What is the viral shadow work trend? Therapist Dené Logan explains

Shadow work is the practice of taking a deep look at the unconscious parts of ourselves. The legendary Swiss psychologist Carl Jung is widely known for using the term “shadow” to refer to those hidden aspects that we often reject or do not want to acknowledge and that can be triggered by others. Since then, much of psychotherapy has adopted shadow work because it unlocks deep learning, compassion, emotional freedom, and even a sense of purpose. “I see elements of this in very different ways in the different modalities of psychotherapy,” says Dené Logan, a licensed marriage and family therapist and author.

Logan sees shadow work as an invitation to transformation. When we are activated by a person or a situation, she says, it is a message telling us that an unaddressed aspect of ourselves is coming to the surface to be looked at and understood so that “we can become more embodied.” .

What’s particularly compelling here, and what Logan illuminates, is how this work goes beyond the self. If we keep our unconscious in the “basement,” as she says, we risk letting it dominate our lives and influence our relationships. But if we are willing to pause and look at our darkness, we can reveal shimmering gold—for ourselves, our communities, and the world.

A CONVERSATION WITH DENÉ LOGAN

Shadow work has been around for some time, but despite its popularity, the premise can still seem esoteric. How do you describe shadow work and who is our shadow?

I like to think of our shadows as the unintegrated aspects of ourselves. Our shadow can be the dark areas And The golden areas of who we are that we have had to reject within ourselves in order to shape our personality and create a sense of belonging in the world. We have rejected these parts of ourselves as acceptable based on who the world has conditioned us to believe we must be. When I talk to clients about shadow work, I say that it is like going into the basement of our psyche and collecting all the banished parts that we have thrown there and that we don’t want to look at and bring into the light of day. We bring these pieces to the surface and ask them to sit down and tell us what information they have for us.

What is the cost if we don’t do shadow work and keep these parts in the basement?

When our shadow is unintegrated, it is actually running the show of our lives without us being aware of it. Carl Jung said: “Until you make the unconscious conscious, it will guide your life and you will call it fate.” I care a lot about relationships, and what always interests me is the extent to which we choose partners, which are the unintegrated aspects of ourselves, our shadow. Often, the parent with whom we have had the most difficult relationship is the type of person we are truly attracted to in relationships, for whatever reason. We simply cannot let go of that relationship or person because it activates elements of our shadow, which I believe is a divine invitation to healing.

I often give the example of a politician who has an unintegrated relationship with their own sexuality or sensuality and does all this work against sex work, but then sees a group of sex workers on the side. It’s about the parts of ourselves that we believe can’t be seen or addressed, but then begin to take over our lives and exert power over us in ways we haven’t acknowledged.

What role has shadow work played in your life?

For me, shadow work has become a superpower in my life because when someone activates me, I know that an unconsidered aspect of my shadow is coming to the surface for me to look at. So when someone has a personality that is like nails on a chalkboard to me, or when someone activates me in a way that I just can’t let go of, I know I need to do shadow work. What I’m looking at is: What activating quality in them is alive somewhere in me? This could be the dark shadow that I don’t want to acknowledge. And you can look at it another way: How could it be useful for me to appear a little more like this person? Let’s say this person takes up a lot of space and is unapologetic about their perspectives and I have problems with that. This could be the golden shadow, a part of me that I’m afraid to embody because perhaps it wasn’t safe to be the boldest version of myself growing up. Maybe I knew a parent or caregiver would reject me, and so I learned to suppress that aspect. Now it is a part of me that is being invited to emerge so that I can be more embodied.

Do we all have a shadow? I don’t want to be contradictory, but maybe someone will read this and think: I have no shadow.

Oh, I would say please sit down and get started!

What I always see is the golden shadow. I was leading a workshop where we did shadow work and everyone could find their golden shadow. People would see Oh yeah, I could use a little more of that or be a little more like that. But the deeply challenging part of this work is looking at our blind spots and our dark shadow, the shadow within us that we refuse to acknowledge lives within us.

This is such important work, but as you say, some aspects of it are challenging. Considering how hard life is and how harsh our world is, what is a gentle starting point from which to look at our shadow?

It can be that simple. It’s about slowing down our process. In the beginning, it can be as simple as a major activation taking place within you and asking yourself, “How do I even get into a space of curiosity?”

There’s an old saying: “If it’s hysterical, it’s historic.” If something triggers a huge charge within you, there’s something historic there. There’s something in the past that this is reminiscent of, otherwise it wouldn’t be so expensive. And what I’ve found about shadow work is that this is always the case. When something really activates me, I know it’s part of my shadow, so I have to slow down a little and try to relate to it. For me, this can be my first reaction: When I get activated, I’m like, Oh wait, I need to slow down and work around the problem because there’s something there.

Why does humanity need shadow work right now?

Many of the things we refer to as our personality traits are survival mechanisms that we develop early in childhood based on what we need to do to protect ourselves. Someone who has an excessive love of pleasing people, and it shows in their relationships, might say, “Well, that’s just me.” “I’m the one who does everything for everyone.” But some things come up, when I sit with someone like that and have a deeper conversation. We usually see the questions: “Is this really my personality?” or perhaps: “When I was young, my parents were busy and didn’t have much time to take care of what was coming up emotionally, so I took care of it “I took care of myself and got positive feedback in return.” So we begin to realize that it may not be our basic personality, but a conditioned response to survival and the messages we receive. At this point the integration of shadow work with re-education work begins; We really go back to that younger version of ourselves and hold on and see – with so much compassion – why we were conditioned to do what we did. Then we ask if it is still true. “Do I always have to be the one covering everyone?” What I find just beneath the surface with these things we call personality traits is often a lot of exhaustion and resentment. We may want more of something, but we don’t believe it’s possible because we’ve never experienced it. This all means that the greater reason for doing this work is liberation. There are ways we can find such freedom by shedding some of the conditioned ways of being that we were never allowed to have. And the more compassion we have for ourselves, the more compassion we can have for everyone around us.

If we look at the world as it is right now and the current state of all the struggles, I think if everyone pauses to really reach 100 percent and see how they can start to have a little more compassion within themselves develop, then it starts to create a wave. When I look at some world leaders, no one took care of her inner child. No one has taught them to take responsibility for their shadow, so they feel that power needs to be expressed in a certain way in order to feel safe in the world.

Until we slow down for a second and allow ourselves to examine, it feels easier to keep moving forward, just as we always have. But in reality, it takes so much energy, it makes us sick, and it leaves our relationships unfulfilling.

Let’s dive deeper into relationships, because relationship work is a big part of your focus and your book. Sovereign love. Can you talk about how shadow work can impact our relationships and broader communities?

There is the individual shadow and there is also the collective shadow. Again, the shadow is the unaddressed aspects of the self, but it can also be the larger collective self and the things we have never expected or brought up for investigation. We are experiencing a very special moment in history in which the collective shadow of a patriarchal social structure is coming towards us and being viewed in a way that we have never seen before. We see how some of our relationship structures have arisen from patterns of dominance and possession, particularly by women. It wasn’t until 1974 that women were able to open their own bank accounts. This is so new! A lot of our decisions depended on what we had to do to survive, and we still carry a lot of that with us. The patriarchal structure also harms men. There aren’t many healthy models of what integrated healthy masculinity looks like today. All of this means that we are called to do the deeper layers of our inner work. It’s about asking ourselves, “Did I choose this relationship from some of the unintegrated aspects of my shadow?” And if so, then not to shame myself. I did what I could until I knew how to do something else.” And now the question is: “How do I take responsibility for the life I want to lead?” How do I create what I want to do? want the future?

It’s such an exciting time to be alive because I see more and more people doing this and saying, “I’m not afraid anymore.”

Dené Logan, MFT, is a marriage and family therapist, spiritual teacher, and author. She co-hosts the podcast Cheaper Than Therapy, which features behind-the-scenes looks at sessions with real clients, interviews with experts in the field of mental health and wellness, and more. Visit denelogan.com To learn more and order her book, Sovereign Love, click here.