Meeting your Shadow
It will be one of the first terms you hear used when entering into the practice of witchcraft — shadow work.
So what is the ‘shadow’?
Your 'shadow' is a collection of aspects you possess that might not be immediately obvious to yourself or others, and that is because these aspects are either consciously or subconsciously hidden by you. They are the "darker" parts of yourself that motivate your desires or, at times, your reactions to the world; They manifest through your personality, and can be observed, though they have the quality of being an undefined characteristic. As an example, if you have ever stopped to ask yourself, "why do I act this way?", that is your shadow being observed.
Some examples of what a shadow aspect would be:
Masking pettiness as "just being honest" or harsh criticism because you do not like yourself and secretly want others to feel the same about themselves.
Subtly insulting something, which you secretly want, in order to convince yourself that you don't want it.
Giving too much of yourself in the hopes you will be loved, but claiming you are actually doing it because you are a "giving person" or it is your "love language”.
Needing other people to agree with you in order to validate your self-beliefs.
The shadow might be consciously hidden, through compartmentalization, or subconsciously hidden, through avoidance. And the reason it is hidden is by result of the ego trying to preserve the sense of 'self' — it is hard to confront ourselves sometimes, right? So even as you ask yourself the question, "why do I act this way?", you might not want it immediately answered because it would threaten your self-perception, which does not feel "safe" to the ego; The ego requires a stable sense of 'self', as it is what relates us to our understanding of the world, shaping our reality. Any break from our understanding of the world, such as through our identity within it and the reality that identity creates, would be de-stabilizing, and the ego will avoid that at all cost. So in self-preservation, our ego fractures and compartmentalizes these aspects that threaten the possibility of destabilization and creates the shadow.
Yet this is a quick summary, and there are better explanations by experts out there:
The Society of Analytical Psychology - The Jungian Shadow
The term "shadow" (or "shadow-self") was originally coined by Swiss psychiatrist Carl Jung, who had been heavily influenced by the occult and esoteric teachings — occultist would eventually adopt his theories.
What is "Shadow Work" and why is it necessary for witchcraft?
Witchcraft, as a tool, is powerful in the way it can shape the world, but it does require for the witch to have a grounded sense of reality (a grounded sense of 'self'). Otherwise, all actions will fall short of the desired outcome because they were never rooted in anything realistic. A fractured sense of ‘self’ might live safely in its curated reality, but it is not a grounded reality. In order to find correspondence, or to know how a binding will work, or a successful return to sender, it is necessary for the witch to know and understand their interconnected role to each action behind what they are doing for these things. And so shadow work becomes essential.
To better explain: If a witch believes themselves to be one thing, while ignoring that they are actually another, and then proceeds to act from the perspective of believing that they are something they are not...the result of what they acted upon will not be the outcome they desired because they were acting out of a false sense of 'self' (a false reality). An example of this would then be the witch who believes they are justified in hexing another when they are not, so then it backfires. Another would be the witch who constantly manifests for more money that they never receive, and that is because they have not taken into consideration that their fear of embracing new opportunities are causing them a block in their abundance. Had they done their shadow work, and reflected on their own actions, perhaps they would have discovered they were the cause and solution to their problems.
That is why shadow work essential. It serves as a check-and-balance system that keeps a witch successful and in their power without overstepping.
