Ep 22: What Is Shadow Work Anyway?
In this episode, Asha Wilkerson discusses the concept of the shadow side and the importance of shadow work. She defines the shadow as the part of us that reacts instead of responds and explains that our shadows develop in childhood when we are told certain parts of ourselves are bad or unlovable.
Asha emphasizes that shadows are not inherently bad but need attention and acceptance. She provides three steps for doing shadow work: identifying your shadows, accepting them compassionately, and tending to them.
Key Points
The shadow is the part of us that reacts instead of responds, and it develops in childhood when we are told certain parts of ourselves are bad or unlovable.
Shadows are not inherently bad, but rather need attention and acceptance.
Shadow work involves identifying your shadows, accepting them with compassion, and tending to them.
By doing shadow work, you can become less reactive, stop people-pleasing, and learn to love and accept yourself.
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Resources
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Asha Wilkerson (00:09.986)
You've probably heard people talk about the shadow side or facing your shadows before, or maybe you haven't. But the question remains, what is your shadow side and what do people mean when they talk about shadow?
I'm gonna give you my understanding and definition through a lens of being a black woman born and raised in the United States of America. And my definition may be a little bit different from others, but this is my understanding and I actually think it's a pretty good one. So right after the intro, I'll get right into it.
Asha Wilkerson (00:49.994)
All right, let's do this. So the first question I'm going to answer is what is the shadow? And the term shadow was made popular by psychoanalyst Carl Jung. He saw it as an uncivilized and even primitive side of nature. And I wouldn't say it's necessarily uncivilized or primitive. I'd say that oftentimes our shadow side comes out as our greatest protector.
The shadow is the part of us or our shadows are the parts of us that react instead of respond. They protect us from getting hurt and they are often hard to admit or face because they might have more control over us than we have over them. Also, oftentimes we're told that our shadow parts of us are bad, especially when we are children.
So the shadow is often hard to see because it's the term we use for all of our natural instincts that will go to bat to protect us from pain, discomfort, or vulnerability. Some examples of your shadow side might include being judgmental, being quickly defensive, being ready to cut things off. I'm good at that. I don't like it. I'm going to cut it all the way off. Maybe quick to anger, playing the victim, or feelings of shame or embarrassment. There are so many more. And in myself,
particularly, I overanalyze often so I won't have to feel what's going on.
Asha Wilkerson (02:27.298)
Hey, I'm in the middle of recording a podcast and I'll call you right.
Asha Wilkerson (02:35.456)
Okay. Okay. It literally was ringing on my computer and I was like, I can't not answer because it's recording.
Asha Wilkerson (02:48.14)
No, not your fault.
Asha Wilkerson (02:54.946)
I'm going back. Okay, bye.
Asha Wilkerson (03:01.622)
I I should probably quit what's
Asha Wilkerson (03:22.142)
In me in particular, my shadow sides include over analyzing so that I can bypass the actual emotion that I'm feeling. Like I'm really good at using words to describe what I'm feeling, but not actually feeling what I'm feeling. I also have shame when it takes me longer to accomplish my goals. And I think it should, and I'm also more comfortable helping people than allowing people to help me. So.
Let's also talk about the fact that it's called a shadow. So now we know what the shadow is or what people are referring to when they talk about shadow, but let's talk about the fact that it's called the shadow. And I have a real sort of problem with this because when we think of shadow, we think of darkness, we think of bad, but it's neither good nor bad. It just is like your emotions are neither good nor bad. They just are. So especially for us black and brown people, many of our cultures,
pre -colonization embraced duality or plurality in human nature. But the language around right and wrong, light and dark, good and bad, started to shift with colonization in the implementation of organized religion like Christianity and probably even Islam as well. Christianity began to paint things as light and dark and guess which things were considered light and guess which things were considered dark.
The indigenous practices of the colonized people were often considered bad and the practices used to embrace the whole person were systemically and systematically cut off to fit people into the behavioral compliance tenants and tenants of faith of Christianity. So even today, practices of ancestral veneration are seen as taboo in the Western world. That's
playing with witchcraft or dark spirits, yet the Catholic Church has dead people posted all around the cathedral, and you're even expected to offer up prayers to them for specific purposes. Like, hello, saints, hello, Virgin Mary, hello, Saint Christopher. How is that any different than you praying to your ancestors of blood or your chosen ancestors? It's not. But because it's the church, it's white and it's right, not dark
Asha Wilkerson (05:41.206)
and bad. Also, just at the beginning of this podcast, I said that Carl Jung really coined the term shadow and named it primitive. And, you know, in the language, particularly that's used with white folks to black folks, primitive gets used a lot to signal bad, to signal unrefined, to signal not white. So I do not want you to think, particularly if you are a person of color,
that any of your quote unquote shadow, anything that you are working to bring more under your control or under your awareness is bad or primitive.
I'm digressing a little bit, the point is that we as humans are made up of multiple emotions and when our emotions aren't attended to, their repression creates what we call today shadows. The shadows though, they ultimately keep us from fully experiencing our humanity, or at least the way that we think about our shadows keeps us from experiencing our full humanity. They keep us from accepting ourselves as we are,
which makes us try to hide them, thinking that we'll be more loved, more accepted or safer by denying our shadows. But really denying our shadows just keeps us from loving ourselves because we think that if we have this shadow, if we have this piece of us that is not as refined and not as educated and is a little bit more reactive than responsive, then we think that we are not worthy
of love.
Asha Wilkerson (07:23.884)
So now the next question, the next logical question is, how do our shadows develop? And often our shadow self or our shadows are created in childhood when we're told something about ourselves is bad or that there's a part of ourselves that's not okay or that's unlovable. So if you grew up as a very talkative child, your parents might've told you repeatedly to be quiet or to talk less often in social settings.
In order to feel loved and accepted, you might have started to regress that talkative aspect of your personality. So you would ordinarily want to be talkative and chatty, but you're thinking, I can't do it too much because that's just unbecoming. That's not something I'm supposed to do. And over time, as you continued to repress those parts of your shadow, you held onto those feelings that they were bad until they...
And over time, as you continue to repress those parts, your shadow held onto those feelings until they bubbled over or they were triggered by an external stimuli. If you were taught that it was your role to take care of your younger siblings, If you were taught that it was your role to take care of your younger siblings and your family, your shadow side might make it hard for you to ask for and accept help when it's needed.
You might be so strong that you end up hurting yourself trying to carry the weight of the world on your shoulders. And how many of you were told that it wasn't okay to cry? I know a lot of you heard. I also heard. If you don't stop crying, I'll give you something to cry about. I bet it's really hard for you to cry now and to let your guard down when you need to, which is a shadow. Being so strong that you're not vulnerable enough to let people step in and help you.
But that's because you were taught that it was never ever okay to cry or to be upset or to be sad or to need some support. And one of my shadows, another one I'll share with you is actually being a perfectionist adjacent. I don't feel like I have to be perfect, which is why I'm perfectionist adjacent, but I definitely feel like I can't mess up. And that comes from a childhood of being very visible in my community as often the only black kid or person of color in my classes.
Asha Wilkerson (09:43.65)
My mom taught me really early on that I would not be judged by the same criteria as my white classmates and that I wouldn't be given the same chances to recover if I made any mistakes. So I didn't have the pressure to get straight A's or to be the best athlete or to be the top of the class. But I definitely learned that I needed to be near the top because anything less than that was going to be too hard to come back from. So how do you know what your shadows are?
They are the parts of yourself that you try to hide from the world. The parts of you that you don't want anybody else to see because you've judged them as bad. You think they'll keep you from belonging or from being loved or from being safe. You can see your shadows when you're triggered. When somebody says or does something that causes a strong emotional reaction in you that often is triggering a shadow part of you.
Also, the things that you don't like about other people are often, Also, the things that you don't like about other people are often mirroring the things that you don't like about yourself. I have a friend of mine, an acquaintance, I've talked about this before, who loves to be the center of attention. And for a long time, it really, really got on my nerves and I've always been,
really sensitive to people who need to be the center of attention. And one day I decided to ask myself what actually bothers me about this. And I realized that I learned as a kid that it wasn't okay to be the center of attention and that I was asking for too much if I needed attention. And so I learned that it wasn't okay to ask for attention and I carried that belief into adulthood. Whereas my friend probably learned that it wasn't okay for ask to.
Whereas my friend probably learned that it wasn't okay to ask for attention, but because she wants it, she blew right through it and was like, I'm gonna get all the attention that I want and that I desire. So my abrasion or my discomfort with her asking for attention has everything to do with my shadow and feeling like it wasn't okay for me to ask when I was younger. And so now it's really hard for me to ask for help,
Asha Wilkerson (11:59.202)
to be the... even on my birthday, I don't like being the center of attention. I like creating spaces where people can come and hang out, but I don't like being in the spotlight. So that's definitely a shadow side for me. So what does shadow work look like? How can we do this shadow work? And why is it important to do the shadow work? And the reason why I'm talking to you about it today is because I want you to do some healing around your shadows.
If you think it's better to repress your shadows or work hard to bury them, I want you to ask yourself how it's actually working. If you feel anxiety, if you keep people from getting too close, if you feel like you're on edge in certain situations or feel embarrassment and shame around certain parts of who you are or decisions you've made in the past, it's time to give your shadows some love. They aren't bad. They just need some attention.
You cannot heal when you refuse to feel. But let me be clear. The goal of shadow work when you work with me is not to get rid of your shadows. It's to make peace with them. It's to work on loving and accepting all parts of yourself, ALL parts of yourself so that you can tap into the joy, love and happiness you've been denying yourself because you don't think you deserve it because you have these shadows.
But these shadows don't keep you away from love. It's your thoughts about the shadows that allow you to keep yourself away from love. So here are the three steps, in my humble opinion, to do the shadow work. The first thing you need to do is identify your shadows. What are they and when do they show up? The second thing you need to do is accept your shadows. What...
The second thing you need to do is accept your shadows. Understand how and why they developed, and then meet yourself with compassion. And the third thing you need to do is to tend to your shadows. Learn to address them and give yourself the support that you need so that you work with them and not against them. When you are able to accept yourself for exactly who you are,
Asha Wilkerson (14:22.08)
and meet yourself with compassion, you become more powerful than you could ever imagine. Acknowledging and accepting yourself puts all of the power back in your hands. You no longer hide from yourself and no longer hide from others, which means you stop spending time trying to display a perfect facade. One of my shadows, I'm telling you all about myself today, but one of my shadows, another one of my shadows is sensitivity. My dad used to call me sensitive
all the time as a kid and I probably was. But my dad would also call me sensitive when I would tell him that something he said or something he did wasn't okay. And he'd call me sensitive as a way to absolve himself of responsibility for his own behavior that was insensitive, rude, or disrespectful. So instead of looking at himself, instead of apologizing, he would just say, you're just too sensitive. Like it was my fault that he did something that hurt my feelings.
So naturally I developed an aversion to being sensitive and I would try my hardest to pretend like things didn't bother me, even though deep down my feelings would be really hurt. And I did this with my dad, friends, boyfriends, teachers, everywhere. And as a result, I stopped expressing my wants and needs because of the fear that I was being too sensitive or too much or too me. But one day I just decided to say,
Yeah, I'm sensitive and you know that about me and maybe I'm not being too sensitive. Maybe you're actually not being sensitive enough. And that completely changed the conversation and how I felt about myself. Instead of denying this part of me, I really embraced it and allowed it to come with me and to be a part of who I am. Instead of trying to hide it, I embraced it and began to communicate how I needed that sensitive side of me
to be tended to. And I was also better attending to it myself. My sensitivity was no longer a button that people could push because I owned it. Like part of the shame comes from us trying to keep other people from finding out about it. But when you're able to admit it to yourself and to tell somebody else about it, they can't push that button because you've told them there's nothing for them to discover.
Asha Wilkerson (16:50.136)
I don't know exactly what your shadows are, but I know you have some. We all do. Doing the work to make peace with your shadows. Love.
Asha Wilkerson (17:02.328)
Doing the work to make peace with your shadows, love your shadows and incorporate them into your whole being is truly a game changer. You'll be less reactive, you'll stop people pleasing, and you'll really learn to love and accept yourself the way you want others to love and accept you. There are two ways to work with me to begin healing your shadow side. We can work together one-on-one for three months using a combination of coaching and breath work and Reiki and intuitive readings to help you identify, accept, and tend to your shadows.
By By By By the end of our time together, you'll find the self-acceptance and self-love that you've been looking for. I encourage you to book a call with me to get all of your questions answered about one-on-one coaching. So head to ashawilkerson.com/coaching to book your call. You can also work with me in a four You can also work with me in a 4-week group healing session
that will address some of the shadows we inherited from our ancestors. We will use breathwork as the main tool during this healing program and we will meet online on Sundays for 90-minute breathwork sessions. Between sessions, you'll receive journal prompts, WhatsApp support, and an ancestral tarot reading from me to help you connect to your ancestors, identify the shadows that need to be released from your lineage, and then...
Asha Wilkerson (18:30.636)
Between sessions, you'll receive journal prompts, WhatsApp support, and ancestral tarot reading to help you connect with your ancestors, identify what shadows need to be released from your lineage, and connect to the joy, love, and happiness your ancestors want you to tap into. This group healing container starts on the first of the month. So book your spot in the group healing program by going to ashawilkerson.com/ancestral-healing.
If this podcast episode resonated with you, please rate and review and share. Invite your friends to join the healing container with you, especially the group program so we can all grow and heal and embrace our shadow sides together. I'd love to hear what you think about this episode. So please find me on Instagram and send me a message. I'm at AshaWilkersonEsq This life journey isn't easy, but it doesn't get.
This life journey isn't easy, but it does get better when you do the healing work. It's because I've healed that I've been able to repair old relationships and start new ones from a different perspective. It's because I've healed that I've been able to leave expectations behind that no longer serve me. It's because I've healed that I'm currently living my dream life out loud with no regrets. And you can too.
Asha Wilkerson (20:04.652)
You've probably heard people talking about the shadow side or facing your shadows or heard about shadow work or maybe you haven't. And the question remains is what is the shadow and what do people mean when they talk about healing their shadows? Today, I'm going to give you my understanding and definition of what shadow work is through my lens of being a black woman born and raised in America.
And my definition may be different from the others that you hear, but I think my understanding is a pretty good one. So today I'm going So, today I'm going to answer for you, what is shadow work? I'm going to explain how our shadows develop, and then I'm going to give you three steps for beginning to heal and work with your shadows. So stay tuned, get the full episode.
Asha Wilkerson (20:57.516)
I'll break it down right after the intro.