• By Daniel Robledo

👤 How "Your Shadow" Can Save You (From Yourself)

read time: 03 minutes

Welcome back to The Checkpoint, a newsletter where, every Monday, we pause, reflect, and level up our lives.

☑️ Today's Summary:

• I introduce the concept of "your shadow"
• Explore its origins and how to actually apply it to our lives
• Share how I'm doing shadow work to feel whole again

❓ What The Hell Is A 'Shadow'

Hey Reader!

I’ve been diving deep into psychology lately, which has been a long-time interest of mine. I’m even flirting with the idea of going back to college to study it 👀 (but let's leave that for another week).

As part of this self-learning journey, I’m halfway through The Psychology Book — an overview of the entire history of psychology. It covers everything from the days when people seriously thought anger was caused by “too much blood” all the way to today’s Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy.

One of the chapters that really piqued my interest was about Carl Jung’s theory of "the shadow."

According to ITS, your "shadow" represents all the behaviors and impulses you’ve suppressed throughout your life.

• Bad Repressing: Not crying in public because “a man doesn’t cry.”
• Good Repressing: Not punching someone in the face when you're mad at them.

These things don’t just disappear when you suppress them — they become part of your shadow.

Jung created a pretty neat diagram to understand the shadow, which I’ve shamelessly borrowed from his work:

If you take a look, you'll see several components you might already be familiar with:

• Outer World: Other people
• Persona: What you let others see about you
• Ego: How you view yourself
• Self: You, yourself as a whole
• Shadow: The things you've suppressed throughout your life
• Animus/Anima: Your unconscious mind
• Inner World: Everything beneath your unconscious mind

Now, you may be asking: Why the hell should I care about this?

I had the same question at first, but after doing shadow work for a few weeks, it’s been transformative for me.

If you check out sites like therapist.com, you’ll find a lot of debates about the effectiveness of shadow work. I’m the first to be skeptical of things that aren't rooted in science — like psychoanalysis and, yes, even shadow work. But there’s been growing interest in recent neuroscience data supporting its effectiveness.

For starters, shadow work essentially involves five steps:

1. Identify something that’s part of your shadow by thinking about what you project (or criticize) in others.
2. Invite your shadow into a conversation (I like to picture it like Dark Link from Zelda, Naruto’s Dark Side, or Lieve from Black Clover).
3. "Talk" with your shadow without judgment.
4. Explore when this part of your shadow first formed.
5. Integrate the non-destructive parts of your shadow into your life.

Beyond the obvious benefits of journaling, mindfulness, and self-reflection that come with shadow work, I’ve found this practice feels like finding that missing toy you’ve been looking for since you were a kid.

In my personal case, I often feel like something is missing, like life should feel just a little bit better.

That’s why I’ve been pursuing a personal development-entrepreneurship lifestyle for so long — because I’m looking for that missing piece.

But now that I’ve reconnected with my shadow, I’m starting to realize that maybe that missing piece isn’t outside of me. It’s inside.

Of course, just journaling for a couple of hours won’t solve all my inner world problems, but it’s a start. I’m glad I came across this concept of the shadow.

✍️ Week's Quote

“ Even I get... swamped by bad feelings sometimes!! They can fill me with power too!!! But I've got a strong heart that can control them and do what's right!!! That's what it means to be human!! — Asta

❤️ Favorites Of The Week

👀 I'm A Carrousel Enjoyer Now

As you may remember, I’ve quit content creation everywhere except here and on LinkedIn (and honestly, I’m only doing that until I get a job). But I’ve been making some carousels there, and I think they’re pretty good (at least they’ve got loads of memes, so there’s that). Learn more

Thank you for being here every week, Reader.Talk to you soon <3