Shadow Coaching & Transformation

By Cal Simone

A great deal of transformational work is done in the Bay Area. I see there being two types of transformation in the psyche, the main difference being whether we are simply being informed about the shift or are consciously participating in bringing about the shift.

Changing the character of our energy. Most forms of energy work operate directly on the energy, producing a different sort of energy. Most of this work is done to us, and powerful energetic shifts may occur. Through sensation, emotion, or thought, we are informed internally of a shift as or after it has happened. Sometimes we have strong emotional releases, as repressed or unresolved memories are uncovered.

Changing our relationship to our deeper selves. Some of us have a sense of our identity which is a manifestation of the conscious mind, or ego. By itself, the conscious mind cannot produce deep change. Transformation comes about by changing our relationship to what is within us. This involves working with material in the unconscious, most notably the source of our behavior, reactions, motivations, and judgments.

Ego and shadow. Just about everyone understands that we are made up of conscious and unconscious. Each in turn is made up of parts, also know as energy patterns or selves or sub-personalities. Carl Jung called the collections of these conscious and unconscious parts ego and Self, respectfully, also commonly referred to as the doing and being aspects. Some spiritual teachings suggest that the ego is a delusion or something for us to destroy, dismantle, or outgrow, while others teach that the ego needs to be tamed or trained. Whether the ego is real or a delusion, you spent years developing your ego, and at times, it has served you well. While we can transcend ego states for moments, we continue to have an ego. Without an ego, in an all-being state, we can't hold down a job, or drive our car, or do anything, really. I'm fond of saying "Don't 'diss' the ego."

According to Jung, our shadow can be said to consist of energy patterns, known as selves or sub-personalities, that were disowned — pushed down into our unconscious in childhood, as part of our coping strategies to make it through the intensity of our childhood. We are largely cut off from these patterns, so they operate from our unconscious, but we are largely cut off from them, leaving them to operate without anyone minding the store, so to speak. When we have days that don't seem to go the way we want, one or more of our unconscious selves is getting its needs met, any way it can.

Before we can engage with shadow, our egos must be ready. Our egos — grasping for importance, meaning, to be recognized, to be seen — are actually under-developed. An ego that isn't healthy, developed, and aware will compensate by grabbing for power and control, which leads us towards isolation and away from being related to others, ourselves, and That Which Is Larger Than Us.

Reprogramming methods such as NLP operate directly on the unconscious selves, making them responsible for changing the behavior. Such methods rest on the idea of replacing behaviors that we identify as "positive" with ones we identify as "negative."

In contrast, working with the shadow honors all behaviors and subpersonalities, acknowledging that the disowned selves, including those that sabotage us, are valuable and have often been misapplied throughout a lifetime of habituated behavior patterns. These habituated patterns are familiar and comfortable, and we go through much of our lives imagining that that's just "the way it is" and "the way we are."

We can't change our fundamental patterns or our essential energetic nature. What we can do is to change our relationship to what's there, and that such a change in relationship is what brings the possibility for transformation. Working with our shadow material makes the ego, not the parts, responsible for changing the relationship. In contrast, shadow work involves the conscious and the unconscious working together to bring about change. True integration involves our ego and deeper selves working together in relationship.