What is your shadow?

Let's talk about your dark side. We all have one — or two, or five hundred. You do; I do. And "shadow" is a word showing up in the limelight these days, for a really good reason.

Each of us carries some understanding of who we are — an interpretation, a story. And then there are parts of us not included in that story: parts we'd rather not see, parts we don't want to admit we have, parts that feel somehow dangerous to express. Those are our shadows. Think of it as a zone in you that you're okay shining light on — you can see it, it's allowed — and then the zone that stays in the dark.

How a shadow shows up

Shadows don't stay put. They come through our behavior, in those moments of "I don't understand why I just did that" or "I can't believe how triggered I got by that very small thing." And — this one surprises people — they come through adoration too. When you're so in love with someone that they're the greatest, the most beautiful, the most anything, and up onto the pedestal they go: that is also an indication of a shadow at play.

And shadow isn't wrong. It simply means there's something at the periphery of your awareness that you haven't yet included into who you are.

If your journey is to become all that you are, reclaiming your shadows is non-negotiable.

The summer I met my inner Jafar

One summer I did a lot of shadow healing — a lot of energy clearing, a lot of reviewing who I am and what I'm here to do — and one of the themes I worked on was my leadership. Leadership has been a big theme in my life, and I have not been upright and clear with my own. I prefer to stand in the background: assistant captain rather than captain, the one who advises. Which fits my personality very well — if it's truly who I am. But because leadership was sitting in my shadows, not integrated into all that I was, it was running in ways that weren't helpful. In leadership and co-leadership roles, I'd start acting a little bit like Jafar in Aladdin. A touch of evil-vizier energy. Not because I'm an evil vizier — but because the energy of my leadership was hiding in the dark, and hidden energy gets distorted. It stops acting in the straightforward way it could.

When I saw my Jafar-like qualities, I felt the hotness of shame — oh my god, not a nice thing to see. And also, because I really do love shadow work, a sort of savage pleasure: I could finally see this code, this energy, this program that had been wreaking havoc in my life and my leadership. Taking it out, putting light on it, bringing love to it, let me notice what these qualities really are. A Jafar, in my understanding, has genuinely strategic thinking. Real intelligence. Real capability. In the shadows, that's where he gets into trouble — but on the light side, these are beautiful qualities, truly. I'm glad to be integrating them into my leadership.

How to work with a shadow

The work takes a lot of curiosity and care — and a really level head. By their very nature, shadows can scare us: they're not part of who we think ourselves to be, so we resist them, we work hard to keep them in the dark. It is not comfortable work. The single most useful move is to replace judgment with curiosity.

And see everything as energy. Energy can operate in a distorted, shadowy way — where it will probably wreak havoc on your life, in ways you do not understand and do not like. Or the energy can straighten out and become part of who you are. Same energy, same qualities; the only question is whether it's still hiding.

Where shadows hide most

Nowhere do shadows hide more than in the places and the things we want most. Money. Love. Health. Those are probably the areas where we have the most shadows — and where taking them out of the shadowy places, seeing them, and integrating them into all that we are pays back most directly.

So if your path is to become all that you are, this is part of the game. Not a punishment — a reclaiming. The parts in the dark are still yours.