Shadow
Work
Are you ready to embrace your true potential, with confidence and without excuses, to achieve the peace and the success you truly deserve?
Having spent a couple of decades delving into ‘Mantras, Tantras and Yantras’ to heal my own wounds and rediscover my own gold, I can say with confidence that Shadow Work is one of the best tools we have.
It gets right to the core of what’s getting in the way of us truly thriving.
This is the place we must do our work.
“Until you make the Unconscious Conscious, it will direct your life and you will call it fate”
Carl Jung
A quick summary of the Shadow
The concept of ”the Shadow” was first proposed by the Swiss psychiatrist and psychoanalyst, Carl Jung.
It is the parts of me, the parts of you and the parts of us all that are hidden or denied aspects of our personality. Aspects of us that we have deemed as “unacceptable” and have chosen to stuff down. We edit ourselves in order to fit in and be accepted.
The decision to do this, whether consciously or unconsciously, is often to do with shame and, as you might imagine, these feelings or urges are put “into Shadow” while we are still children.
Often misunderstood is that the traits we put into Shadow can also be positive aspects of our personality and this is where our greatness lives.
An example using one of my own shadows:
It’s my 5th birthday party and I was so excited about the cake and all my friends being there to celebrate me.
In my excitement I hop onto the table and start singing and dancing in front of my friends, kicking cakes everywhere. One of my parents shouts “get down from there and stop showing off”
From that moment on, the excited and expressive part of me is shamed and goes into Shadow. As I grew older, anyone appearing to ‘show off’ would trigger a response in me: “Who do you think you are, you show-off?!”
As the saying goes, if you spot it, you’ve got it.
That shadow unconsciously lurked in the background and stopped me from showing myself. I told myself that I cannot possibly be seen as it was unsafe for me to do that.
When I can understand that about myself and no longer judge myself through the eyes of that part of me that just wanted to protect that little boy, I can allow myself to shine once more.
Knowing that the adult you, still acting out from some of the shame that your inner child experienced, what could be holding you back from your greatness?
It’s time to discover and integrate your shadow.
“One does not become enlightened by imagining figures of light, but by making the darkness conscious”
Carl Jung
What is Shadow Work?
Like the words “Yoga” and “Tantra”, the term “Shadow Work” has become diluted in the past few years – ‘doing shadow work’ is often used to describe anything that looks at the darker aspects of ourselves.
I get it, that’s what happens with words and phrases when they become more mainstream.
And it is amazing that the world feels more ready for this work than when I started out on my Shadow Work path. After all, “imagining figures of light” can only take us so far.
The Shadow Work® I refer to here began its development in the late 1980s through the skill and ingenuity of Cliff Barry in collaboration with others.
As time progressed, they integrated their leading-edge approach with other disciplines such as Gestalt, Voice Dialogue, Accelerated Learning, Grovian Metaphor Work, Bio Energetics, Family Systems Theory and addiction recovery.
It has been further developed in the UK and Europe since the early 1990s by John & Nicola Kurk whom I have had the privalege to study with over the years.
This form of Shadow Work includes a set of facilitated processes that allow individuals to explore and change almost any behavior pattern.
Discover your shadows
Discover some of the shadows that were previously unknown to you or too scary to face
Gain new clarity
See painful lifelong patterns with new clarity and understanding
Receive support
Get the inner support you need to shift those patterns
Find forgiveness
Release resentment towards a loved one or someone else and find forgiveness
Transform your critic
Transform your inner critic and turn it into an inner ally
Gain new confidence
Safely access your inner warrior and gain a new confidence leading to more joy in your life
Who am I?
My name is Gavin. I’m a truth-seeker and an occasional edge-dweller.
I was born in East Yorkshire, England and now live in Skåne in the south of Sweden with my wife and our two children.
My work with Archetypes began in 2012 when I was living in India, studying Jyotiṣ and discovering how they can be used as a gateway through which we can begin to see how our experiences and our wounding can influence our perceptions, thoughts, feelings and actions.
When I returned to England, I participated in a course run by an organisation called the Mankind Project. A part of this training contained something that looks very similar to Shadow Work. I was impressed at how this method and facilitation allowed me to go deep in such a short space of time, discovering parts of my self that were apparently in control of my life, despite my best intentions to the contrary.
Soon after that experience I began my Shadow Work training with John & Nicola Kurk – the amazing couple who brought this work to the UK and Europe in the 1990s.
Years later, I certified as a Shadow Work® Coach and have used the tools I have learned to help people to discover and integrate the parts of themselves they have hidden away, in order to move to a place in their lives where they can be themselves and love themselves – fully.