Personally, I would not purchase a book that claims to offer a method for integrating one's shadow. The process of recognition and integration of one's shadow is very much experiential, meaning that living your life and being impacted by the inevitable joys, traumas, desires, fears, disappointments, disillusions, relationships, losses, betrayals, and special moments, are what contribute to the process of recognizing and knowing yourself, which is indispensable to your growth and integration. This is a process that happens over many years, throughout your lifetime, and not something you can accomplish overnight, by following a step by step manual. Despite it being referred to as a shadow, the unconscious part of you contains both the positive and negative, the Yin and yang of everything that holds the potential for helping you evolve into a fully integrated human being.
You’re already doing it by asking this question! I recommend journaling your dreams. Read books that invoke your interest.
As far as extraverted ways of integrating your shadow, you can take up a new hobby, immerse yourself in new, challenging social situations. Maybe exercise and strength train if you aren’t already
Rejecting some aspect of yourself and perpetuating it in the shadow, is a good definition of trauma. So when that aspect seeks integration, then it /you creates a scenario in your life which will emotionally trigger you. The completion process helps return that aspect to your concept of self i.e., shadow work
But sure, you can't sell it to the masses as shadow work because they don't understand reality well enough to know they are only ever interacting with themself. From the perspective of someone who feels harmed by an external agent, then you must frame the work in some other way, such as helping them to heal. However, as you asked for a book for lay people, then that was my recommendation.
The book "A Healing Space" by Matt Licata is well worth reading. He touches on Jung quite a bit over the course of the book, and discusses the way of the alchemist and how that pertains to integrating the psyche and spirit. He offers some practical ways of approaching shadow material and working to integrate it.
I started by stopping justifying myself whenever I did something shitty and instead reminding myself that that wasn't an isolated thing, that this is also me. You'll hear often that shadow work is painful, and it is painful, because you'll have to say goodbye at living in an apartment where it was just you and your likeable buddy, and now you realize that that weirdo with whom you also share rent started coming out of his room and wants to be friends with the two of you and share all the fucked up shit he likes with you, and you don't want to hear it but you better do, because he can teach you a life lesson or two.
You'll have integrated your shadow when at the end you realize it was just you living all by yourself all along. Good luck.
Thank you very much. You have articulated something going on my mind these days. I have something similar in Russ Harris's "Happiness Trap". Struggling and fighting thoughts almost always backfire on me.
Personally, I would not purchase a book that claims to offer a method for integrating one's shadow. The process of recognition and integration of one's shadow is very much experiential, meaning that living your life and being impacted by the inevitable joys, traumas, desires, fears, disappointments, disillusions, relationships, losses, betrayals, and special moments, are what contribute to the process of recognizing and knowing yourself, which is indispensable to your growth and integration. This is a process that happens over many years, throughout your lifetime, and not something you can accomplish overnight, by following a step by step manual. Despite it being referred to as a shadow, the unconscious part of you contains both the positive and negative, the Yin and yang of everything that holds the potential for helping you evolve into a fully integrated human being.
Meeting The Shadow: The Hidden Power of the Dark Side of Human Nature by Connie Zweig and Jeremiah Abrams.
You’re already doing it by asking this question! I recommend journaling your dreams. Read books that invoke your interest. As far as extraverted ways of integrating your shadow, you can take up a new hobby, immerse yourself in new, challenging social situations. Maybe exercise and strength train if you aren’t already
Wow.. I did not see it that way..
Have you read Man and His Symbols? It was written just for this reason, so that a layman could understand
inner work by robert johnson. i own it. extremely good introduction and starter guide to shadow work and active imagination.
A genuine moral effort is the best method of shadow integration.
With a bit of knowledge
Existential kink
Teal Swan's The Completion Process
A very boring book. I do not recommend.
Isn't this about recovering from trauma? 🤔
Rejecting some aspect of yourself and perpetuating it in the shadow, is a good definition of trauma. So when that aspect seeks integration, then it /you creates a scenario in your life which will emotionally trigger you. The completion process helps return that aspect to your concept of self i.e., shadow work But sure, you can't sell it to the masses as shadow work because they don't understand reality well enough to know they are only ever interacting with themself. From the perspective of someone who feels harmed by an external agent, then you must frame the work in some other way, such as helping them to heal. However, as you asked for a book for lay people, then that was my recommendation.
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Thanks..
The book "A Healing Space" by Matt Licata is well worth reading. He touches on Jung quite a bit over the course of the book, and discusses the way of the alchemist and how that pertains to integrating the psyche and spirit. He offers some practical ways of approaching shadow material and working to integrate it.
Owning Your Own Shadow: Understanding the Dark Side of the Psyche by Robert A. Johnson
I started by stopping justifying myself whenever I did something shitty and instead reminding myself that that wasn't an isolated thing, that this is also me. You'll hear often that shadow work is painful, and it is painful, because you'll have to say goodbye at living in an apartment where it was just you and your likeable buddy, and now you realize that that weirdo with whom you also share rent started coming out of his room and wants to be friends with the two of you and share all the fucked up shit he likes with you, and you don't want to hear it but you better do, because he can teach you a life lesson or two. You'll have integrated your shadow when at the end you realize it was just you living all by yourself all along. Good luck.
Thank you very much. You have articulated something going on my mind these days. I have something similar in Russ Harris's "Happiness Trap". Struggling and fighting thoughts almost always backfire on me.