Philosophies for Life 107: How to Confront Your Dark Side (Step-by-Step Guide) - Carl Jung’s Shadow Work
Sep 17, 2025
21:31
How to Confront Your Dark Side (Step-by-Step Guide) - Carl Jung’s Shadow Work
Carl Jung's psychology is called analytical psychology and his philosophy is dubbed as “Jungian philosophy”. Jung’s most famous theory is ‘the individuation process.’
Carl Jung believed that to truly understand ourselves, we need to look at how the mind is built — what he called the psyche. At the top is the conscious mind — your everyday thoughts, feelings, and choices. Just below that is your personal unconscious and deeper still is something Jung called the collective unconscious. This isn’t shaped by your personal life, but by the shared history of all human beings. Inside it live universal patterns called archetypes. Jung also talked about the persona — the mask we wear to fit into the world. It’s how we act in public, at work, or around people we want to impress. But behind that mask is something more hidden — something we often avoid.
He called this the shadow, the dark parts of ourselves we were told not to show. This could be anger, fear, jealousy, or even qualities like ambition or desire. Many of these parts got pushed down when we were young, not because they were bad, but because the world told us they weren’t acceptable.
But hiding them doesn’t make them disappear. They still live inside us — and if we don’t face them, they can shape our lives from the background. Jung believed that to grow as a person, we have to turn and face this shadow. We have to understand it, accept it, and slowly bring it into the light. That’s what he called shadow work. It’s about becoming whole. At the center of all this is what Jung called the Self — the full picture of who you are, both conscious and unconscious. And the journey to becoming your true self, he called individuation. In this video, we’ll take you through a step by step approach to shadow work so that you can confront your dark side. Not to fix yourself — but to truly know yourself.
So here are the step by step approach to shadow work so that you can confront your dark side, according to the philosophy of Carl Jung.
Step 1- Identify Your Shadow
Step 2 - Accept Your dark side Without Judgement
Step 3 - Trace the Origin
Step 4 - Have a Dialogue With your Shadow
Step 5 - Integrate Your Shadow
I hope you enjoyed listening to this podcast and hope that this wisdom on step by step approach to shadow work so that you can confront your dark side, form the wisdom of Carl Jung will be helpful to your life.
Carl Jung, together with Sigmund Freud and Alfred Adler, is one of the 3 founders of psychoanalysis which is a set of psychological theories and methods aiming to release repressed emotions and experiences - in other words, to make the unconscious conscious. Jung was born in Switzerland in 1875 and died in 1961, leaving behind great works in the fields of psychiatry, anthropology, archaeology, literature, philosophy, psychology and religious studies. Jung had Freud as a mentor for a good part of his career but later he departed from him. This division was painful for Jung and it led him to found his own school of psychology, called analytical psychology as a comprehensive system separate from psychoanalysis. If classical psychoanalysis focuses on the patient’s past, as early experiences are very important in personality development, analytical psychology primarily focuses on the present, on mythology, folklore, and cultural experiences, to try to understand human consciousness. One of the most important ideas of analytical psychology which Jung founded is the process of individuation, which is the process of finding the self - something Jung considered an important task in human development. While he did not formulate a systematic philosophy, he is nonetheless considered a sophisticated philosopher - his school of thought dubbed “Jungian philosophy”. Its concepts can apply to many topics covered in the humanities and the social sciences. A good part of his work was published after his death and indeed there are still some articles written by him that to this day have yet to be published. Some of his most important books are: “Psychology of the Unconscious”, “Man and His Symbols”, “The Archetypes and The Collective Unconscious”, “Modern Man In Search of a Soul”, “The Psychology of the Transference”, “Memories, Dreams, Thoughts”, and “The Relations Between the Ego and the Unconscious”. Besides being a great writer and a researcher, he was also an artist, a craftsman and even a builder. His contribution is enormous and there is a great deal we can learn from his works.
Carl Jung's psychology is called analytical psychology and his philosophy is dubbed as “Jungian philosophy”. Jung’s most famous theory is ‘the individuation process.’
Carl Jung believed that to truly understand ourselves, we need to look at how the mind is built — what he called the psyche. At the top is the conscious mind — your everyday thoughts, feelings, and choices. Just below that is your personal unconscious and deeper still is something Jung called the collective unconscious. This isn’t shaped by your personal life, but by the shared history of all human beings. Inside it live universal patterns called archetypes. Jung also talked about the persona — the mask we wear to fit into the world. It’s how we act in public, at work, or around people we want to impress. But behind that mask is something more hidden — something we often avoid.
He called this the shadow, the dark parts of ourselves we were told not to show. This could be anger, fear, jealousy, or even qualities like ambition or desire. Many of these parts got pushed down when we were young, not because they were bad, but because the world told us they weren’t acceptable.
But hiding them doesn’t make them disappear. They still live inside us — and if we don’t face them, they can shape our lives from the background. Jung believed that to grow as a person, we have to turn and face this shadow. We have to understand it, accept it, and slowly bring it into the light. That’s what he called shadow work. It’s about becoming whole. At the center of all this is what Jung called the Self — the full picture of who you are, both conscious and unconscious. And the journey to becoming your true self, he called individuation. In this video, we’ll take you through a step by step approach to shadow work so that you can confront your dark side. Not to fix yourself — but to truly know yourself.
So here are the step by step approach to shadow work so that you can confront your dark side, according to the philosophy of Carl Jung.
Step 1- Identify Your Shadow
Step 2 - Accept Your dark side Without Judgement
Step 3 - Trace the Origin
Step 4 - Have a Dialogue With your Shadow
Step 5 - Integrate Your Shadow
I hope you enjoyed listening to this podcast and hope that this wisdom on step by step approach to shadow work so that you can confront your dark side, form the wisdom of Carl Jung will be helpful to your life.
Carl Jung, together with Sigmund Freud and Alfred Adler, is one of the 3 founders of psychoanalysis which is a set of psychological theories and methods aiming to release repressed emotions and experiences - in other words, to make the unconscious conscious. Jung was born in Switzerland in 1875 and died in 1961, leaving behind great works in the fields of psychiatry, anthropology, archaeology, literature, philosophy, psychology and religious studies. Jung had Freud as a mentor for a good part of his career but later he departed from him. This division was painful for Jung and it led him to found his own school of psychology, called analytical psychology as a comprehensive system separate from psychoanalysis. If classical psychoanalysis focuses on the patient’s past, as early experiences are very important in personality development, analytical psychology primarily focuses on the present, on mythology, folklore, and cultural experiences, to try to understand human consciousness. One of the most important ideas of analytical psychology which Jung founded is the process of individuation, which is the process of finding the self - something Jung considered an important task in human development. While he did not formulate a systematic philosophy, he is nonetheless considered a sophisticated philosopher - his school of thought dubbed “Jungian philosophy”. Its concepts can apply to many topics covered in the humanities and the social sciences. A good part of his work was published after his death and indeed there are still some articles written by him that to this day have yet to be published. Some of his most important books are: “Psychology of the Unconscious”, “Man and His Symbols”, “The Archetypes and The Collective Unconscious”, “Modern Man In Search of a Soul”, “The Psychology of the Transference”, “Memories, Dreams, Thoughts”, and “The Relations Between the Ego and the Unconscious”. Besides being a great writer and a researcher, he was also an artist, a craftsman and even a builder. His contribution is enormous and there is a great deal we can learn from his works.