I’ve been hearing these questions since I first became intrigued with Shadow Work in 1988. And after more than 30 years of devoting myself full time to Shadow Work (by founding Shadow Work Seminars Inc. in 1994 and trademarking the term Shadow Work®) I have discovered an overall view of the whole Shadow Work field I’d like to share with you.

If you picture yourself outside in the daylight, and you look around, you’ll see what’s called the Surface World. Anything you can see “in the light” is a part of that Surface World.

But there’s a Shadow World beneath the surface which you can’t see.

Most of humanity’s everyday needs can be met using what’s in the Surface World. There’s air to breathe, water to drink, food to eat and materials for building a shelter.

But for the needs that can’t be met directly from the Surface World, humanity has learned to go beneath the surface by diving under the water or digging into the ground. And that means entering into the Shadow World, where things are in the dark.

We only venture into the Shadow World when we can’t meet our needs from the Surface World. Really, why would we go there if we don’t need to?

So we don’t really need to enter the Shadow World until we can’t meet our needs from the Surface World.

Imagine you are out in nature, walking by the water, and suddenly you are approached by a bear that can outrun you. You are going to want something to defend yourself. Maybe there’s a rock you can throw, or a stick you can swing. Maybe you can outswim the bear for a while. But pepper spray would be great to have in your back pocket, just in case. However pepper spray comes in metal cans and those metals are mined from under the ground. Maybe you could use your cellphone to call for help, but each phone is composed of hundreds of parts, most of which came from deep within the earth.

I believe the same thing to be true inside our minds. In our conscious awareness, we have a Surface World composed of all the things we customarily recognize. We have our everyday thoughts. We have our feelings. We have our dreams and plans. We wake up with some energy for the day.

But as Sigmund Freud once said, “The mind is like an iceberg. It floats with one-seventh of its bulk above the water.” Freud thought that six-sevenths of our minds are beneath the surface, in the shadow. Carl Jung believed in the “Collective Unconscious” by which he meant the same thing.

So when we are chased by negative thoughts and feelings that can outrun us, we are going to want something to defend ourselves. But to find our internal pepper spray we must enter the Shadow World.

Maybe we start by talking to friends or a relationship partner, asking what they see that we might not see about ourselves. We might be in the dark about things inside ourselves that others can see like they are in broad daylight. Or maybe we read a self-help book, or we learn to journal, or we seek out our deeper emotions in poetry, music, theater or art. These are all good ways to start digging. Maybe we find a therapist or join a support group or attend a personal growth weekend. These are all great ways of exploring the Shadow World.

Often, this process starts out looking like we are digging a hole in search of what’s wrong with us. But at some point we also discover some new resources down there. We might find a gem or two. We might even strike gold. And just realizing that we have good things buried in the dark can give us great motivation and more energy to deal with our troubles on the surface.

Human History

Let’s look at a little history about where humanity has gotten its energy for powering more and more advanced civilizations. We started on the Surface World. We found food and water on the surface. We ate the plants, fruits and nuts that grew above the ground. We hunted the animals around us. We burned the wood for heat and cooking. And so the power for our first primitive civilizations came from our bodies. We used manual labor to power our early civilizations.

But eventually we found copper, tin and iron for better tools. Later, we discovered coal. Then we learned how to make steel and aluminum. Then we discovered oil and gas. We even found Uranium for nuclear power. Now humanity has the power to reach the moon.

Most of the high-powered sources of energy are highly toxic unless they are handled safely. They need to be processed in refineries. They need to be broken down into their useful elements or they do great damage.

Our Shadow Side

And the same is true of the high-powered Shadows inside each of us. We have kept them buried underground because they can do harm. Our anger can spill out as violence. Our fear can make us paranoid. Our grief can cripple us.

So we need safe places to process our shadows. And digging deep is a high-risk-high-reward situation. The diving equipment didn’t exist for Sigmund Freud to go diving down beneath the surface of the ocean to explore the iceberg. But if he could have gone down there, he would have soon reported that he was swimming with sharks.

We all have our internal sharks down there. And we have internal deposits of oil buried in our depths. We have our gems and we have our toxins. We can find gold or we can gush oil. You can’t be sure until you start digging.

So I believe it’s wise to seek some help if you’re going to dig deep. This isn’t a problem if you are just turning over the soil in your mind’s garden to unearth better microorganisms from the next layer down. It’s not a problem if you are just digging a new well for water. But the deeper you go, the more pressure things are under. So if the more superficial digging doesn’t work, you should be more careful about digging up things you might not be prepared to handle.

Ask Experienced Miners

Yes, you can find immense energy down there in the Shadow World. Enough energy to power your dreams. I’ve been facilitating that kind of work for three decades and I’ve seen it.

But you might want to benefit first from the experience of those who can predict what might be down there. Oil companies have become quite proficient in determining the depth, size and pressure of an oil deposit. So if you want to mine your deeper shadows, pick a shadow worker who has some way of determining what might be down there in your shadows ahead of time. Shadow workers can use a personality survey, or conduct an interview before the work begins. They can estimate from your description of your problem how deep the shadow might be. They won’t always be right, but they should at least know the worst things that can go wrong.

In the last five years, the concept of shadow and shadow work have become very popular. And there are now hundreds of coaches offering miraculous results from exploring your shadow. But if you’re going to go deep, pick a shadow worker who can demonstrate some knowledge about what to do with your shadows once they surface. Experienced shadow workers will be able to describe how they can help you. They can know how to safely process your crude shadows into useful energy. They should not force you to go deeper than you choose. They could care about the balance of your internal ecology. They should not sell you shadow work as the one solution to every problem just because it’s new.

Our civilization has gotten itself into trouble from using fossil fuels too much and too fast. And the same can be said about the deepest shadows inside us.

Balance

After being a kind of Shadow Work guru for the last 30 years, I have often seen the processing of my deepest shadows as THE way to fix all my problems. But I have come to realize that I’m not going to fix all my problems, nor heal all my shadows. Sometimes it’s important to focus back on the Surface World, where the sun is shining and the wind is blowing. Sunlight and wind are both renewable resources of energy. Just basking in the positive support of a friend or partner can help me grow in a steady way. Rather than fighting the winds of change, I can learn to simply ride them to new heights of awareness.

I have come to realize that it’s important to become a more balanced, well-rounded human being, even if I can’t wipe the slate clean of every shadow. I need to learn to simply accept some of my shadows as they are, and look to the folks who love me to help me out when I need help. I don’t need to get more and more energy forever. I just need enough to live together with everybody else.

And when I’m happier accepting my own shadows, I find I’m happier living in this world with everybody else’s.

©2024 Shadow Work Licensing, LLC

July 2019, by Cliff Barry

The word “Co-Development” is not in the dictionary.  But we like that because the word has no baggage.  We can define it for ourselves.  

CoDevelopment is a word we’re adding to our Shadow Work jargon because it describes something special about our work.  CoDevelopment is actually like the glue that holds Shadow Work together.  It helps to produce the safety people experience at a Shadow Work event because it contributes to the mom-and-pop balance of energies we present.  CoDevelopment is at the core of our practice.

CoDevelopment contains a unique way of collaborating with a partner or co-facilitator.  It requires us to dig into our own shadows and process them.  In so doing, it co-creates a solution that’s been forged in the fire of our interchange.  The magic is actually in the way we polarize, process and then co-produce a unique result.  Rather than a simple compromise, CoDevelopment creates a third alternative that’s more loving and more powerful than either of our opposing viewpoints.  It generates a safer field. 

“Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and right-doing there is a field. I’ll meet you there.”  -Rumi 

If you watch old couples talking, they often seem to be fighting about things — but if you look more closely, they might not be actually fighting, they might just be expressing strong opposing opinions.  Differentiation is an important part of evolution.  But in humans, it’s even more intentional.  We don’t just polarize in the way our bodies adapt, but in the way, we think and feel and present ourselves.  And we also present our polarizations to each other.  And, hopefully, we do this in a way that doesn’t end the entire co-development process.  If someone says, “You’re just wrong, this is the way it is”, then co-development is OVER right there. 

THE PROCESS: 

CoDevelopment is really a whole process.  It can be described by the three “P’s”: 

1. Polarize
2. Process
3. Produce

Let’s suppose Cliff and Vicki are talking on the phone with a man who’s a potential coaching client, and he says,  

“In my work, I want to go really, really deep.  But I also want to keep things really positive.  I’m not into that negative, small-minded kind of thinking that some people get into when they are crying about how wounded they got. Let’s just keep everything on the  sunny side, ok?”

This is what we call an Inflated Sovereign Wound.   

But suppose Cliff and Vicki have polarized reactions to this man and to his statement.  They often do.  Speaking about it after the call, Cliff might say, “Wow, he just wants to bypass the deep stuff by calling it ‘negative.’  That won’t work.  We have to confront him on this.”  

But Vicki might say, “I think he’s just been rejected a lot.  Couldn’t we just hold him in his wound and see if it all works out during the session?” 

1. POLARIZE

Cliff and Vicki start going back and forth, even arguing about whether to confront him or just hold him patiently.  

2. PROCESS

Both Cliff and Vicki are uncomfortable with their conflicting perspectives, so they decide to sleep on it. That night, they each see a shadow in themselves that tainted their vision of this man.   

• Cliff sees himself in this guy, and he doesn’t like this tendency in himself.  So he reacted in a more confrontational way.  So Cliff did a piece of anger work until he reached a little breakthrough.  Having processed his anger through, he could now tolerate the man’s inflation more easily and could sense the opportunity for a different approach. 
• Vicki saw her younger brother in this man, and growing up she always just supported her brother.  So she reacted to this man in a more accepting way.  So she did some work around supporting her brother and remembered her brother didn’t always appreciate the help.  So she became more willing to challenge this man.   

3. PRODUCE

Then Cliff and Vicki come together, each with a deeper awareness about themselves and about the client.  From this place, they see a new way to work with him which incorporates their deeper perspectives. In the end, they tell him,  

“We can see a way for you to go even deeper than you are currently imagining.  We can take you deeper than deep.  But this will challenge you to take some even deeper risks than you have taken before. Are you up for that?”  

He rises to the challenge and says yes.  So they work with him until he comes up against his deeper wounds.  Then he says,  

“Boy this is getting really negative!”  

But then Cliff and Vicki can say,  

“Well that’s one of the bigger risks we challenged you to take.”   

This puts the man in a position to face some negative things while being supported to go even deeper than before.  This approach has incorporated both sides of Cliff and Vicki’s polarization, and yet it’s a new field, a fresh approach. 

And this is CoDevelopment in action. The key is to “do your own work first.”  It’s to dig into your own shadows and find a way through them.  When you do, you see better because you are coming from a deeper place.  You aren’t just compromising in a rational way.  You are CoDeveloping by working with your own emotions as well.   

Shadow Work contains many tools that can help you process your reactions more quickly and easily when you are CoDeveloping with a partner.  

WHY IT’S IMPORTANT: 

We believe that when people process something emotionally they then see it differently.  Human beings are not “thinking beings that happen to feel”, but rather they are “FEELING beings that happen to THINK.”  So to get a really deeper result, you need to process your emotions as well as your thoughts.  

You see this very clearly on Shadow Work carpets, where people go through processes.  When they get down to their emotions, and their emotions change, they start seeing themselves very differently.  They will often see the dynamics that have been plaguing them in a new, more positive light.   

CoDevelopment gives you another way to look at how you collaborate.  You probably know how to polarize.  That comes naturally.  But how do you process your own reactions when you are at odds with a partner?  How vulnerable can you let yourself be?  How far are you willing to go to process your own stuff in order to reach a better solution?   

You probably CoDevelop better on some issues than others. When you are having difficulty, you might say,  

 “I know I’m right.” “I’ve got this.” “I’ll take it from here.” 

Or,  

  “I don’t care, let’s just do it your way.” 

While these might be solutions in some cases, they are not CoDevelopment.  They lack the emotional processing to find a deeper solution.   

Shadow Work has been designed around the practice of CoDevelopment in a number of ways:   

• We insist on having two facilitators for every process because the best facilitation is CoDeveloped between two people who have been doing their own work relative to the facilitation in which they are partnering. 
• We insist on having two trainers at every Shadow Work Facilitator Training or Coaching Training.   
• The Shadow Work model itself has been forged through the process of CoDevelopment between Cliff and Vicki.  Before he found Vicki, Cliff Codeveloped the Shadow Work model with his previous partners.  CoDevelopment was built into Shadow Work from the beginning.   
• The Shadow Work model itself highlights the importance of seeing the paradoxes that exist in every process.  In this case, it’s not two people Co-Developing, but two paradoxical approaches that need to be ironed out within the brain of each facilitator.   
  • Should I offer some theory now, or plunge the participant into something more experiential?  
  • Should I follow the participant’s urge to be independent now, or bring in the need for connection?   
  • Should I support the participant’s quest in life, or highlight the need for security?   
• The Shadow Work model talks about each facilitator viewing the situation with both eyes because that provides the best depth perception. 
• Certified Shadow Work Facilitators are required to come together to “do their own work” every two years to stay certified.  This means we must all learn to grow by CoDeveloping with our shadows. 

If you learn to facilitate Shadow Work, you will need to learn CoDevelopment, also.  If you are leading any kind of organization, it becomes important to CoDevelop with someone else when dealing with the people in the organization.  CoDevelopment becomes like the glue that helps to hold the organization together.   

CoDevelopment is actually a generic version of good parenting.  And since parenting is a universal imprint on all people, CoDevelopment becomes a universally important strategy for helping people in the family dynamics which organizations contain.   

Until now, we didn’t have our own word for this cornerstone of Shadow Work, but now we do.   

There’s a great tool for learning to CoDevelop in the way you speak.  It’s called Clean Talk, and you can begin learning about it right on the Shadow Work webpage.  There’s a Map of Clean Talk, and audio recordings to explain.    https://shadowwork.com/clean-talk/

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February 2019, by Karin Green

WE ALL HAVE ONE!

We all have one, a voice that expresses criticism or frustration, disapprove of our actions. It might sound like “what’s wrong with you”, “why can’t you get it together”, “that was stupid”, “they will find out you don’t know enough”.

At best these negative thoughts are just present like background noise, and at worst they might paralyze you, prevent you from a successful career, a healthy relationship and may even lead to depression.

The good news is: you have the power to change these negative thoughts. You were not born with these negative thoughts. Below are some ways to begin to disrupt them so that you can start building new, more positive messages.

STEP 1: BECOME AWARE.

No matter how strong this voice seems, the act of noticing the voice begins the shift away from their impact on you. You cannot change what you are not aware of.

One way to become aware is to just sit with your thoughts and watch them. Imagine the thoughts being like water in a river, just flowing by you. The goal here is to notice, not to catch the thought.

In this step, just focus your awareness on the facts and messages of the voice. Don’t let your mind wander into the analysis of “why” you have this voice right now, and don’t allow yourself to argue with the voice. For now, just notice that you have a voice.

STEP 2: WHOSE VOICE IS THAT? [Read more…]