Our Shadow Selves are those dark and mysterious places within us that we have refused to shine the “light” on, for one reason or another. The human shadow contains every thought, feeling, desire, and personality trait that we have rejected or suppressed.
How dominant is your Shadow Self and what effect does this have on your life? Find out by taking our free Shadow Self Test.
I suffered trauma as a child due to the death of my loved one and became invisible, and I have struggled over the years to free myself from feeling unworthy. I am now into my sunset years and I have done a lot of inner work and now I am at a place of peace, joy and healing.
“Small” shadow self, but I would rather call it autism. Or the effects of being born into an incredibly abusive “family” who labels you as worthless, stubborn, and bad and starts referring to you as “nothing” a 5 year old. My only safe place was my mind. And I can’t even explain how that works because there’s always been a deep inner knowing that I deserved fairness, or to not be tormented and shamed for being born when I didn’t even ask for it.
When your parents set the bar so low, there’s really nowhere else to go except up, or in.. Another perk of growing up abused is that nobody wants to talk to you so you never have to lie or say things you don’t mean… I never “learned” how to judge the good or bad parts of myself because everyone made it clear that I did not belong anywhere. I also don’t know many words and struggle to get my thoughts on paper.
I knew they were wrong. Their words and actions never aligned and I always spoke up. Not labeling them as bad, but simply asking them why they do things. I internalized this. I learned to always ask myself why I do things… always be conscious and curious.
When you have nothing, or nobody, you see something in EVERYTHING and everyone. As an adult who’s lived many different lives, I’m able to find parts of myself in everyone I see. I didn’t know self acceptance was a thing people struggled with until it isolated me as an adult. I couldn’t just “get over everything” and shove my feelings aside. It made everyone feel weird. I sat with it. I’m still growing but now I’m learning how to empower others with their own humanness, our own humanness. It’s neat.
I think people are too hard on themselves. They try so hard to make other people like them, they abound on themselves which turns to self loathing which projects into more dissonance and suffering in the world. It’s so weird. Why can’t we all cry and talk about it so we can move on and be happy doing things that make us happy
wow large shadow self. i already knew that though. i’m a very quirky individual. i grew up in the hood but i am not a hood person. because of that i am ridiculed a lot because i am not tough enough or strong enough. so i tend to hide from myself and others a lot. i had my first spiritual awakening (that i can recall) at 28, i’m 31 now. i was drawn to mysticism and started to explore divination. because my family considers themselves christian this was frowned upon and i was warned that i should not look into it. but for some reason i am very drawn to it. i even bought a few decks and performed readings for a few friends. i don’t know how i was able to know things about them that they never told me. it was a feeling deep in my chest that let me know exactly why to tell them. to be honest i had a few experiences while exploring divination that scared the shit out of me. i can recall a night that an entity attacked me and left scratches on my body where it touched me. the next day i watched a divination video and the woman said “you were attacked last night, but the angels saved you”. i can remember thinking god help me. when i thought that, the entity flew backwards and disappeared. after that i shied away from exploring my spirituality. but now i am entering another dark night of the soul. i am afraid of who i really am, from the inner work i have done i figured out that my ancestors were witches and i have had a few people tell me that i am a witch but i don’t know it and that i am very powerful. to be honest i don’t know if that’s a good thing or a bad thing. i feel completely lost and afraid. i have no clue what to do at this point.
Hey Shalandra, thank you for sharing your story. It’s often difficult to cultivate these interest when our community and even family doesn’t understand what’s calling us. I’ve found it best to find ways of ‘bridging’ the place where they come from and the direction I’m heading towards. So with Christianity as a faith, there’s amazing things happening within it, which is almost like a return to the ‘grass roots’ of it, I especially like the new movement of ‘progressive Christianity’ by some of the more aware teachers that have a mystical inclination.
Sometimes we need to feel lost, in order to get rid of old ‘skins’ and see what we discover. It’s a time to tune into ourselves, I don’t pay too much attention to what people think I’m ‘good’ at or not, it often can confuse us more because we feel the need to live up to that idea or image rather than tune into what we really are feeling or drawn towards.
All the best :)
Large shadow self… yeah, ouch. I remember discovering the concept that without light, darkness cannot exist a while back. You can’t have one without the other. I consider myself as someone who’s creative and love to express myself by singing or writing music. Yet I have parts of me that I despised and wanted to destroy- so I did. Guess what, it worked. Without darkness, there was no light either. I killed my passion for life and music and creativity. I didn’t care whether I lived or died, nothing mattered. I died to apathy. Battling my addiction seemed pointless and everything lost meaning. I decided to take a leap of faith and bring back my love for life. Of course the shadow-self came with it as well. I think I’m extremely fortunate to come across this website during this time. I’m struggling with approaching my shadow-self and understanding my self-sabotaging behavior. Thanks for making this website guys, I hope that I can learn just a bit more about understanding my inner-self.
Thank you Alex, I always find it helpful to approach self-sabotaging issues in a gentle and compassionate way. It’s easy to use many of the ideas about cultivating a deeper connection withourselves we present on this website in a way that creates further division. All the best :)
I’ve been extremely spiritual and gifted since I was born, but I just discovered it recently. I’m 51 years old and all my life I’ve tried to ignore and hide what I couldn’t from others about the REAL ME, because I was teased, bullied, hurt and so much worse. I just turned 51 yesterday and the last 6 years EVERYTHING has come back to me FULL FORCE. I can’t run or hide from my true self any longer and I don’t want to. I’m always looking for help with all of these things I’m trying to process and I’m very thankful for your site. I’ve tried to talk to others about all this and all they want to do is refer me to counselors, psychiatrists and other crap like that. Those things don’t help me. I just wanna talk with people about my experiences and have real friends, with real connections. Right now it’s pretty lonely and I’m having a really hard time with all of this, but I know that I don’t need people who don’t understand trying to make me conform to their beliefs, rules or systems. Please don’t think I’m crazy like most do and suggest I see some kind of “help”. I just wanted to share this and hopefully, someday I will have some close friends that I can really trust. Maybe have some lifelong connections.
Much Love & Light Always
Namaste
I’m sorry to hear that you’re feeling alone with this Anna. It really is quite a lonely path sometimes (hence our websites name). What you describe as deep connections and friendships is something many of us struggle with, all these topics are very much peripheral to societies values but slowly it’s becoming more main stream. This hopefully means we’ll be able to create those connections we crave. That said, I do think the counselor approach is still very helpful. As someone who has training in counseling, there’s a broad variety of people who use these ‘systems’ in different ways and operate from the heart, but the methods/systems help protect you both from ‘overflowing into each other’ as can often be done when dealing with these delicate topics. It’s not a ‘friend’, but they can serve immensely in guiding us and helping us feel seen, if only our shadows don’t get in the way of accepting their help.
All the best!
I never knew why I felt depressed and I found out why. One thing that at five yrs old I didn’t know how to deal with shaped my pain and kept me around toxic people. I cut them All out of my life and I am happier.
What does it mean if you do a lot of shadow/inner work and your actual shadow becomes huge?
If your shadow seems to become larger, it might mean that you’re focusing on it more, F. After all, whatever we focus on in life tends to enlarge. Because your shadow was previously in the background, it may have seemed smaller than what it actually was. In any case, I’d recommend seeking out a depth psychologist (guides who work with the shadow) if things get too tricky or overwhelming.
MEDIUM Shadow Self That’s what I got, and after the other on point test results I have zero doubts that this results is correct. So I have a new thing on my schedule. Thank you 7 3 8 3 7
Me & my SMALL shadow… The quiz results indicate that I’m fairly well-adjusted, as in “don’t tame your demons, but keep ’em on a leash” (Hozier). Even so, for me and hopefully for others like me, let us not underestimate the potential of finding good things in small packages! We are all “the entire ocean in a tiny drop,” the “universe in a nutshell” and “infinity in an hour.” Shadow work is necessary, even for the lil ones :) Thank you, friends, for the opportunity to utilize the Shadow Self Workbook and for the work and wisdom shared on your site. Be blessed, Beloved!
Great reminder Dodi, the shadow can easily sneak up on us especially when we feel ‘free’ from it.
LARGE Shadow Self
You most likely have a LARGE or significant Shadow Self buried deep within your unconscious mind. Almost all of us are raised believing that we have to hide, repress, or reject parts of ourselves which are “unlovable,” “unacceptable” or “taboo.” Every outlawed part within us forms what Jungian psychoanalysts call “the Shadow Self.” As a result, most people have Shadows, or dark sides. However, the longer we repress parts of ourselves, the bigger our Shadows grow. This can lead to problems such as self-hatred, mental illness, drug and alcohol abuse, neuroticism, and relationship dysfunction.
As you have a large Shadow Self, you might find that your Shadow frequently sabotages your happiness, work life success, and relationship harmony.
Interesting Abby, so that the assessment you have on me or my answering the questions?
Thank you for the opportunity to learn more about Shadow work also take the tests to assess myself.
I usually examine my experiences, engage in self-conversation to see what is happening within me.
There are things i am already doing but did not know was part od Shadow Work. Now i can integrate this
as continue my shadow work. So thank you for this new adventure in shadow work.
I cannot do any tests. I click the freebies page, select tests, and there are no links or prompts for me to follow that allows me to take the tests.
Hey Cassie, it sounds like it could be a conflict in your local cache. Can you try using a different browser or using incognito/private mode in your current browser? This should fix it.
This website is exactly what I needed, I’ve been on my journey for just over a year after 45 years of being in a rudderless ship, and lately I’ve felt stagnant and in search of the next step or direction to take. I feel renewed and am going to review the material again and think it over as I was thinking shadow work journal was perfect, but after reading everything I may start with the inner child journal. What I know for sure, my intuition is telling me that no matter which this website contains the next leg of my journey. Thank you for being a guiding light.