Shadow Work Skills to Develop
Shadow work can feel veryâŠvague to talk about. Thereâs a bad habit of just kind of handwaving things and hoping people figure it out on their own. Part of that is that itâs so intensely personal. Itâs so hard to come up with things that will work for everyone. The other part is that I want people to experiment and add to what we know about shadow work so I donât want to be too prescriptive in how I teach others to do it.
So, for this post I wanted to dig into some of the most basic skills I use in shadow work in the hopes itâll help people no matter which methods or paths they take.
Describing Events Neutrally
I put this one first because I think itâs the most important and the more difficult. Our emotions cloud how describe events to ourselves and others. For us to look critically at actions or words, we really need to be able to describe them without intent or emotion. Now, Iâm not saying to leave that out entirely, Iâll get to that next. But you have to be able to get a clear view of what was done. This is so important when working with anything that might be triggering. We are too used to describing events with the goal of justifying thoughts, feelings, and actions and in shadow work it helps to break that instinct where you can.
When you can describe events neutrally to start with, itâs easier to see whether the feelings where in line or out of line with what happened. Were you way over reactive? Maybe under reactive? Itâs easier to judge that when you have a neutral account to work with.
To practice, try listing out some events as they happen neutrally. An example might be after a tense interaction with someone, listing out what was said and done. If you can, get someone who was there to look at it and someone who wasnât there to look at it and see what they say as far as how factual and neutral the account is.
Many many people cannot tell you what theyâre feeling. Thereâs a myriad of reasons for this but no matter where it comes from it hurts shadow work. Your mood is like an internal weather system, you need to be able to do shadow work thatâs appropriate for the weather. How you dig into things if gonna be different if your reaction to feeling trapped is to give up and binge movies or to lash out in anger. Gotta know what youâre working with.
Itâs absolutely vital that you practice naming your emotions in day to day life. I did a week where I had an alarm go off five times a day and I wrote down what I was feeling in a note on my phone. A lot of my entries were âIâm not sureâ. The practice showed me how often I have no connection to my feelings at all and prompted me to get to know them better.
Try using a feelings wheel or a feelings chart at least once a day to get used to checking in with yourself and putting a name on it.
We live in a society that has a very complicated relationship with wants. People often say we live in a consumerist society but we donât often talk about what thatâs done to us psychologically, to be so consumptive. Thereâs a lot of morality around them too that we internalize. We identify strongly with what we want. We define ourselves through our ambitions and our goals. But it means what we really want gets lost in the pursuit of shaping our desires to be acceptable or admirable. We ignore our desires that donât fit with our narratives which is such a block to shadow work. How can you work on what you wonât let yourself be conscious of?
You have to understand that you and your desires are not one in the same. Just because you really want to enact violence on someone for what theyâve done doesnât make you a bad person or a mean person or what have you. Itâs a natural human desire. That doesnât mean thatâs itâs justified just that you are not bad for having those thought or desires. This extends to other things people donât like admitting they want â finding other people more appealing than their partner, wanting someone whoâs wronged them to suffer, wanting more for yourself even if it means someone else goes without â theyâre all desires we have from time to time.
Practice writing what you want out on paper. Remind yourself you donât have to act on it and that itâs better to be aware of it so doesnât sneak into the driverâs seat. Itâs important to break the idea that weâre owed what we want or that we have to act on what we want. Desires, much like feelings, come and go. But theyâre important to be aware of while theyâre here.
I still am unsure of how to describe how to do this. Itâs really distress tolerance at itâs core; learning to be okay with not being okay. Because where I see people going wrong with responsibility in shadow work is that they either explain everything away with context or they go itâs all my fault and itâs so terrible I canât do anything about it.
Part of taking responsibility is being able to answer the question âWhat do I owe in this situation?â If your answer is always nothing, youâre wrong. We are social creatures, weâre only here because we evolved the intelligence to work closely and creatively with other members of our species. We do owe each other things in any interaction. Itâs important to practice thinking about what those things are. Equally important is thinking through what you donât owe as well.
Practice sitting with your mistakes when they happen and trying to think whatâs owed in this situation. Shadow work depends on our ability to take responsibility for the roles we play in what keeps us stuck.
I donât know that I have much explicit advice for this category other than itâs incredibly helpful. Seeing your patterns is really key to zeroing in on automatic behaviors or thoughts. Pattern recognition is kind of like playing Minesweeper. It gets you a little closer to what youâre trying to uncover without having to step right in it and maintain yourself to be reflective.
Journaling can be really great for this. If you see yourself writing about the same actions or feelings or thoughts again and again and again. Going back through old conversations where youâre venting might give you some clues.
Whenever you find yourself frustrated you keep doing something, take note. When are you doing these things? What does it offer you? What does it protect you from?
We donât do things repeatedly if they donât serve us in some way which can be hard for us to admit.
Compassionate Problem Solving
So youâve dug up these unpleasant truths about yourself, whatâs a shadow worker to do? The only way forward is compassionate problem solving. Which is best summed of for me as working with yourself, not against yourself. Iâm reminded of permaculture â the problem is the solution.
An example of this in my own life was ADHD. Once I finally realized what I was dealing with was ADHD, I spent several months ignoring it completely and being shocked when I couldnât will myself to be ânormalâ. I felt a lot of shame. It was only when I started accepting where I was at and then going okay what can I do that things started to shift. âOkay, if I know Iâm gonna forget my keys what can I do?â I put spare house keys and car keys in my car so when I inevitably forgot them somewhere I could call AAA and Iâd be able to drive home. âOkay if Iâm gonna forget my papers what can I do?â I made digital backup galore so I could access them and print them off at the last minute on campus. My life got so much better with the approach.
Wherever youâre at there are things you can do to make it better going forward and itâs important to get creative and stay reasonable. Getting triggered frequently? Make sure you have a cool down list of some kind on your phone. Too scared to grab groceries by yourself? Grab a buddy or order them and pick them up. Spending too much time in bed because youâre depressed as shit? Set a 5 minute timer and do one thing to make your life better. Literally all of these are personal examples.
Thereâs always something you can do. Small wins are still wins. Count them. Thereâs no need to be cruel to yourself while doing shadow work. Practice coming up with at least three different ways to respond to issues that you face. Even if you know a solution isnât the one youâre gonna take, get used to putting out more than one ârightâ answer. In shadow work, thereâs always more than one path.
I hope this is helpful. A bit rambling, but I think I could have used a post like this when I was starting out. Shadow work gets very individualized, very quickly, but Iâve yet to talk to anyone who wasnât using at least a few of these in their personal shadow work journey. Hope these skills and how to practice them help!
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