Identifying the Shadow

We introduce a central concept of Jungian psychology: The Shadow. This represents the parts of our behavior that have become invisible to us—the "rough parts of the stone" that no longer serve our overall design but continue to drive our actions from below the surface.

Key Highlights:

• Invisible Behaviors: The shadow consists of behaviors executed on "autopilot" or subliminal cause-and-effect patterns.
• Disproportionate Reactions: A first-order indicator of the shadow is an irrational or disproportionate emotional reaction to a situation.
• Unfulfilled Wishes: Those desires we push to the periphery without taking action can reveal parts of ourselves we refuse to see.
• The Goal of Shadow Work: While the shadow will always exist, our mission is to reduce its impact and increase our agency to respond to life.

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• Tim Dedman
• Jorge

Creators and Guests

Host

Brian Mattocks

Host and Founder of A Mason's Work - a podcast designed to help you use symbolism to grow. He's been working in the craft for over a decade and served as WM, trustee, and sat in every appointed chair in a lodge - at least once :D

What is A Mason's Work?

In this show we discuss the practical applications of masonic symbolism and how the working tools can be used to better yourself, your family, your lodge, and your community. We help good freemasons become better men through honest self development. We talk quite a bit about mental health and men's issues related to emotional and intellectual growth as well.

[00:00] I want to start today's episode by talking about a concept that is central to Jungian
[00:06] psychology.
[00:07] Carl Jung was a guy who was really influential in the history of psychology as an alternative
[00:14] to this kind of Freudian root cause analysis process.
[00:19] Jung had his own take on the way you identify and solve problems with your own personal
[00:26] experience.
[00:26] And one of the core concepts of Jungian psychology is called the shadow.
[00:32] And the shadow as a concept is essentially your behavior that you can no longer see.
[00:42] It's the stuff that's outside of your visual field of view, for lack of a better way to
[00:50] say it.
[00:50] The behaviors that you execute, maybe even on autopilot or the stuff that's moving sort
[00:57] of below the waterline, if you will, that has not broken the surface and become something
[01:03] that you can adjust or trim or work with.
[01:07] In Masonic terms, this is the rough parts of the stone.
[01:12] They're the pieces of you that have led to a certain set of behaviors or a way of being
[01:19] in the world that isn't serving the overall design.
[01:25] It's not helping you build a better version of yourself.
[01:28] It's the kind of leftover stuff that isn't working for you.
[01:35] And so when we start sitting down to do shadow work, the first thing we have to understand
[01:42] as we look at this is that our shadow is invisible to us for the most part.
[01:50] It doesn't have something you can grab onto until you learn kind of where it is.
[01:59] And this is an odd experience when you start to really pursue it because it feels like you're
[02:10] having a disproportionate reaction to a situation.
[02:13] It feels like you're angry or upset or mad at someone.
[02:21] And sometimes that feeling doesn't match the situation.
[02:27] You're irrationally upset.
[02:31] You're irrationally moved to a certain set of behaviors.
[02:36] That is kind of a first order indicator that your shadow is there.
[02:47] You can take a mental or emotional inventory of the situations in your life where you overreacted.
[02:56] And in those situations, there's work to be done.
[03:00] There is an opportunity for you to cultivate consciousness in a way that allows you to assume
[03:06] that level of agency we talked a little bit about yesterday.
[03:10] So one way is to look for those sort of discontinuities or those challenges where your response is
[03:19] disproportionate.
[03:20] Another way is to start to look across the patterns in your life, the things that you perhaps wish
[03:29] were different.
[03:30] I wish I did this or I wish I was in this situation.
[03:35] That you kind of push into the periphery.
[03:38] You take those wishes, but you never turn them into concrete steps in action.
[03:43] Those wishes are another source of understanding some of the parts of you that you've pushed out of
[03:50] view and kind of hidden behind this hoodwink where you refuse to acknowledge or see.
[04:00] The causes of that behavior.
[04:04] We'll talk a little bit more as we go through the week about how we're going to address some
[04:08] of these things moving on, you know, moving through them and understand what to do and all
[04:13] that kind of stuff.
[04:13] But for now, it's probably the most useful thing you can do is start to look for indicators of the
[04:22] shadow.
[04:23] And one of the third ways you can do that is to look for the patterns.
[04:28] What is it that you do that keeps showing up as a recurring theme?
[04:36] Every time this happens, I do that.
[04:41] Every time I feel this way, I find myself doing this thing.
[04:46] Those kinds of connections are really about helping you identify that place where your behavior has
[04:57] moved from a visible and obvious cause and effect to a subliminal cause and effect to that shadow.
[05:07] Pursuing your shadow is the beginning of great Masonic work.
[05:12] If you can continue to find it, and let me be quite clear, your shadow will always exist, just like in real life.
[05:21] You may refine and improve your capacities over time.
[05:26] Our mission here is to essentially reduce its impact on your ability to respond,
[05:32] to give you more agency and more capacity to develop solutions in your everyday life.
[05:38] questions.
[05:39] So, I wanted to express my background.
[05:56] Can you expand your behaviors in tomorrow?
[06:02] Get tooЬНАЯ感度!