The concept of a personality shadow has been known in the personal development and psychology space for a long time, it seems. And it is arising for me through some manifestation and spiritual work that I’m doing at the moment.
Some of the spiritual work that I’m doing with Ricci-Jane Adams from the Institute of Intuitive Intelligence talks about ego and shadow. Ego, in Ricci’s definition is the part of our self that believes in the physical reality, and that we are separate and singular.
The shadow is the rejected part of ourselves.
In Lacy Phillips’ manifestation work, much of clearing out blocks is actually working out what aspects of ourselves we’ve rejected into our shadow, and then accepting them back into ourselves.
Lacy says that our shadow is in our ego, and inside the shadow resides the victim. Victims are created from shame. We have given our power away. The abandoned aspects of ourselves that we have rejected to our shadow have lost their power inside of us, creating the subconscious victim. Then we are controlled through our insecurities.
Shame tends to be the main culprit for denying all sorts of qualities that we so beautifully owned and accepted when we were born. So our shadow, when combined with our ego, is our authentic self – but in fact we are greater than the whole of those two parts.
If shadow is part of our ego, and ego is only part of ourselves, then we need to work to accept it all.
Find your shadow, and the aspects of your shadow, and introduce love to your shadow. It’s the rejected part of yourself, so you need to accept it.
Anytime that your shadow is triggered, close your eyes and give it what it most needs. It may need connection, love, acceptance, affection, to be seen, to be heard, or to simply be acknowledged.
This is part of learning unconditional self love.