and integrate the disowned, discarded, hidden, and repressed sides of self.
Sounds easy right? NO FUCKING WAY. I’ve spent the last 3-4 weeks working with this method and this takes shadow work to a whole completely different level of self-awareness and conscious awakening.
Imagine feeling some of the most intense physical sensations of guilt, shame, sadness, and aggression and being completely present with the intensity of it as it courses through your body. This facilitates awakening rather and avoidance.
Shadow integration is a lifelong journey because our shadows will often be reflected back to us when we are in a relationship with others. And the deeper the intimacy in that relationship, the more opportunity for one’s shadows to come out and play.
I always encourage my clients to show their shadow parts to their partners. When a person can share and admit these perceived negative sides, they are, in fact, also liberating their partner from their confining, complementary, and often limiting role, toward a wider expression of their own different selves. Consequently, the relationship becomes more harmonious, and roles become more fluid.
Partners begin to feel a new sense of freedom and flexibility, where they can bring more sides of themselves to the intimate encounter without judgment. Our partner becomes a more rounded character in our eyes, and we can have a renewed, eyes-open sense of who they are. Our love for them becomes a more mature and whole one.
Shadow work can seem heavy or scary, but it is one of the fastest ways to recover your capacity for joy, bliss, ecstasy, and pleasure. Shadow work is a key to being a highly functioning and integrated human. The more you work with your own shadow, the more you can meet the shadows in others with compassion, and the better lover/friend/parent/leader you become.
If you’re curious about shadow work send me a note! Let’s chat and talk about it.
