"Everything that irritates us can lead to an understanding of ourselves." ~ Carl Jung
Have you ever experienced being irritated by someone, or deeply disturbed by an action of someone? Do you constantly feel like you're in survival mode, fighting battles of the outside world, and feeling non-content about every situations in life? Do you feel restless, hard to sit still without doing something, afraid of silence, and cannot go a day without trying to prove yourself? There is something very intriguing about having these powerful feelings and emotions, as they can be mirroring who we are deep down. These strong feelings and emotions stem from our own Shadows, which is an important aspect of ourselves. We learn at a very young age what is acceptable behaviors and what feelings are good and what are bad. Feelings such as anger, hatred, jealously, envy, being judgmental and impatience to name a few, are usually feelings we would like to hide or repress. These repressed or hidden part of ourselves are our Shadows.
When we are not aware of our Shadows, they can manifest into external behaviors, such as defensiveness, aggression, anger outbursts, restlessness and anxiety, which can affect our relationships with others and most of all ourselves.
Little do we know, we spend a lot of energy to hide or repress our shadow side. These wasted energy can only make us even more tired. To keep our life and emotional health in balance, our energy should be equally distributed between our light and shadow side. And not tipped off to one side. Therefore, Shadow work is a very important work that one should acknowledge and work on for emotional well-being. Lights casts shadows. Because we all have our shadow side as well as our light side, and it is the integration and compliment of both that makes us whole as human beings. If we only magnify and acknowledge our light side, such as our accomplishments and life-affirming qualities, we create a false self image that can only fool others, but will eat us from within. This false image of selves is much more prevalent than we could possibly imagine, especially in this day in age of social media.
Shadow work is a deep introspective soul-searching work that we can learn to work on within ourselves. Instead of fighting to keep our Shadows hidden from ourselves, we can learn to use them as tools for self-understanding and personal growth. Personally, Shadow work has given me the most rewarding and soul-affirming journey into self-discovery. For a huge part of my life as a young adult and even now, I have worked and continuously working on my shadow side and transformed them into works of art. I paint about my doubts, fears, and insecurities. I wrote songs about what bothers me, my pain and also my weaknesses. I journal about strong negative emotions, to not judge them but to understand that I am at the end of the day, also a human. By exploring my shadow side through the Creative arts, I was able to acknowledge my shadow side, and embrace who I am: my flaws, my shortcomings, and my fears. They are all apart of me, and without them, I cannot be whole, and I certainly cannot be who I am today without my shadows. So in a way, I have to thank my shadows. Because it is my shadows that gave me the most enlightening inspirations for my creative life.
For those of you who are feeling lethargic, who feels you're constantly in survival mode, who feels irritated easily by others and overreact on everything, as well as feeling non-content about situations and life in general, you may be neglecting your shadow side for too long. Your negative reactions are alerts that are trying to tell you to pay attention to your shadows. It is time to confront your "Dark" side and embrace those shadows of yours. Do not be afraid, as they may be the most rewarding essence of your life that are waiting for you to uncover .
For more information about using the Creative Arts for Shadow work, please contact me :-) I'll be delighted to help guide you in this soul-rewarding journey~
Peace and Love,
AMA