Certified Jungian Coach • Certified Dreamwork Professional • IASD & ICF Code of Ethics

February 5, 2026

Understanding Shadow Work: A Jungian Perspective

You ever notice how the people who annoy you the most share traits you can’t stand about yourself?

That’s your shadow talking.

Jung called it the shadow—all the stuff about you that you don’t want to admit is there. The anger you swallow. The ambition you pretend you don’t have. The parts of yourself that don’t fit the image you’re trying to project.

Here’s the thing most people miss: the shadow isn’t just your “dark side.” It’s also the good stuff you’ve disowned. Maybe someone told you as a kid that being creative was impractical. Maybe showing vulnerability got you punished. So you shoved those parts underground. They didn’t disappear. They just went to work behind the scenes, running your life without your permission.

Shadow work means turning around and looking at all of it. Not to fix it. Not to make it go away. Just to see it for what it is.

That takes courage. It means sitting with truths about yourself that aren’t comfortable. But here’s what I’ve found, both in my own work and in sessions with clients: when you stop running from the parts of yourself you’ve rejected, you stop being fragmented. You become more of who you actually are.

That’s not self-improvement. That’s wholeness. And there’s a difference.

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