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Words from the Wind
Philosophical Fragments by Adam J. Pearson
Shadow Integration: The Complete Shadow Work Process in Four Steps
By Adam J. Pearson
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1. Shadows and Shadow Work Recap
Shadows are those contents of the mind that feel uncomfortable, painful, terrifying, infuriating, anxiety-inducing, or otherwise
disturbing to us. We know them when they arise because they hurt, anger, disturb, or make us feel limited in some way. Most of the
time, shadows are thought-patterns that bring up these disturbing feelings. Shadow work is the process of actively acknowledging,
facing, exploring, working through, reowning, and allowing our shadows to arise, be present, and subside. Shadow work involves a
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willingness to be open to our real experiencenot our experience as we think it should be, but our experience as it isand explore it fully.
The fruits of shadow work carried out over time can be a great sense of freedom from parts of our minds that previously limited us and a
greater sense of overall peace with the state of our lives.
2. Two-Way Attention, Interrogating the Shadow, and Shadow Integration
In a previous article, I described the method of two-way attention, a way of working with a shadow in which you hold your attention
in two directions at once: some attention on the shadow itself, some attention on the awareness in which the shadow is appearing.
In the article that followed, I introduced yet another tool for shadow work: interrogating the shadow. Interrogating the shadow is a
process of asking progressively more precise and detailed questions about a shadow and its various aspects underlying motivations,
repressed reasons, connections to idealized self-images, effects on patterns of feeling/thinking/behaving, roots in particular memories or
experiences, etc.in order to gain insight into it. The interrogation process effectively makes previously unconscious aspects of our
experience conscious through a process of question-based discovery. Part 2 of the Interrogating the Shadow introduced a practical
example of the interrogation process drawn from a real conversation.
This article will focus on how we bring all of these tools and techniques together to comprehensively work through and reown or
integrate a shadow. I call this the shadow integration process: (1) choose shadow, (2) face it with two-way attention, (3) question it,
and (4) own and embody it.
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3. Background: How I got into Shadow Work
Before we get into the nuts and bolts of shadow integration, Id like to say a words about how I got into shadow work because this will
provide a sense of why I think shadow work is important and worthwhile and how I developed the shadow integration process. For most
of my life, I struggled with some difficult shadow patterns that severely limited my life in important ways. Among these were deep
anxiety about being around other people out of fear that they would judge me, fears of drowning, heights, and large animals, and
feelings of insecurity and inadequacy. For years, these shadows arose within me again and again and constellated painful feelings and
depressing thought patterns around themselves. Because I felt anxious, insecure, and afraid, I would often chicken out of social
opportunities and prefer to be alone.
I felt deeply unsatisfied even after I went through a variety of spiritual experiences in which I came to realize the interdependence of all
things in the universe and the ultimate freedom of awareness. These realizations brought great peace and joy, but the shadows remained
in the background. When the light from the enlightenments faded out, the shadows took over once again. The feelings of anxiety, fear,
helplessness and hopelessness hung like storm clouds over my life, even as I did my best to be happy, have fun, and move on.
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Eventually, I began to have the sense that these persistent problems in my inner life had to have solutions. There had to be something I
could do to work through them or some way of seeing them that could allow me to see through them. The dots were there already; it
was only a matter of connecting them.
Photo: Scott Kiloby
In May of 2011, I was added to a Facebook group led by Scott Kiloby, which he called No Holds Barred. The premise of the group
was that it would be a forum with no rules; members would be free to verbally attack and call each other out with as much ferocity as
they wished. It was like psychological Fight Club. No one was safe from the attacks, not even the groups own administrators or Scott
himself.
Throughout my whole life, I had been told to be kind and caring to others. NHB was a shock. This was a therapy that seemed like the
opposite of a therapy, a process of overcoming pain by hurting. In NHB, all of my insecurities were attacked. My worries about looking
too young for my age or being thin, my fears, even personal aspects from my life were used to attack me brutally. At some points, the
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attacks got so deeply personal that I had to leave the group for a few days to work through all of the material that had been stirred up
within me. The attacks pointed to the shadows; where it hurt was where I was stuck.
The funny thing, though, was that I began to feel progressively more immune to the attacks. I thought, what can they possibly attack
me for? Looking too young, feeling insecure, being afraid? But I already know I feel these ways. They are not telling me anything new.
Over time, I even started to laugh at the attacks! This was something totally new for me: laughing at my fear, laughing at my insecurity.
I attacked and was attacked and we had a good time for a while and made some major progress working through shadows through this
aggressive Fight Club approach. Powerful shadows that had held me under their control for years and years lost their pull over me I
accepted and integrated them and found that a new way of living was possible for me, a life liberated from the prison of the shadows I
that had clung to for so long.
In time, however, Scott left the group, the administrators were thrown out and people seized power. Others came into the group without
understanding its philosophical foundation in trying to work through shadows through confrontation. They turned the group into a
place of bullying for bullyings sake, attacking for attackings sake. It ceased to be a productive place and, thus, many of the old
members started to leave. I hung on for a while, but eventually had to leave as well. I left with the firm conviction, however, that the
only way to work through these problems that had hounded me for so long was to boldly face them head on, dive into them, and
reown them. Only this, and not retreating into some spiritual belief system, would take me through the shadows and not just
temporarily away from them.
4. Background: Ken Wilbers 3-2-1 Process
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While I was at NHB, Scott Kiloby introduced me to a way of working with shadows, specifically, shadows associated with particular
people and their particular qualities. Ken Wilber and some of his associates at the Integral Life Institute had developed the 3-2-1 process.
Kelly Sosan Bearer describes the process with great clarity in her article, Practice: The 3-2-1 Process. She writes that the 3-2-1 process
involves the following steps:
1. Choose an experience in your life that you want to work with. Its often easier to begin with a person with whom you have difficulty
(e.g., lover, relative, boss). This person may irritate, disturb, annoy, or upset you. Or maybe you feel attracted to, obsessedwith,
infatuated with, or possessive about this person. In any case, choose someone with whom you have a strong emotional charge,whether
positive or negative.
2. Face It : Now, imagine this person. Describe those qualities that most upset you, or the characteristics that you are most attracted to
using 3rd-person language (he, she, it). Talk about them out loud or write it down in a journal. Take this opportunity to let it out.
Dont try to be skillful or say the right thing. There is no need to sugar-coat your description. The person you are describing will never
see this.
3. Talk to It: Begin an imaginary dialogue with this person. Speak in 2nd person to this person (using you language). Talk directly to
this person as if he or she were actually there in the room with you. Tell them what bothers you about them. Ask them questions such as
Why are you doing this to me? What do you want from me? What are you trying to show me? What do you have to teach
me? Imagine their response to these questions. Speak that imaginary response out loud. Record the conversation in your journal if you
like.
4. Be It: Become this person. Take on the qualities that either annoy or fascinate you. Embody the traits you described in Face It. Use
1st-person language ( I, me, mine). This may feel awkward, and it should. The traits you are taking on are the exact traits that you have
been denying in yourself. Use statements such as I am angry, I am jealous, I am radiant. Fill in the blank with whatever qualities
you are working with: I am__________.
5. To complete the process, notice these disowned qualities in yourself. Experience the part of you that is this very trait. Avoid making the
process abstract or conceptual: just BE it. Now you can re-own this trait in yourself.
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There were some things about this process, which was based on working from the 3rd to the 2nd and finally, the 1st person perspective
(3-2-1), that I really liked. I liked the focus on facing and reowning parts of ourselves. I liked the idea of trying to draw out insights from
the shadows and the emphasis on direct experience.
At the same time, however, I had trouble connecting with the idea of focusing every shadow in a person. Many of my own shadows
were related to the feelings I felt about myself and the ways I thought about myself. Personifying myself and then asking questions like
why are you doing this to me? just didnt feel right for me. The shadows were still there and I didnt feel like I was fully working
through them as best I could. This led me to wonder if I could preserve the really powerful aspects of Ken Wilbers process and yet
modify the rest to include things that worked for me. The methods of two-way attention and interrogating the shadow could be useful
here, I thought. And so, I decided to tie all of this together in a single four-step process. I call this process shadow integration.
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5. The Shadow Integration Process
Shadow integration is like the 3-2-1 process in that it involves work with shadows and reowning and integrating these. What makes it
distinctive is that it applies some different techniques, such as two-way attention, and does not require connecting a given shadow to a
particular person. Ill explain this more clearly as I outline the steps. The shadow integration process works in the following way:
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1. Choose a shadow that you want to work with: I usually go with whichever shadow is coming up most strongly in my mind at
the time, but you can also choose ones you notice recurring in your life. The shadow you choose can be any thought-pattern or feeling-
pattern at all. Thoughts connected to fear, anxiety, feelings of inadequacy and worthlessness, insecurity, clinging, aversion, hatred,
anger, sadness, depression, apathy, and other such strong emotions work particularly well.
2. Face it with the method of two-way attention: Focus and direct your attention to both the shadow and the clear, awake space of
awareness in which it is arising. Really go into the shadow; dont resist it or distance yourself from it. Dive into it. Feel it out. Feel it fully.
Try to taste its unique flavour. Be present with it and aware of it and how it is affecting you.
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3. Interrogate the shadow: Begin the shadow interrogation process. Question the shadow. You can begin by asking simple, basic
questions. As you gain practice, you can move on to more precise, detailed questions about the shadow and its various aspects. For
example, you can ask questions like:
What is this thought/feeling pattern?
How does it really, honestly make me feel? Why does it make me feel that way?
Is it based on any assumptions?
Why do I think this thought-pattern is true?
Why do I hold on to it?
Do I have any underlying motivations here that Im not facing?
Am I repressing anything? Am I denying it or projecting it onto others?
Why do I resist this shadow?
Is it related to an idealized self-image, a way I would like to be or people have told me I should be?
How does this thought-pattern affect how I behave, think, feel?
Does it limit me in some way? What would life be like if I didnt hold on to this thought pattern?
How did I develop this shadow? Did it have any roots in any of my past experiences or things people have told me?
Did I learn this pattern? How?
Ask as many or as few questions as you wish. Approach the questioning organically; let the shadow dictate the questions in a natural
way. Your goal is insight into the shadow. When you are doing the shadow interrogation, it may be helpful to write out your questions
and answers or to communicate them to another person if you are doing group shadow work.
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4. Own it: We tend to deny and project and push our shadows away. But at the end of the shadow work process, what we need to do is
the precise opposite of that, namely, own the shadow. Accept it fully as being the the reality of what you are living now. As Kelly Sosan
Bearer puts it, Embody the traits Use 1st-person language ( I, me, mine). This may feel awkward, and it should. The traits you are
taking on are the exact traits that you have been denying in yourself. Use statements such as I am angry, I am jealous, I am
radiant. Whatever you are repressing; take it on, accept it and embody it. Fill in the blank with whatever qualities you are working
with: I am__________.This is truly the integration stage of the shadow integration process. Here, you resolve the gap that the
resistance created; you see through the apparent duality. As in the 3-2-1 process, avoid making the process too abstract. Keep bringing it
back to your concrete experience, what you are really feeling, really experiencing. Thats what its all about.
6. Shadow Integration Summary and the Value of the Process
This is the shadow integration process in a nutshell:
(1) choose the shadow
(2) face it with two-way attention
(3) interrogate it
(4) own it and embody it.
Visual Summary:
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1. Choose Shadow
2. Face it with two-way attention
3. Question it
4. Own it and Embody it
The beauty and value of this process is its power; it works for any shadow, no matter how weak or powerful, how insignificant or
important. Shadows are cast by our feelings, thoughts and experiences. They shape our experience. When we resist them, deny them,
repress them, and ignore them, we do not escape them; they continue to limit and drive us and make us suffer. Shadow integration is a
way of mending the tears in our mental fabric that these repressions and resistances create. It is a way of recovering our fundamental
wholeness of healing the rifts we feel within us. It is a way of working through inner conflict into the peace beyond it. It is a way of
working through our suffering to a greater sense of joy for our lives. It is, in short, a movement from the painful fragmentation of our
inner lives to the wholeness of real, authentic integration.
2011
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1. Mirena
October 21st, 2011
REPLY QUOTE
Good work adam
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