This post contains some of the best shadow work quotes that will inspire your healing.
What Is Shadow Work?
Shadow work is the process of re-owning all the previously disowned (unaccepted) parts of your self-identity.
This helps you quieten the inner critic or the judging part of the mind and feel more self-accepting, more at peace.
This also helps you feel less judgmental and irritated toward others and less wishing that they would behave differently.
Related: Shadow Work For Self-Love (+FREE Shadow Work PDF Download)
Shadow Work Quotes
1. “A man is whole only when he takes into account his shadow.” ― Djuna Barnes
2. “A man who is unconscious of himself acts in a blind, instinctive way and is in addition fooled by all the illusions that arise when he sees everything that he is not conscious of in himself coming to meet him from outside as projections upon his neighbor.” – Carl Jung
3. “At times you got to find the untouched parts within yourself to be able to discover the true you” ― Etheria Divine
4. “Don’t you realize there’s no longer any difference between you and your-monster? You are the monster. It’s your dark side, your shadow self, and you’ve now joined as one.” – Alyson Noel
5. “Every pain, addiction, anguish, longing, depression, anger or fear is an orphaned part of us seeking joy, some disowned shadow wanting to return to the light and home of ourselves.” ― Jacob Nordby
6. “Everyone carries a shadow, and the less it is embodied in the individual’s conscious life, the blacker and denser it is. At all counts, it forms an unconscious snag, thwarting our most well-meant intentions.” – Carl Jung
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7. “I embrace my shadow self. Shadows give depth and dimension to my life. I believe in embracing my duality, in learning to let darkness and light, peacefully co-exist, as illumination.” ― Jaeda DeWalt
8. “I have prayed for years for one good humiliation a day, and then, I must watch my reaction to it. I have no other way of spotting both my denied shadow self and my idealized persona.” – Richard Rohr
9. “If you don’t accept yourself, you can’t transcend yourself and the world: first, you need to increase your awareness, then you need to accept what you learn, then you need to take action.” ― Oli Anderson
10. “If you imagine someone who is brave enough to withdraw all his projections, then you get an individual who is conscious of a pretty thick shadow. Such a man has saddled himself with new problems and conflicts. He has become a serious problem to himself, as he is now unable to say that they do this or that, they are wrong, and they must be fought against… Such a man knows that whatever is wrong in the world is in himself, and if he only learns to deal with his own shadow he has done something real for the world. He has succeeded in shouldering at least an infinitesimal part of the gigantic, unsolved social problems of our day.” – Carl Jung
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11. “In these ways, the personal shadow reinforces, encourages, and becomes dependent upon the addictive behavior to express itself, to have any existence in the light outside of the closet, the attic, and the basement where it has been locked up and hidden for so long. Often the addictive behavior allows the personal shadow the only opportunities to live and to be. The more cut off and unconscious we are of our personal shadows, the more vulnerable we are to having those shadows break out and be set free for a time by addictive behaviors.” – David Schoen
12. “It’s part of what we call the Shadow, all the dark parts of us we can’t face. It’s the thing that, if we don’t deal with it, eventually poisons our lives.” ― Michael Gruber
13. “Look more inside to Live more outside.” ― Anujj Elviis
14. “Maybe the only thing each of us can see is our own shadow. Carl Jung called this his shadow work. He said we never see others. Instead, we see only aspects of ourselves that fall over them. Shadows. Projections. Our associations. The same way old painters would sit in a tiny dark room and trace the image of what stood outside a tiny window, in the bright sunlight. The camera obscura. Not the exact image, but everything reversed or upside down.” – Chuck Palahniuk
15. “One does not become enlightened by imagining figures of light, but by making the darkness conscious.” – Carl Jung
16. “The disowned part of self is an energy – an emotion or desire or need, that has been shamed every time it emerged. These energy patterns are repressed but not destroyed. They are alive in our unconscious.” ― John Bradshaw
Related: Top 10 Signs Of Toxic Shame In A Person (+Best 20 Healing Shame Exercises)
17. “The Ego is the ‘thing’ that you’ve created to keep hiding from your Shadow, convinced that it’s all the ‘light’ or ‘good’ things about you – when in reality, the ego is neither ‘good’ nor ‘bad’ because it’s totally unreal.” ― Oli Anderson
18. “The person you call an enemy is an exaggerated aspect of your own shadow self.” – Deepak Chopra
19. “The rewards are profound. Shadow-work enables us to alter our self-sabotaging behavior so that we can achieve a more self-directed life.” – Connie Zweig
20. “The Shadow is a moral problem that challenges the whole ego-personality, for no one can become conscious of the shadow without considerable moral effort. To become conscious of it involves recognizing the dark aspects of the personality as present and real. This act is the essential condition for any kind of self-knowledge, and it, therefore, as a rule, meets with considerable resistance. Indeed, self-knowledge as a psychotherapeutic measure frequently requires much painstaking work extending over a long period of time.” – Carl Jung
21. “The shadow is needed now more than ever. We heal the world when we heal ourselves, and hope shines brightest when it illuminates the dark.” ― Sasha Graham
22. “The Shadow Life is real life but it can only be for those who don’t deny the truth about themselves, the world, and reality by becoming AWARE, cultivating unconditional ACCEPTANCE, and talking real ACTION.” ― Oli Anderson
23. “To confront a person with his shadow is to show him his own light. Once one has experienced a few times what it is like to stand judgingly between the opposites, one begins to understand what is meant by the self. Anyone who perceives his shadow and his light simultaneously sees himself from two sides and thus gets in the middle.” – Carl Jung
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24. “We all have a dark side. Most of us go through life avoiding direct confrontation with that aspect of ourselves, which I call the shadow self. There’s a reason why. It carries a great deal of energy.” – Lorraine Toussaint
25. “We´re afraid that if we fully surrender to our darkness, we´ll never come back from it. We´re afraid our darkness will go on and on and on, that there is no end to it and that we will get lost in it. We´re afraid that if we show these ugly, unpalatable parts of ourselves, it will be too much for others; that nobody will love and accept us, and we´ll be left alone with only the worst parts of ourselves for company.” ― Evanna Lynch
26. “What we repress will persist until heal.” ― Levi Ramos
27. “When we are aware of our weaknesses or negative tendencies, we open the opportunity to work on them.”― Allan Lokos
28. “You don’t find light by avoiding the darkness.” ― S. Kelley Harrell
29. “Your Shadow is all of the things, ‘positive’ and ‘negative’, that you’ve denied about yourself and hidden beneath the surface of the mask you forgot that you’re wearing.” ― Oli Anderson
30. ”Shadow is that hidden, repressed, for the most part, an inferior and guilt-laden personality whose ultimate ramifications reach back into the realm of our animal ancestors.” – Carl Jung
Shadow Work PDF
References
- Shadow (psychology) – Wikipedia
- 8 Benefits of Shadow Work and How to Start Practicing It (betterup.com)
- Shadow Work: Benefits, How To, Practices, & Dangers (healthline.com)
