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Written 7 years ago: (today's comments in parenthesis)
"In Jungian psychology, the "shadow", "Id", or "shadow aspect/archetype" may refer to an unconscious aspect of the personality which the conscious ego does not identify in itself, or the entirety of the unconscious, i.e., everything of which a person is not fully conscious. In short, the shadow is the unknown side." - Wikipedia
A process by which you seek root causes for your mal-adjustments and personality flaws, moods, anxiety, phobias, etc.
The Symptoms:
Say you have certain triggers, things that make you cry or get angry or just go numb. For me two big ones originally were anything that challenged my beliefs in a way that made me out to be a liar, and songs that reminded me of my past. (I can honestly say now that these examples are alien to me, they haven't bothered me in many years.)
Sometimes you have moods out of nowhere, just mopey one day or irritated for no reason.
Out of control emotions.
Inability to handle certain situations. You shut down or go berserk.
Phobias, anxiety, panic attacks, depression, etc...
These are the signs that you have shadow work to do.
What do I do?:
For each of those above there is a root cause and secondary symptoms. Often the spiritual/psychological/medical communities will try to treat the symptoms, that's akin to playing whack-a-mole, you often can't cure a disease by treating symptoms, but the techniques I will present can find and treat the root causes.
The answer is often difficult to grasp and that's another barrier to actually doing the necessary work, in this case, the shadow work.
You will be delving straight into the darkest depths of your subconscious, those traumatic events that were unresolved because you were psychologically incapable of dealing with them at the time, and your mind suppressed them so you could function. The issue is they come back when you're at your weakest, and often at the worst times.
One of the best parts of this practice is you can go at your own pace and perform it in a self-help capacity. Though having a therapist or counselor can help because they're often familiar with the tools, a lot of this can be done successfully on your own and for free.
Processes:
Chakra work: Clear your chakras from root to throat to help find the root causes if necessary, often in this process the third eye will open and reveal your darkest secrets to you. This process can also help you clean up your life physically, emotionally and spiritually. (I can go through these individually if you want.)
Regression therapy: if you know what the traumas were (some are obvious), it is as simple as a visually guided, meditation assisted, memory exploration to find and either reverse, resolve, or accept the traumatic events given your current context. You're not the same person you were back then, the situations are long gone, now you can safely deal with them. Go as slow as you need to. (It took me about 2 years in total using walking meditation as the medium.)
Other therapy and therapeutic practices: This is a personal path to greatest success, it doesn't have to be a cookie cutter or drug trial and error process. You will need to face your fears by seeking and accepting the events that caused the fear. Guide your therapist or yourself using the ideas and techniques of modern psychotherapy, try them out. If you do use outside help, have a plan going in and make them work for you.
Hypnotism may help and as long as it's not just pushing things down but attempting to find the causes it can really be a big help in some cases. Don't forget about self-hypnosis.
Maintenance
Speaking of visualization, here's a great way to decompress and disarm the little things that happen every day.
https://integrallife.com/the-3-2-1-shadow-process/
Do your own research, there's a thousand ways to do it, this is just how I did it.
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