The Shadow Effect: Illuminating the Hidden Power of Your True Self Through Comprehensive and Practical Shadow Work

by Deepak Chopra

the sobering truth is that running from the shadow only intensifies its power.

the price we pay for being a good person—something we all aspire to—is that the bad person who might ruin everything must be kept under wraps.

To have a shadow is not to be flawed, but to be complete.

Yet it’s hard to settle whether religion defeats the shadow or actually makes it stronger by arousing strong feelings of sinfulness and guilt, shame and fear about the tortures of a hellish hereafter.

Carl Jung posited the archetype of the shadow, he said that it creates a fog of illusion that surrounds the self.

The first step in defeating the shadow is to abandon all notions of defeating it. The dark side of human nature thrives on war, struggle, and conflict. As soon as you talk about “winning,” you have lost already. You have been dragged into the duality of good and evil. Once that happens, nothing can end the duality.

Whenever any aspect of the self has been split off, labeled as bad, illicit, shameful, guilty, or wrong, the shadow gains power.

At any moment when you feel that your world is falling apart, what is really falling apart is the self and its confidence that it understands reality. After any major trauma to body or mind, it takes time for the fragile ego-personality to recover. (We are very lucky that an old adage is true: “Souls don’t break; they bounce.”)

the thymus gives you antibodies for the diseases that were encountered by the entire human race. You do not have to be infected by every disease; the inheritance of immunity is collective—

Anything that keeps you unconscious is the result of the shadow, because the shadow is the hiding place of pain and stress.

Judgment is guilt wearing a moral mask to disguise its pain.

the Vedic rishis (seers) proclaimed, “You are not in the world. The world is in you.”

“Freedom isn’t the end of the path. It’s the beginning. There is nowhere to go.

You will value balance. The separate aspects of your life will work toward a common purpose. Every aspect of living will assume equal value. Rest will find a normal rhythm with activity. Your core self, which is calm and at peace, won’t be disturbed in the midst of activity. As your situation changes, you will adapt and remain resilient. At the first signs that stress is throwing you out of your comfort zone, you will notice and respond.

You will value your well-being over any individual experience.

You are at peace. You cannot be shaken from your center. You have self-knowledge. You empathize without judgment. You see yourself as part of the whole. You are not in the world. The world is in you. Your actions spontaneously benefit you. Your desires manifest easily, without friction or struggle. You can perform intense action with detachment. You are not personally invested in any outcome. You know how to surrender.

The best possible time is the present.

The only ones who conquer the shadow don’t fight it; they transcend it. When you transcend, you go beyond. In everyday life we transcend all the time. For example, when a mother sees her young child being cranky and demanding, she doesn’t meet the child on those grounds. She realizes that he’s tired and needs to sleep. What has she done? She has transcended the level of the problem, moving to a different level to find the solution. This gives rise to a spiritual truth: the level of the problem is never the level of the solution.

You are choosing not to transcend when you struggle at the level of the problem.

Spiritually, you cannot be rejected unless you reject yourself.

I’ve seen people who evolved very quickly using a simple heart meditation, in which they sat quietly and directed their attention to their hearts,

Whatever you do, remain awake to your vision of wholeness. You don’t want to turn meditation into another kind of conditioning,

Krishnamurti warned that the worst thing a spiritual path can do is deliver what you expect. Instead of reaching the truth, the path has simply turned you into a version of your old self, but “improved” by feeling and looking better.)

The world no longer brings negative reflections.

there may be serious reasons why the true self isn’t unfolding: Excessive stress

Acknowledge your shadow when it brings negativity into your life. Embrace and forgive your shadow. Turn an unwanted obstacle into your ally. Ask yourself what conditions are giving rise to the shadow: stress, anonymity, permission to do harm, peer pressure, passivity, dehumanizing conditions, an “us versus them” mentality.

Share your feelings with someone you trust: a therapist, trusted friend, good listener, counselor, or confidante. Include a physical component: body work, energy release, yogic breathing, hands-on healing. To change the collective, change yourself—projecting and judging “them” as evildoers only increases the shadow’s power. Practice meditation in order to experience pure consciousness, which is beyond the shadow.

The Vedic scriptures from thousands of years ago were the first to declare, “Those who know it speak of it not. Those who speak of it know it not.”

Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure.