Carl Jung, The Shadow and the Key To Your Hidden Potential

The shadow is one of the most well-known pieces of Psychiatrist, Carl Jung's philosophical legacy. This dark, unconscious part of the psyche is both deeply fascinating and incredibly misunderstood, not to mention difficult to make tangible. How do you explore or work on something you aren’t conscious of?
That said, it can be done, and doing so is vitally important for knowing who you truly are, healing, and reaching your potential.
So in this transmission, we’re going to explore the shadow and the philosophy of Carl Jung from a number of angles in an effort to both help shed light on it and to begin to understand how we can actually work with it.

Links :
🥰 Support T.E.D and join the community on Patreon:
Hear our 300-plus other podcasts:
🎧 Apple Podcasts:
🎧 Spotify:
🌀 Website
AI Images via:
Ronald Con 🎨
00:00 Introduction
01:48 What is the shadow?
03:09 Hidden treasures in the shadow
04:47 Why do shadow work if it's painful?
08:38 Recognizing shadow projection and the collective shadow
09:56 How the shadow fits into individuation
11:48 How to actually do shadow work
13:01 Active imagination
14:03 Dreamwork / Dream analysis
15:30 Journaling
17:32 Recognizing projection
18:20 Meditation
19:45 Visionary experiences
20:31 Important final thoughts

[lazmilo]

Reverse engineering projections is highly beneficial and so easy to do once you become more aware. I use this all the time. Key thing to remember is whatever causes an immediate, visceral, emotional reaction, whether positive or negative, is a projection. For example, a few years ago while driving I noticed I'd always get frustrated by a car in front of me taking too long to make a right turn, causing me to slow down excessively. I found myself beeping my horn and yelling, "Let's go already!" Taking a deep breath, I immediately knew this was projection. Was I seriously upset with someone taking too long to go in their desired direction? No, I was upset at my own inability to do the same. I needed to change course in my life. I knew where I wanted to go, I just had to get on with it and "make the turn already!" This projection related to frustration over wasting free time on things that didn't matter instead of writing more. These habits no longer served me yet I would not let them go. I said the truth to myself out loud in the car, and felt the tingle the body gives when reciting a truth that needs to be made conscious.

[MeeCee]

At the core of the shadow is self loathing. That is where all of our negative emotions and behavior comes from. If you can figure out why you feel inferior, incompetent or unworthy, then you can begin to heal yourself. And your healing starts with you validating your own worth. You choose the standards that you evaluate yourself by. You decide when you've done your best. Learning to approve and appreciate yourself is truly the most important and liberating thing you can do.

[MilanLS]

Last year i was battling thoughts constantly, fighting thoughts with thoughts. So much overthinking actually made me lose a lot of my hair. Suddenly i woke up one day, had the realization that it don't matter. I slowly dived deeper into the spiritual and got introduced to the word shadow-work. It's so crazy, theres such a huge difference between the mind and your conscious self, when you adress things from the mind with your conscious words and find a solution, it all comes together. So with the awareness of shadow-work i suddenly got a thought that i wasn't good enough, and really said to myself "What would make me think such thoughts about myself" and as i relaxed and just focused on the question, memories from my childhood popped up, in where i was neglected. Looking at this, and realizing it was so long ago, and made me the person i am, today put it in a whole new light. Told myself it was okay and i am safe now, just completely lifted a heavy burden on my mind and body.
The shadow stems from unadressed trauma.

[BaseJok-vhdp]

I have started doing shadow work 3 1/2 years ago. I was broken from a heavy childhood and at the age of 44 i decided it was time to go to the darkest places in my mind and heart and do whatever it takes to bring them into the light. It was so hard but worth every single moment of the pain, tears and shocks after discovering the truth. Life is so much better now. Life becomes normal once you pass through your personal dark forest.
Also i wanna add to this the fact that if my mother would have done her shadow work, i wouldnt have had to do it now. If her mother would have done it, neither my mother nor I would have to do it. So i am taking responsibility for myself but also for my children and their children. The more i can uncover and heal, the less shadow work will they have to do. If everyone would do this, the coming generations would have a much better life

[nelieaucamp]

I read a lot of the comments. I learnt just as much from the comments as from the video. Thanks to all who take the time to share and guide the rookies with your experience.

[eniv.eerden]

First rule in shadowwork:
don't lie to yourself.

[UnrulySpirituality]

The ultimate end goal of doing shadow work as with any type of spiritual or psychological work is to attain peace of mind and a clean heart. These two things are invaluable tools that allow you to flow through life with a certain natural high. You also gain other spiritual/psychological tools but that is for those who push into it. And for the love of understanding words. Dark doesn't mean evil and light doesn't mean good. Dark/shadow simply means the unknown and light means the known.

[BlairGrotbeck]

I feel like I’ve searched YouTube for almost a year trying to find a good explanation for Shadow work and I finally found it here. Much love and thanks 🙏🏻

[themmydiedrichs]

The problem is people tend to avoid what is negative and to find the real light we need to embrace the shadow as heavy as it may be.

[antoniodrosario]

Shadow work consists of us analyzing our rejected reflections of self. The rejected reflection is seen outwardly through others. When we have difficulty accepting who we are we project it. If we we've done painful things we may project it into others. So we speak beautifully to ourselves to understand it better an vs we strive to find beautiful truths in our memories. Shadow work leads to light work

[holisticbodydesign]

Dream analysis works wonders!!! I have used this in such successful ways! My dream characters assist me. You build relationships with characters, you learn to navigate through them, you begin to learn to speak in your dreams. You even learn to fly, you use mentalist to create objects and landscapes, the characters also use symbolism to explain things to you. Then there are animals that come with different meanings. You can use the symbolism to predict your day too. The mind is as full or fuller than universes

[karlbman]

Something very cool to see is how positive and informative the comments are here.

[immigrationadviser]

E.g. a person spending his life in cowardice can actually be courageous however he needs to dive deep into his psyche via meditation.
Shadow work, ego death, dark night of soul are all related and leads to one thing, cosmic wholeness.

[nothomelessonyoutube]

That Jeffery Dahmer show really helped me. I was personally so terrified of becoming like him one day. Then when I saw that show I realized I could have been an amazing friend to him. Understood and talked to him. At that point I saw more media about parenting your inner child. I kind of realized I was doing that at one of the lowest points of my life. Now when I have kids, a wife, and a farm. I will know exactly how to talk to my children. Just by listening to them and thinking about their words. I will continue to explore the demon. He gives me great things to write about. I found a part of my source. I'm excited to communicate with him in a waking dream one night.

[chaneldiane]

Neglect. Me too. But it made me who I am.I made so many mistakes and missed out on so many opportunities because I felt I just wasn’t good enough, but I told myself I will give myself the best I can that I never had as a child and because I looked so good no one could tell how worthless I felt inside. That I think saved me along the way a little.But I also over gave and had no boundaries because I didn’t want to feel that neglect and lack I felt as a child. Now at 34 I began to heal and am not afraid anymore. Thanks for your comment ! all the best !☀️

[elisabethhallstein]

Your shadow is basically everything wrong you've ever done and your childhood trauma (unconscious beliefs based on how your parents treated you), if you've cheated people, taken advantage of people, wronged people or animals, committed any "sins" all of that lives in your subconscious so you have to make peace with yourself and the bad things you've done and also work in yourself so you don't do those bad things anymore. Be kind to even the people who are unkind to you because they represent your shadow. If you can do that your life will begin to change for the better. Namaste 🙏

[Thilosophocls]

Thanks for your content. One must learn to sit with themselves… with our shadow.. make your shadow your ally. If you don’t give the shadow what it needs, it will indiscriminately take what it wants.

[dsouluniverse]

Thank you for this video! I’m a and you’ve done a great job summarizing the work I do with people. The unconscious mind is such a vast space for learning about ourselves and the world. Great video!

[JakeStewart]

22:22 My shadow work consists mostly of freeing trapped emotions. I just realized I have trapped emotions for an ex from 16 years ago! 🤯 Ive been with my current GF for over 15 years, I never realized I hadn't fully grieved losing the ex. The breakup was do to knocking up the current GF. I was so disappointed cause I loved the ex more back then but my current gf is amazing. I'll never go back!
It's so hard to sit in the old energy of liking and losing my ex. 😢

[Justineyedia]

"Consciousness succumbs all too easily to unconscious influences, and these are often truer and wiser than our conscious thinking. Also, it frequently happens that unconscious motives overrule our conscious decisions, especially in matters of vital importance." — Carl Jung
To me, the dark or the shadow is anything that not in your conscious thinking. You could be a really negative person and have a positive shadow. The golden shadow. Even jung said that not all evil is totally bad for you. How else can one be assertive enough to have healthy boundaries.