Working With Our Shadow
by Dr. Jody Prinzivalli

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Dr. Prinzivalli seeks to clear up some of the misunderstandings
in dealing with our Shadows

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“The fast track to consciousness is to see every judgment as a disowned part of the self and explore it until there is an honoring of how that quality comes to serve.”

In other words, judgment is our friend. Our judgments of others are the very things that we abhor within ourselves, and they point to where the self-hatred and inner critic poison our psyche. Many of the great mystical traditions teach that everything is energy, and energy in itself is not good or bad. But the use of an energy in a negative way is usually a protective attempt of a very vulnerable side of ourselves to keep us safe.

This is where the spiritual path can sometimes cause difficulties. As long as there is a split between good and bad, right and wrong, there is a need to “cut out” the “bad” parts. The ultimate result of this can only be suppression and further pain. We end up ignoring the undercurrents of our vulnerabilities and the resulting power side of ourselves that is created. There is no possible way that the psyche can “eliminate” a “bad” thought (or action or behavior). The psyche can only redirect it to a more useful service. Until it is given a new job description, the bad thought’s only choice is to go underground and hide , or to come out in very destructive ways that are not within our conscious control. This is the source of our deepest pain and suffering. We tend to project our unconscious onto the outside or onto our relationships, since we cannot bear the idea that this could be something that exists in ourselves, and the cosmic judo of the unconscious finds creative ways to express the energy that is not “allowed” by the conscious mind.

The best alternative I know is to do our own shadow work. There exist many misunderstandings about shadow work, and I would like to speak about a few of those.

The first is the misunderstanding that a healer or spiritual teacher or therapist can “take away” the unconscious dynamic, without any work or consciousness on our side. It is true that a pattern can be temporarily moved, suppressed or changed, but other than a few rare exceptions, long term transformation usually can only come when we are aware of what we are doing and how we can be different.

A second misunderstanding is that a spiritual practice can bypass the need for shadow work. Unfortunately neither of these are true, and in fact, if we do not work on bringing the unconscious to the conscious mind, then the path of enlightenment will only add more charge to the shadow.

When we open to the higher transpersonal energies without having explored our power side, the potential for difficulties is great. With every step into awakening, we need to go to the other side and explore the shadow power aspect that would use even this to its own advantage. Without having embraced both, without being able to contain both the dark and the light of our own inner landscape, we will end up using even spiritual or personal growth to feed our shadow side.

The alternative is to truly understand how to live in this world where the darkness and the light live so close together. God made everything, both the darkness and the light. The energetic awareness of how this all works can be life-changing. And this is not to say that we should become or act out on our shadow side. In fact, we end up acting out our shadow side when we have not explored it, and entered into it, and worked with it in its raw state. As spiritual beings, we have a tendency to want to purify something away before we truly know what it is, and this can never be a long term solution. But the nature of the unconscious is that it is unconscious — if we knew what was there we would work with it. But since by its inherent nature we cannot be conscious of the unconscious, our judgments are the doorway to our shadow, and therefore are a gift of the Divine. Equally so are our dreams, our daydreams, our fantasies, and our suffering. All of these point to the unconscious aspects of ourselves that are calling to be understood and given a space from the perspective of an aware witness, not necessarily to be acted upon.

Therefore, if you want to find the fast track to well being and consciousness, explore your judgments and find the hidden value of their meaning within your own life. Every quality has a purpose. Every energy has a reason for being, even if it has been highly distorted from its original intent. It came to us for a reason and served us in some way even if now it is old and outdated, and not needed any more. Somewhere along the way it served us, and we must honor this.

This is one of the ways that practical mysticism differs from some of the other piritual teachings, where the body is seen as evil and something to be escaped, or the personality is seen as something to be overcome. We will always need both for as long as we are alive in this world, and mastering the energetics of our inner life is a means of finding happiness regardless of what is happening around us. Pretending that we are not in judgment is, in fact, a shadow in itself. Judgment is a reality to the truth of life on this earth. We need it in order to survive. It is just that often it goes too far. True awareness, true consciousness, true enlightenment, the quality of true Divine love is not necessarily about being nice all the time. It is not about appearing peaceful, but rather it is about being truthful — truthful with ourselves about exactly where we are, and truthful with others. When I am at my most vulnerable, when I am at my deepest truth within my shadow self is, ironically, when I am closest to God. Truth creates proximity to the Divine, even when it is something that we despise or something we believe we should not be feeling by now, after all the work we have done. Judgments continue forever and they are the heartbeat of consciousness and the doorway to truth.

In this regard, every judgment becomes an opportunity to become more aware in our relationship with ourselves, our loved ones, and ultimately to the Divine.

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Dr. Jodi Shams Prinzivalli is the founder and director of the Center for Healing and Energetic Psychology and is a naturopathic physician, a clinical psychologist, a Certified Hypnotherapist, and a Certified Addictions Counselor with over twenty years of clinical experience. She is a graduate of the Society of Souls, a 4-year Kabbalistic Healing school, and has studied with Shakti Gawain, Deepak Chopra and Drs. Hal and Sidra Stone, originators of the Voice Dialogue Process. In addition, she has been trained extensively in the Sufi tradition, both in Jerusalem and the United States, and is dedicated to helping individuals and professionals develop a conscious and fulfilling lifestyle.

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