The Shadow self is a hidden and forgotten place within us all. This is the side of our personality that contains all the parts of ourselves that we don’t want to admit to having. The Shadow self has an unconscious nature. It is only through the effort to become self-aware that we can recognize our shadow. Without this, our healing is impossible. In this article, we have collected 40 Shadow self quotes that may inspire you to embrace your inner darkness and discover hidden aspects of your true self.
Here it is – our collection of thought-provoking Shadow self quotes!
40 Shadow Self Quotes
#1
“The person you call an enemy is an exaggerated aspect of your own shadow self.”
– Deepak Chopra
#2
“A man is whole only when he takes into account his shadow.”
― Djuna Barnes
#3
“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
#4
“When we are aware of our weaknesses or negative tendencies, we open the opportunity to work on them.”
― Allan Lokos
#5
“This confrontation is the first test of courage on the inner way, a test sufficient to frighten off most people, for the meeting with ourselves belongs to the more unpleasant things that can be avoided so long as we can project everything negative into the environment. But if we are able to see our own shadow and can bear knowing about it, then a small part of the problem has already been solved: we have at least brought up the personal unconscious. The shadow is a living part of the personality and therefore wants to live with it in some form. It cannot be argued out of existence or rationalized into harmlessness. This problem is exceedingly difficult because it not only challenges the whole man but reminds him at the same time of his helplessness and ineffectuality.”
– Carl Jung
#6
“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
#7
“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
#8
“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
#9
“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
#10
“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
#11
“Creativity connects me to my truest self and vulnerability. There is nothing more personally liberating, than reaching for my face and peeling off the social mask that hides my shadow self, pain, and weakness. When I produce from this place of truth, the results transform both creator and beholder.”
― Jaeda DeWalt
#12
“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
#13
“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
#14
“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
#15
”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
#16
“Shadow-making happens in families and makes us who we are. It leads to shadow-work, which makes us who we can become.”
– Connie Zweig
#17
“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
#18
“We carry our past with us, to wit, the primitive and inferior man with his desires and emotions, and it is only with an enormous effort that we can detach ourselves from this burden. If it comes to a neurosis, we invariably have to deal with a considerably intensified shadow. And if such a person wants to be cured it is necessary to find a way in which his conscious personality and his shadow can live together.”
– Carl Jung
#19
“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
#20
“One does not become enlightened by imagining figures of light, but by making the darkness conscious.”
– Carl Jung
#21
“This thing of darkness I acknowledge mine.”
– William Shakespeare
#22
“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
#23
“We know that the wildest and most moving dramas are played not in the theatre but in the hearts of ordinary men and women who pass by without exciting attention, and who betray to the world nothing of the conflicts that rage within them except possibly by a nervous breakdown. What is so difficult for the layman to grasp is the fact that in most cases the patients themselves have no suspicion whatever of the internecine war raging in their unconscious. If we remember that there are many people who understand nothing at all about themselves, we shall be less surprised at the realization that there are also people who are utterly unaware of their actual conflicts.”
– Carl Jung
#24
“Most of the shadows of this life are caused by standing in one’s own sunshine.”
– Ralph Waldo Emerson
#25
“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
#26
“If both people in a relationship are willing to unlock their past and reveal their root fears, it is entirely possible for the partnership to find balance. Accepting the shadow side within you allows more tolerance of other people’s shadows. When you blame another person for their unresolved fears and a past which shaped their belief system, you are wasting an opportunity to see a mirror of truth.”
― Collette O’Mahony
#27
“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
#28
“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
#29
“You don’t find light by avoiding the darkness.”
― S. Kelley Harrell
#30
“This explosive psychological ‘sneaking’ occurs when a woman suppresses large parts of self into the shadows of the psyche. In the view of analytical psychology, the repression of both negative and positive instincts urges, and feelings into the unconscious cause them to inhabit a shadow realm. While the ego and superego attempt to continue to censor the shadow impulses, the very pressure that repression causes is rather like a bubble in the sidewall of a tire. Eventually, as the tire revolves and heats up, the pressure behind the bubble intensifies, causing it to explode outward, releasing all the inner content. The shadow acts similarly. We find that by opening the door to the shadow realm a little, and letting out various elements a few at a time, relating to them, finding a use for them, negotiating, we can reduce being surprised by shadow sneak attacks and unexpected explosions.”
― Clarissa Pinkola Estés
#31
“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
#32
“Shadow work is the path of the heart warrior.”
– Carl Jung
#33
“I love to chase my shadow to feel how it rests in the dark.”
― Munia Khan
#34
“Be silent and listen: have you recognized your madness and do you admit it? Have you noticed that all your foundations are completely mired in madness? Do you not want to recognize your madness and welcome it in a friendly manner? You wanted to accept everything. So accept madness too. Let the light of your madness shine, and it will suddenly dawn on you. Madness is not to be despised and not to be feared, but instead, you should give it life…If you want to find paths, you should also not spurn madness, since it makes up such a great part of your nature…Be glad that you can recognize it, for you will thus avoid becoming its victim. Madness is a special form of the spirit and clings to all teachings and philosophies, but even more to daily life, since life itself is full of craziness and at bottom utterly illogical. Man strives toward reason only so that he can make rules for himself. Life itself has no rules. That is its mystery and its unknown law. What you call knowledge is an attempt to impose something comprehensible on life.”
― Carl Jung
#35
“By learning to recognize when your own archetypes are taking over, it’s easier to observe when other people are living from their shadow selves.”
― Catherine Carrigan
#36
“Your shadow is here for a reason. Not so much to terrify or invalidate you,
but to help you see what you’re afraid of and to teach you how to tame that fear.”
― Helen S. Rosenau
#37
“The Tao Te Ching says, “The enemy is a shadow you yourself cast.” The shadow wanders our unregarded hours where we hold resentments, where we are lost, when there is nothing and no one to blame, though we keep on blaming. I often wonder what is the light that hits the ego, casting out the shadow? It is gratitude. And if the ego is gone, as it is when we are truly grateful, there is no one to cast a shadow. We can replace blame with gratitude—in any circumstance. Blame builds up walls around the self and points only outward. Gratitude opens the heart, dissolves the self, and points everywhere.”
― Terrance Keenan
#38
“The spiritual practice isn’t about rejecting darkness—it’s realizing that both the light and dark are love.”
― Drew Gerald
#39
“You know how fragile the shadow is! Light falls on it and the shadow disappears! Some of the shadows that we fear and believe that they will always rule our lives also suddenly disappear!”
― Mehmet Murat Ildan
#40
“Your Shadow is a dark omen, a powerful teacher that reveals to you the places in your life where you are energetically blocked. When you continue to ignore these signs, you perpetuate the cycle of your suffering.”
― Mateo Sol
We hope you are inspired by these Shadow-self quotes as much as we are!