Shadowing Practice: What Is SHADOW WORK? Carl Jung | Psychology - Learn English Speaking with Video
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What is shadow work?
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It is probably the most controversial theme discussed in the psychological circles and all of those deeper into their spiritual work.
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It is needless to say shadow work can get confusing and that the term shadow work doesn't bring much clarity.
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Today I will tell you what shadow work is.
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Due to the term shadow work, one can easily think it holds all kinds of dark and sinister things.
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Many of us think it involves dark spiritual practices or maybe a process that involves native and malevolent aspects of the personality.
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But this isn't the case.
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So what exactly is shadow work?
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We are born whole, but our wholeness is short-lived because we are also relationally dependent as children.
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It is natural as babies to need others for support.
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We are born with this dependency into a family that will socialize us into a society.
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A society that is too young to understand we are at the early stages of development
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and haven't reached much past the ego.
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You can imagine this will cause some trouble.
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They will teach us that some aspects of ourselves are loved and accepted, while others are not.
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What is acceptable or not acceptable about us really depends on the perspective and mindset of the family we are born into.
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Our family will judge and reject all of the aspects of us, they find unacceptable whether they are positive or negative,
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and will encourage those they find acceptable.
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And with being relationally dependent, in order to survive, we will do whatever we can to deny and disown those aspects in ourselves that we're disapproved of,
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while we will be exaggerating those that we're met with approval.
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So in order to survive, we tend to dissociate from the parts of us that we're disapproved of.
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This will create a fracture within a psyche and it is the first coping mechanism we will develop.
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This fracture is what we today call conscious and the subconscious mind
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and is the first self-preservation coping strategy we develop in childhood.
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Famous revolutionary psychologist Carl Jung, during his studies with Freud,
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noticed that people had conscious and unconscious aspects of themselves and that there were certain things a person can be aware of,
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and then other aspects about themselves they would be completely oblivious to.
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Being aware or being conscious of something really means to shed light on that aspect.
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Consciousness historically has been referred to as the light.
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So to be able to see something means that this something was illuminated in the light of consciousness.
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If something is unconscious, we cannot see it, therefore we are unaware of it.
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If something is left in a dark room, we cannot see it due to darkness surrounding it.
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This is where Carl Jung gave birth to the idea of
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the term shadow to name all of those aspects of a person.
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They themselves are unaware of.
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So human shadow is any aspect of the self that we are unaware of.
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The reason why human shadow mostly contains the negative things is due to our tendency to deny and suppress aspects of ourselves.
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We or others found negative.
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But this doesn't at all mean that shadow consists of negative aspects entirely.
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This is one of the biggest misconceptions about the human shadow.
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Although it is more likely we will suppress jealousy rather than a talent we have, shadow is also filled with rejected aspects that are truly positive.
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This is actually mostly true for those who carry shame and struggle with low self-esteem.
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How can something positive end up in our shadow, suppressed?
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Let's go by an example.
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Let's say that a little girl was born with a good sense of self, aware of what she likes and doesn't like, and with a tendency to openly speak her mind.
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She is honest like most kids are, but let's say she was born into a family where girls should be quiet and obedient.
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She should be sweet and presentable, but in no way should she assert her opinion if she wishes to be accepted within this family.
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The family will reject her when she shows assertiveness and confidence, so for the sake of survival,
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she will start to reject the same aspect within herself as this guarantees her the acceptance of her social group.
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She will suppress that aspect of herself first intentionally in order to receive love, and in her adult life,
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she will show up as sweet and obedient, probably live life on other people's terms.
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Her life will be painful because parts of her personality have remained trapped.
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Her psyche divided and parts of her consciousness are actually not present in her up-to-date life experience.
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Those aspects of her are now hidden so deeply that they don't even get to experience life.
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This can impoverish everyday life experience and depending on the degree of dissociation, this will put her into working on her feelings.
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After working with her feelings, she might discover that these limitations and conditions for love were in her subconscious
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and result in her realizing she isn't obedient little girl, rather confident and assertive, just as she once was.
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Once she embraces and embodies that aspect of herself again, she will awaken the confidence to create a life as she finds good.
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This will give her the assertiveness she needs to sort herself out, instead of remaining obedient to her family and everyone around her.
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How does a negative aspect end up in the human shadow?
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I will give you an example.
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Let's say you have a child.
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This child starts getting really angry
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and it is born into a family where anger is not an okay emotion to express or even feel.
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This child gets shamed and punished for the anger and will then make effort to not show this emotion again.
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At first it will be a conscious effort until it becomes so habitual it goes into the subconscious mind.
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This child will suppress and deny this anger to a point they won't even see the anger in themselves.
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As an adult, they most likely won't even be aware of their anger and will have trouble saying no.
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Since he has denied that aspect of himself to show up, he will not be able to look at himself clearly.
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Might even relate to himself as a completely easygoing person.
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If others point out his passive aggressiveness or pathological niceness, he might want to work with someone to discover and release any suppressed feelings.
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As a result, he might become aware of his anger and the way it damaged his relationships.
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By then facing his anger directly all of his other coping behavior will stop running his life
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and his relationships will now become more meaningful and fun.
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The important thing to have in mind is that when we suppress a certain aspect of ourselves, it does not disappear, it does not go away with time,
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it only fades from our awareness.
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This is why we do so many rash things in life where we don't even understand why we do what we do.
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This fragmentation is the reason we have no control of ourselves.
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As adults we are expected to do better, have a better grip on reality, but instead we fall into same behaving patterns,
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self-destructive behaviors, and all because of our shadow.
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Now, many resist to do shadow work.
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Some of them think if they allow themselves to feel these difficult emotions
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that they will end up attracting more of the negative into their life.
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And some are just afraid, because it takes a lot of courage to come to face the pain of having to split yourself into pieces
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and lose a piece of yourself for the sake of being loved and accepted.
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Reality is that the original pain you endured, that feeling of rejection, will come to the surface each time you approach shadow work.
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The same feeling of rejection you felt your first time with your parents.
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It will make you feel like you will be punished again.
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And for those who fear to attract more of the negative if they allow themselves to feel negative emotions, it is understandable.
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This is a very common confusion amongst the people who exercise the law of attraction consciously.
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but fearfully I must add, what we attract is what we unconsciously or consciously believe.
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To do shadow work is to excavate
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and finally feel those emotions we have been avoiding for
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so long because those suppressed emotions have been the ones attracting painful circumstance in your life just to be seen.
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This is why you feel like law of assumption or attracting good things into your life doesn't come easy.
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Our shadow is a point of attraction because the purpose of this life is to become whole again.
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For this reason, contents of the shadow can emerge through different situations where we will be confronted with those difficult emotions we have been avoiding,
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or it can emerge in our conscious efforts to do shadow work.
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These difficult emotions are energies inside our bodies, so confronting them can feel risky.
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This is why self-awareness is not an easy task.
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This fragmentation of self is fate of everybody on earth as
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we have all undergone the process of splitting into parts due to socialization.
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We have split into conscious and subconscious.
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This is the birth of self-hate that shows up through self-rejection.
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The emptiness we feel is what is left of us after leaving all of those suppressed aspects of ourselves behind.
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The fact that we disown them means we have lost them.
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This can even feel like we aren't really living our lives.
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It can make us dissociate from ourselves and stop feeling joy.
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But the entire universe is on our side and wants us to become whole again.
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Everything in the world is headed in the direction of expansion and growth, and the split self is seeking to be unified again.
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During our life, we will be presented with every single opportunity to see
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and feel into those aspects of ourselves we have suppressed, denied, and disowned.
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Just like the shadows in our physical life, our shadow self is always chasing us, us, hungry for us to see it.
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It doesn't matter how fast or far we can run, our shadows will chase us until we are willing to do the work that must be done.
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This is what shadow work really is, it is the process of becoming aware of what you can no longer see.
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This work has become quite controversial especially with those in think positive communities.
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This is why I would like you to watch my video called false versus true positivity and how to integrate your shadow.
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We as human beings naturally have a tendency to avoid pain so doing shadow work might seem counterintuitive.
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But avoiding pain is not a long-term strategy
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and we must be brave to become aware of those aspects of ourselves
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if we are ever to integrate the pain and the emptiness within.
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The only way out of the pain is into the pain.
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So shadow work is the only way to a free life.
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Shadow work is a popular term in psychology circles to describe a process of integration of the unconscious.
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The more you become aware, more it will feel like life is a brand new experience,
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because those suppressed portions of your consciousness now return to you and join you in your present life experience.
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A lot of illness is healed through the integration of suppressed emotions, and we can even prove that most of the illness today resides in the unconscious mind
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because the unconscious mind is equal to our body.
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And ultimately, this work is about bringing awareness
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and love to those parts of yourself that have been rejected and denied for so long.
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So, if you ask me, there is no greater form of light work than diving deep into shadow work.
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If you would like me to do a video on strategies and ways to put shadow work to practice, let me know in the comments below.
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Thank you for watching.
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Vocabulary and speaking notes for this lesson
This C1 speaking lesson is built on the video “What Is SHADOW WORK? Carl Jung”. The speaker keeps coming back to these words: shadow, aspect, self, emotion, ourselves. This video has 133 sentences and 2049 words to shadow. The speech runs for 12:04. The speaker talks at a natural 170 words per minute, close to everyday conversation. 84% of the words are among the 3,000 most common in English; the rest is worth studying before you start.
Key vocabulary in this video
The 15 most advanced words in the video, with pronunciation and meaning:
| Word | Pronunciation | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| suppress verb | /səˈpɹɛs/ | To put an end to, especially with force, to crush, do away with; to prohibit, subdue. |
| unconscious adjective | /ˌʌnˈkɑnʃəs/ | Not awake; having no awareness (usually as the result of a head injury). |
| obedient adjective | /əˈbidiənt/ | Willing to comply with the commands, orders, or instructions of those in authority; biddable. |
| subconscious adjective | /sʌbˈkɑn.ʃəs/ | Occuring in the part of our mind that we are not normally aware of. |
| disown verb | /dɪsˈoʊn/ | To refuse to own, or to refuse to acknowledge one’s own. |
| unaware adjective | /ˌʌnəˈwɛɚ/ | Not aware or informed; lacking knowledge; unmindful. |
| rejection noun | /ɹɪˈd͡ʒɛkʃən/ | The act of rejecting. |
| tendency noun | /ˈtɛn.dən.si/ | A likelihood of behaving in a particular way or going in a particular direction; a tending toward. |
| assertiveness noun | The quality of being assertive. | |
| disapprove verb | /dɪsəˈpɹuːv/ | To condemn; to consider wrong or inappropriate; used with of. |
| dissociate verb | /dɪˈsoʊ.ʃi.eɪt/ | To cease associating; To part. |
| emptiness noun | The state or feeling of being empty; an emotion that combines hollowness, numbness, disconnection and a lack of meaning in life, resulting in existential… | |
| fragmentation noun | /ˌfɹæɡmənˈteɪ̯ʃən/ | The act of fragmenting or something fragmented; disintegration. |
| relationally adverb | /ɹəˈleɪʃənəli/ | In a relational way. |
| consciously adverb | In a conscious manner; knowingly, volitionally. |
Phrasal verbs you will hear
| Word | Meaning |
|---|---|
| show up verb | To appear, arrive, or attend, especially suddenly or erratically. |
| end up verb | To bring to a conclusion. |
| point out verb | To identify among a group of similar subjects, or in a scene where the subject might not be readily seen or noticed, with a gesture of the body. |
Sentences worth repeating
Short, complete lines from the video that you can reuse in everyday conversation:
- How can something positive end up in our shadow, suppressed?
- Let's go by an example.
- Let's say you have a child.
Grammar in this video
The structures the speaker uses most, with the exact words from the video:
| Structure | In the video |
|---|---|
| Present perfect continuous have/has been + -ing — an action that started earlier and is still going on | have been avoiding |
| Present perfect have/has + past participle — a past action that still matters now | haven't reached · has been referred · have remained trapped |
| Passive voice be + past participle — the focus is on what happens, not who does it | are born · are loved · has been referred |
| Relative clauses who / which + clause — extra information about a person or thing | those who carry · those who fear · people who exercise |
Pronunciation to watch
The speaker uses 16 contractions and reduced forms, such as doesn't, we're, don't. Say them the short way, as you hear them.
- The “sh” and “zh” sounds: unconscious /ˌʌnˈkɑnʃəs/, subconscious /sʌbˈkɑn.ʃəs/, rejection /ɹɪˈd͡ʒɛkʃən/, dissociate /dɪˈsoʊ.ʃi.eɪt/, fragmentation /ˌfɹæɡmənˈteɪ̯ʃən/
- Long words — get the stress right: dissociate /dɪˈsoʊ.ʃi.eɪt/, fragmentation /ˌfɹæɡmənˈteɪ̯ʃən/, relationally /ɹəˈleɪʃənəli/, aggressiveness /əˈɡrɛsɪvnɪs/, counterintuitive /ˌkaʊntəɹɪnˈtuɪtɪv/
How to practise with this video
- Listen to the whole video once without speaking and note the words you do not know.
- Start at 0.75× speed, shadow it sentence by sentence, then go back to normal speed once it feels easy.
- Record yourself and compare with the original, paying attention to words like suppress, unconscious, obedient.
What is the Shadowing Technique?
Shadowing is a science-backed language learning technique originally developed for professional interpreter training and popularized by polyglot Dr. Alexander Arguelles. The method is simple but powerful: you listen to native English audio and immediately repeat it out loud — like a shadow following the speaker with just a 1–2 second delay. Unlike passive listening or grammar drills, shadowing forces your brain and mouth muscles to simultaneously process and reproduce real speech patterns. Research shows it significantly improves pronunciation accuracy, intonation, rhythm, connected speech, listening comprehension, and speaking fluency — making it one of the most effective methods for IELTS Speaking preparation and real-world English communication.