Most of us present our best faces to the world. Even on bad days, we smile through our tears, swallow our anger, and hastily push away any doubts and fears that threaten to dismantle our carefully constructed personas.
However, beneath this public mask often lies a tangled web of emotions; envy, guilt, anger, sadness, shame, and regret. These challenging feelings are concealed in a place in our mind which the Swiss psychiatrist, Carl Jung, called the “shadow”.
Pat Divilly, a wellness coach, educator, and author who is from Barna, says Jung proposed that within each of us there are two parts that make up the whole. There is the idealised self – the person we want to be – and then there are the parts of us that go against this idealised vision – the shadow.
From childhood onwards, the shadow becomes the container for all of the aspects of ourselves that we reject, deny, or want to abandon. It can include the feelings, urges, and desires we experience but do not want to acknowledge or admit as well as painful memories and experiences. We are often unaware of these aspects that we have rejected so we tend to distance ourselves from them, rather than confronting them, explains Mr Divilly, who has conducted hundreds of corporate and public seminars, workshops, and retreats globally. He has also released more than 250 episodes of his popular podcast.
These suppressed emotions are not something to be feared or rejected, he says. In fact, they may contain the key to our transformation, giving us access to untapped potential and hidden strength – both powerful tools on our journey to self-awareness and growth.
In his new book, Shadow Work, which is described as a practical guide to helping people embrace their shadow side, tackle shame, and transform pain into power, he says the real work in healing, growth, or personal development is to acknowledge, get close to, and understand all parts of ourselves. This includes not just the “pretty” and “positive” areas.
He believes all our different aspects serve a purpose and contain hidden gifts. By denying the ones we sometimes try to disown or label as wrong, we remove these gifts and remain at war with ourselves.
“It is great to have aspirations of love and light, but I feel that to bring these qualities to ourselves, we have got to embrace the messiness of being human. In a world of social media highlight reels, filtered images, and putting our best self out there, the idea of stepping into and owning our own darkness goes against the grain and might not sound very appealing or aspirational. Then, going a step further and revealing that potential darkness to others brings a whole other layer of fear.”
Inner self
He recalls reading a personal development book in his early teenage years and learning how to set and achieve goals, be more productive and, ultimately, be “successful”. While this benefited him in some ways, it also unknowingly led him to pursue external goals in a bid to avoid the areas of his inner self he had disowned or rejected in childhood.
“Whenever I bumped up against or came close to the darker parts of myself, I would try to figure out what I needed to achieve in order to find more of my light and quieten my inner critic for a while. Sometimes the goal-setting worked great, though as much as I achieved in life, I ultimately sabotaged myself or acted out in ways that left me feeling like all of my efforts were in vain. At times, my external results looked great on paper, but my internal reality did not reflect this.”
He found it easy to love himself when he was reaching his goals or receiving praise from those around him. However, in the absence of achievement and validation, his loneliness, fear, grief, and shame would surface.
“This led me to work harder in an effort to outrun how I felt about myself or to turn to addictive tendencies to distract myself from my authentic feelings. Rather than being driven by a sense of self-worth and seeing myself as being ‘enough’ just as I was, I was largely driven by wounding, a deep-seated belief that I was inherently flawed. But I felt that if I achieved all the goals I set outside myself, I would eventually come to feel like I was enough and lovable.”
We enter this world with “pure potential”, he says. However, as we get older, we learn about what and whom we need to be to maintain the love and approval of those around us. We develop a persona, a mask that we present to the world, composed of the parts of us, that we have learned, attract praise and approval. Our persona reflects the aspects we are proud of – the light, the qualities regarded as attractive or admirable by society.
“As we develop this mask, persona, or self-image, we also unconsciously develop the ‘shadow’, which stores the areas of ourselves we fear might attract judgement or criticism. If I am celebrated for my work ethic, I perhaps reject my laziness (which upon closer inspection might actually be my need for rest ) and push it into the shadows. If celebrated for my strength, I perhaps place my weakness (which with closer inspection may be the vulnerability that allows me to connect with others ) into shadow. When I am judged, shamed, or ridiculed by others in childhood, to avoid future pain, I will unconsciously repress the emotions, behaviours, or beliefs that caused the pain into the shadow.”
While these may be out of mind, they do not disappear. In fact, they may take on a life of their own, according to Pat Divilly, accumulating energy and often playing out in unhealthy and unhelpful ways in our lives. Hidden from our conscious awareness, our shadow often appears in explosive reactions or out-of-character moments.
At times, we get “stuck” psychologically, he says, and revert to defence strategies or reactions learned in childhood. The purpose of working with the shadow area of our mind is to allow ourselves to outgrow outdated defence strategies and “grow up” psychologically.
Meaningful life
“When we push emotions like fear, anger, grief, and others into shadow, we not only lose touch with these feelings, we severely limit our capacity to experience the fullness of life.” He says this is akin to locking certain rooms in our mind, believing they are too painful to enter but unaware that within each locked room lie gifts that are required to live an authentic and meaningful life.
“Anthony de Mello, a spiritual teacher, once said: ‘What you are aware of, you are in control of. What you are not aware of, is in control of you’. This is how I think of the shadow, much of which is made up of emotions like anger, fear, and sadness that may have previously been deemed bad or wrong. What’s left in the darkness, out of sight, controls us. What is brought out into the light, we take back some control of. In essence, in working with shadow, we can come to transform the parts of ourselves we have shunned into strengths and allies.”
He says our shadow self, when left unchecked, can steer us into patterns of projection, addiction, and self-sabotage. “The nature of the shadow is that it lies outside our conscious level of awareness. It is aloof and looks to hide. As a general rule, when our reactions seem disproportionate to the present situation, it is often a sign that a shadow aspect is at work – something deeper that needs our attention and healing. Noticing our reactions or triggers will be the first step in integrating our shadow so we can show up in the present and not remain stuck in old unconscious patterns or cycles. The patterns, behaviours, and emotions that we perhaps previously saw as obstacles can instead be viewed as being the way to greater levels of self-acceptance and understanding.”
Pat’s own journey to shadow work was motivated by his feelings of inadequacy, insecurity, and being an outsider. Early experiences of being bullied and transferring to a new school when his family moved from Limerick to Galway, led him to feeling he was “in this alone” and “always the new guy on the outside looking in”, he says.
“These beliefs and the insecurities I felt drove a huge amount of my behaviour in my teens and twenties and influenced a lot of my drive to become ‘successful’.” By the time he was in his twenties, he had fulfilled a childhood dream of owning his own gym in addition to winning numerous entrepreneurial awards. However, despite being surrounded by supportive people, he still felt alone and as if he were the “new guy”.
“Unconsciously, my shadow self ran the show and I created experiences in my life that backed up these beliefs,” he says. “As soon as people got too close, I would eject and find a new social circle where I would be the new guy again. Paradoxically, our shadow often leads to us creating the very thing we say we fear or do not want to experience.”
Recognising this pattern helped him become more aware when this old belief pattern was creeping in and keeping him stuck in the past. That awareness allowed him to start creating deeper, more meaningful friendships and relationships.”
Pat Divilly’s book, called “Shadow Work” shows people how to understand the parts of themselves that they often reject and heal past pain. It is published by Gill Books, costs €18.99, and is available from local bookshops.
