THE GOLDEN SHADOW
19 APRIL 2022 (11 MIN READ)
Often, in the spiritual/philosophical Jung-informed community, focus is placed on shadow work as a vehicle for intense personal progression. In terms of what shadow work actually consists of, consider a definition I created in a previous article: Shadow work is the process of becoming aware of the unconscious mechanisms that negatively influence your behavior, as well as integrating that newfound knowledge into your psyche, becoming one with your darkness in the process. Although shadow work is important, one aspect of the shadow is frequently forgotten: the golden shadow. We often think of the shadow as our repressed darkness, but what if there was repressed light? What if our perception of self is so self-deprecating that we have a hard time noticing the good qualities inside of ourselves? Unfortunately, this is a lot of us in today’s day and age. If I were to define the golden shadow, I would say it is the gifts we possess that we reject in ourselves or project onto other people in the form of idolizing.
In terms of how I learned about the golden shadow, it started with me noticing how I was constantly fixating on my darkness versus light. Although shadow work focused on darkness definitely has its place, for people who are prone to being hard on themselves, it can be used as a mechanism to justify one’s self-hatred—constantly judging the imperfect sides of oneself. To snap me out of this, all it took was a mentor of mine asking me, “How often do you notice your gifts? The beauty you have to offer.” I looked down and embarrassingly replied, “Never.” In essence, I had become addicted to focusing on my darkness, which definitely has its place, but it has to be balanced with a focus on light to make a difference. I used to believe that this light could be an activity that elicits joy or laughter; however, I am now realizing that it must go deeper than that, specifically through focusing on your good qualities just as much as your bad ones. The end goal is to have an even balance of focus on shadow sides of yourself and light sides of yourself. Too much focus on darkness will make you depressed, while an abundant focus on “light” will turn you into a narcissist.
This article will unpack how to understand the traumatic creation of one’s golden shadow, if you even have a golden shadow at this moment in time, figuring out how to explore the golden shadow within oneself, and integrating that knowledge into your everyday life to create a fundamental change in your state of being.
THE BREEDING OF THE GOLDEN SHADOW
In short, whatever we did not have the space to feel as a kid, in terms of our light or our gifts, will lead to us not allowing ourselves to feel those things as an adult. Put differently, it’s difficult to hold space for the things that were locked behind doors as children. For instance, if your parents put you in the box of being a caretaker for your siblings, or for your parents, then chances are you could not hold space for the potential of you being worthy of love, since all you were doing was giving and not really receiving. In terms of how this would feed into the adult version of this type of person, they would be stuck in this painful need to constantly “fix” or “help” others to feel worthy, since nobody could love them for just being them as a kid.
Another common example of wounding that leads to a golden shadow is being the recipient of bullying as a kid, either from family or classmates. People who are bullied, especially those who have sensitive souls, often put themselves into the boxes that bullies create for them. Whether it be your parents telling you that you are constantly a failure or classmates repeatedly calling you fat, you eventually learn to call yourself those things. And the language you grow up with internally becomes the language you learn to live with, which ends up feeding your identity, or the way you view yourself. Thus, this insecure identity finds it hard to focus on anything positive since all it has known is to feed off the negative.
I could come up with various examples, but, in essence, the typical life experience that breeds a golden shadow is one where someone did not feel loved for who they were, but rather for only one specific part of themselves, or received serious forms of hatred throughout their childhood over something that could not be controlled. This experience of life then resulted in them either being entrenched into only thinking they could be loved by doing one thing, or not loved over anything, leading to an excessive focus on what they could be doing to receive love, rather than just being who they are and trusting that it would be enough to be worthy of love.
In terms of your own life, think about your childhood and the experiences you may have had that led to the creation of a golden shadow. The answers will be useful for the next couple of sections.
NARCISSISM
An excessive focus on one’s “gifts” or “positive” traits, can lead to narcissism. What I mean by this is if you constantly focus on traits such as your beauty or superior intellect, you start to separate yourself from the oneness of society, into thinking you are the one. However, those who always have to focus on these sorts of traits are just unconsciously attempting to defeat their self-hatred. I can only say this confidently because I was once this person. I hated myself so deeply that the way I looked and the ability I had to seduce women allowed me to unconsciously escape this self-hatred. But in the process, I became an egoistic monster, needing to feed the beast of the “I” to not deal with what was really going on inside. By the “beast of the ‘I,’” what I mean is the stories we mentally create surrounding our subjective experience of the present moment, specifically the ones that allow us to escape the emotions occurring in our bodies. For example, chasing girls and thinking of ways to win them over was just a way for me to create egoistic stories in my mind that allowed me to not feel the abandonment wound I had been repressing for so long. In terms of my past, as a child, I had to constantly chase my mother and do things to get her attention, which made me feel unworthy of love. The games I was playing romantically as an adult were just a way for me to create the same feelings, but not really allow myself to feel them since the stories I created in my mind unconsciously “justified” the feeling. And because I was so convinced I was this beautiful hotshot, I did not entertain any thoughts rooted in shadow that deviated from that narrative, such as realizing I was still a hurt little boy. What I didn’t realize was that those thoughts were reflective of a wounded part of me that needed love and attention.
In summary, if you are at a stage where your defense mechanism from feeling pain is to shift attention to your so-called “gifts” or “persona,” then you may not be dealing with a golden shadow at this point in time. You are at a point in life where deep shadow work is required to move forward and bypass the narcissistic tendency. If you are curious about how to do this, then check out a previous article of mine called, “Shadow What?” Once you start to realize the pain driving your actions and work through them, then the golden shadow work will be appropriate, where you will realize the true gift you have been running away from for so long.
GOLDEN SHADOW EXPLORATION
There are two key mechanisms I use to explore my golden shadow: using the mirror of idolatry and finding the gifts within my shadows. In terms of the former, just like you can use a trigger caused by something external to search for the source of your pain, you can also use a positive trigger caused by an externality to find the internal source of it. This sounds confusing, so let me break it down. If you are idolizing someone, then you feel enamored by looking at them, but the feeling is not actually stemming from them, it’s the unconscious recognition that you have part of them in you. Going deeper, it’s usually a part of yourself that you cannot hold space for—that you do not feel comfortable enough to show the world—so you repress the conscious knowledge that you have this gift and project it onto someone else. The only thing that separates you from the person you are idolizing is their ownership of the gift you both share. In other words, they can hold space for their light. So, use the trigger of idolatry to understand what gift inside yourself you are hiding. Personally, I used to catch myself idolizing charismatic men in TV shows and movies, specifically those who effortlessly enamored women with quick wit and charm. The idolizing only stopped once I realized I had the same “gifts” inside me, which were essentially just confidence and humor. In the current moment, I tend to idolize men who are deeply embodied and anchored into the present moment; thus, I now use this mirror to understand that I must accept that I have those traits inside me.
However, the journey does not stop with acceptance. You must put in the work. It’s not as simple as me saying I’m a present, embodied man and calling it a day. Yes, I have to first recognize I have the potential to become that, but if I am ultimately not that in this moment, I have to do what it takes to get there. And what this process entails is uncovering the ego to arrive at your true nature.
For the second key, locating the gifts within the shadow, awareness is monumental. And for the awareness here, it ultimately comes down to shadow work. In other words, how aware are you of your dark side? Even though you are working through the golden shadow at this moment, within every shadow lies your biggest gift. So, your shadows show you where your light lies. In my own shadow investigation, I discovered my gift of being able to help people heal their suffering. This discovery stemmed from coming to terms with my childhood trauma, my drug addiction, my suicidal ideation, and finding the intertwining light woven throughout all those painful periods. And my understanding of it now is that those periods served as moments of initiation to prepare me for my life mission of assisting in the cessation of collective suffering. I would not be able to help others if I had not deeply helped myself first, especially from the depths of pain I picked myself up from. Just like me, your own dark moments in life and the shadow identity fueled by them are reflective of your deepest gifts. You just have to sift through a whole bunch of shit to find the gem. Those of us who are so hard on ourselves and ashamed of certain aspects of our identity just need to find the light within that pain. This is what golden shadow work constitutes.
INTEGRATING THE GOLDEN SHADOW
As a society, we love the answers, but we rarely put in the work it takes to make use of them. The process of making use of knowledge is called integration. It’s one thing to become aware of a trauma that has been unconsciously running the show, but it’s a whole other beast to release the pain that came with that trauma and letting go of its control over you. The first step in the previous sentence is the awareness, which is always the first step, but the second step is where the real work lies, in the integration period. In terms of integrating the golden shadow, take the awareness pieces you picked up on in the last section, and put them on a piece of paper. This could look like writing down, “I cannot hold space for my ability to speak in public.” The next step, which is the integration, is to feel the pain that created that mental story. In other words, what hurt you so bad that you cannot speak in public? The integration period serves as an invitation to feel the pain we have been repressing for so long. And in that feeling is where we eventually become liberated of the pain that has been controlling us.
On another note, whenever you find yourself being hard on yourself about said gift you have been repressing, remind yourself that you have that light within you. The thoughts that are coming up that are telling you otherwise are only reflecting how much more pain you need to release from your body. I cannot tell you how long each integration period takes, but what I can tell you is that the more you allow yourself to feel the repressed pain, without escaping to the mind or judging it, the faster it will move through your body and lead to freedom.
