How Shadow Work Can Save You From Yourself
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Hey chat, welcome to the Healthy Gamer GG podcast. I'm Dr. Alok Kanodja, but you can call me Dr. K. I'm a psychiatrist, gamer, and co-founder of Healthy Gamer. On this podcast, we explore mental health and life in the digital age, breaking down big ideas to help you better understand yourself and the world around you. So let's dive right in.

This is something that always confused me. I got bullied a lot when I was a kid. And I was like, why the hell does this guy do this? Right. Why do they show up every day? What do they get? Like, I'm just minding my own damn business. I'm not bothering them. And they show up every day on the playground and they just just like you sneeze occasionally. It's like occasionally this person comes up and bullies me for no apparent reason. That's because it's a psychological conflict in here. They're being motivated has nothing to do with me.

It has everything to do with what's going on inside them. So nowadays, I see a lot of stuff about shadow work in like a really sexy kind of way. Like, oh, like get in touch with your shadow and you will find some sort of deep dark power within you and you will be like reconnect with yourself and stuff like that. And I do think shadow work can be incredibly helpful. I've seen it help a lot of people who are like incredibly high performers where nothing is wrong with them.

but they sort of feel burnt out. They feel like they're sort of not, they're like kind of going through the paces of life. I think shadow work is really helpful for people who struggle with like motivation. And interestingly enough, shadow work has also been incredibly helpful when dealing with people who are like stuck in life and sort of have this failure to launch where they like didn't really amount to much, but they had a bunch of potential. So that may sound weird because, okay, how can it help someone who's like a high performer who's burnt out and someone who had a failure to launch?

And I think that's where we just have to understand really what the shadow is. Okay. So this concept of the shadow was developed by Carl Jung.

And I think one of his very classic diagrams about the shadow will sort of give us a clue as to what this is. Okay. So here's you. So you have lots of thoughts and feelings on kind of the inside. Here's your conscious mind and your unconscious mind. And then you have a sense of ego. You have a sense of I am this. Right. So this is what you are consciously aware of. If I ask you, who are you? Your mind is going to have some perceptions of who you are. I'm a good person. I'm a bad person. I'm a bad person.

I'm compassionate. I'm a pervert, like whatever. You have all kinds of internal thoughts. So then what happens is in your conscious mind, you have all these attributes of yourself. But then between what you really are and the outer world is something called your persona. So there are only certain attributes of myself that I show to the outside world. OK, and I think the best way to understand it is to look at his very classic diagram, which I have here.

which will sort of show us what these parts are. Okay, so I'll sort of explain this a little bit in more detail. When people hear about our coaching program, their first response is usually, why would I work with another human being when I can watch YouTube videos all on my own? Working with a coach is about amplifying your time and effort. We're great at wanting things and even making some progress, but we usually struggle with follow through or have some kind of setback.

And that's exactly where working with a coach can help. Coaches provide personalized support to help you set appropriate goals, make progress, and even work through setbacks. Just let us know what your goals are, what kind of support you're looking for, and we'll match you with the best coach for your unique needs. Check out the link in the description below to see if coaching is right for you. So in the middle, we have the self. Okay? So this is conscious, and this is unconscious mind.

So we have our sense of self. And if I were to ask you, who are you? What you would do is you would say, I am dot, dot, dot, right? So you'd attach certain attributes. Maybe you're a good person. Maybe you're a little bit of a pervert, right? Maybe you've got a kink. So this is your ego. This is your conscious conception of who you are. But then out here is the outer world, okay? And between the ego and the outer world is something called your persona, right?

So this is the part of yourself that you project to the outside. So if we take some of these, you know, things that we are, if we take the ego, we're going to cross these two things out and I'm just going to project that I'm a good person. So if we kind of think about your sense of identity, there's who you are on the inside. There's who you show to the outside world. Down here is the shadow. So the shadow develops in a really interesting way.

So here's you as a kid, right? So when you're a baby, you have a brain and your brain has all kinds of impulses. So your brain sometimes wants to take things away from other people. Sometimes doesn't feel like sharing. Sometimes wants to get angry at your parents for not being there for you. Sometimes wants to wiggle your little butt around and make farting noises and things like that. You have all kinds of impulses. So as these impulses arise, right?

Society either punishes you or accepts some of these impulses. You are made to feel good or bad depending on what you do. So then what happens with a child is they start to suppress some of their impulses.

Right. They learn over time, hey, this is bad. So I'm not going to do this. This is bad. And I'm not going to do this. And then what they start to do is they start to project and develop others. So this I'm going to do more. I'm going to share. I'm going to smile. I'm going to be kind. I'm not going to be angry. So now the question becomes, where does the stuff that you suppress and block, where does that go? That becomes your shadow.

So this is the essence of shadow work. As we grow up, there are certain parts of ourselves that we suppress, that we block off, that we think of as bad. Now, when we do this suppression, there are two things that happen from a neuroscientific perspective. One is that we're pruning a lot of our dendritic connections. So we're like actually adjusting our neuronal pathways, right?

So in some ways, the things that become parts of our shadows, we truly do get rid of. Like they're gone forever. Like I believe this from a neuroscientific perspective. Okay. That's normal. So like good examples of this are things like potty training. So once we develop certain pathways, we are permanently in control of our bowels until they reach a certain point. But there are certain things that are basically permanent changes.

And we can have permanent changes in potty training. And we can also have permanent changes in some amount of like emotional change within us. So we can strengthen our ability to suppress anger. We can control our anger. We can actually become less angry. I do believe that's possible. We don't do that for all the negative emotion. So the unfortunate thing or fortunate, depending on how you look at it, is that for a lot of the things that we suppress, they don't truly disappear. We simply become numb to them. We wall them off. Let's say I am taught

to be caring and share a lot with my friends, even though I don't feel like it. Even though I'm conditioned to be a certain way doesn't mean that that's actually the way that I feel deep down inside. What I'm doing is I'm suppressing this part of myself. So I see this a lot with like people who are, you know, who get parentified a lot. So when children become the caretakers of their parents,

What tends to happen is they have a lot of thoughts and feelings which are dormant underneath the surface, which they have to wall off. They are not allowed to feel those feelings. But those feelings of, let's say, resentment or anger or sadness or whatever kind of feelings you have down there will still exert some pressure on you and will cause problems in your life. So basically what we're doing is I am a complete human being.

Right. And when we think about a child, we think about a child as innocent. What is the difference between an innocent child and a cynical adult? The biggest difference is the parts of themselves that they deny. Right. So I see this a lot, for example, with people who are struggling with their sexual identity or gender identity, where they are suppressing a part of themselves and it causes all kinds of problems in their life.

Really good examples of this are also like people who are bullies. So bullying is, generally speaking, an insecurity within me. And in order to block off, in order to deal with my feelings of insecurity, if I can make you feel small and me feel big as a result, right? Because now I'm better than you, then I will feel better about my own insecurity. If I feel small in here, but I can push you down and elevate myself...

That makes me feel good on the inside. Bullies do that for a reason, right? They're basically trying to suppress their own insecurity. So this is what we tend to see when we develop a shadow, is that we wall off a part of ourself and it causes problems. So really good examples of this for the people that I work with that are incredibly successful. We're talking about engineers at Fang. We're talking about directors at places like Goldman Sachs or Lazard. Like these are major investment banks. We're

We're talking about people who are like trauma surgeons, like people who are incredibly successful content creators. Oftentimes what they do is when they're growing up, they are taught not to have fun. They're taught not to be angry. They're taught to be bots.

I'm going to turn you into the most efficient cog in this machine. I don't care about your artistic stuff. I don't care about what you want. I don't care about your joy. I'm going to craft you into a successful human, right? I'm going to, you're the project. We're going to turn you into something perfect and you must be perfect. But this is a child.

And they want to have fun and they want to make fart noises, but we're going to make all of that go away. And then you get conditioned. And as you get this conditioning, you start achieving. And as you achieve, you get some degree of positive reinforcement, right?

Right. But the reason you need that positive reinforcement is because you don't feel good about yourself on the inside, because those natural impulses that you had to make fart noises and make art, all of this creative self-expression and joy, the desire to play games with my friends instead of study on a Friday night, all of that gets squashed. So there's something fundamentally incomplete within you.

And then you get stuck in this cycle of I feel incomplete because I basically cut off the parts of myself that bring me joy because who the fuck needs joy? You need to get into Harvard, kid. That's what we have to do. Like we have to be successful. So now that you don't feel fulfilled on the inside, now something beautiful happens. As you start to achieve, you get some degree of approval from the outside. And as you get this approval from the outside, since you're missing something on the inside, it feels really good.

It's not a perfect substitute, though. It's like a meal replacement shake instead of food, right? So it kind of does the trick, but it doesn't really feel you satisfied. But then what happens is you get it gets reinforced. Now you need to achieve more. Now you need to achieve more because remember, it's achievement that makes you feel good about yourself. But an achievement doesn't last for a decade. You need another one and another one and another one. And so then you get stuck in this trap of high performance. You get stuck in imposter syndrome. I saw this so much.

When I was like doing, you know, stress management and resilience work at Harvard Medical School, working with medical students and residents who are like the best of the best. And they're chasing not this hedonic hedonistic treadmill. They're on this treadmill of like continuing success where I need more money. I need more prestige.

And like no amount is enough, right? Like even to this day, like it's conditioned so deeply. Like my mom will tell me about random achievements from like people from our social circle. And it's like, yeah, I mean, I think it's great, you know, that someone else achieved something. But she's constantly making comparisons. And it's like, I don't know what more you need, mom. Like I went to Harvard Medical School and like I'm one of the most famous psychiatrists on the planet, but...

I guess you still need something else. My point is that this is the treadmill that people fall into. The only antidote is to be healthy on the inside, to be content on the inside, right? And this is where shadow work comes in. Because if you really want to stop chasing the next big thing, what you need to do is be happy on the inside. You need to be whole on the inside. Happy is actually not the right word. Whole is a better word.

And so a big part of shadow work is integrating our negative portions of the self. So that's high performers. Next thing that we're going to talk about is actually the opposite picture. And I see this a lot too. So, you know, when I started my private practice, I was working with all these high performers, but there was a part of me that's like, look, these are not my people. My people are 25 year old degenerates who maybe graduated from college and never had a job, never had a girlfriend. These are my people. I was born on Twitch. I was born on the internet. I was born on 4chan. That's where Dr. K came from. So I help these people too.

And what I see in them is a far more dangerous shadow than cutting off joy. What I see in them is when they were growing up, they had positivity, right? They actually did accomplish something in life. They were passionate and excited and they were social. They were able to make friends.

They were so incredibly social, but they're on the spectrum. But they have ADHD. But they have parents who are depressed, who don't know how to teach them social skills.

So they had a lot of positive potential. These are the gifted kids. Then what happens is something happens that punishes them for that. I have Asperger's syndrome. I'm really social. I love people, but then I get bullied. I try to socialize with other people and I get punished for it. I've also seen really, really terrible cases of

you know, kids who did really well in school, whose parents were so jealous of them that they started punishing them. They started sabotaging their child's ability to succeed. They didn't encourage them to go to college. They said, hey,

You don't need to go to college. You need to start working. At the age of 15, you need to help out in the family store. Now that you can work, we're going to hold you down instead of elevating you. And what I see in these people is that they've walled off their confidence. They've numbed out their positive potential.

And so what happens is anytime they strive to do something, that energy that I can do it, that sense of confidence, that sense of like I can accomplish something actually gets actively suppressed. And then what happens is they get in this really weird situation where intellectually they know that they're capable. They know that they can do it, but something in them is blocked and shadow work helps these people.

people. Let's understand how. So remember that the shadow forms because we wall off a part of ourself. And there are two problems that this creates. The first is that the parts that we wall off become toxic and will infect other things.

So one of the ways that we can do shadow work, one of the best things that we can use to figure out what our shadow is, because remember, the shadow is unconscious, right? So it's like we don't know what the shadow is. That's what makes it so hard to do shadow work. So one of the things that we're going to use is something called projection. So projection is when a human being has something in here that I don't like about myself, I'm going to shift that.

This bad thing about me because my ego can't handle that I am this way So what my ego ends up doing is I take this negativity in me and then I shift it around to someone else So here are some examples of projection number one that I've dealt with is people who are homophobic repressed homosexuals So they have homosexual thoughts and feelings they are conditioned in such a way where these are bad. These are terrible You know, you should these are you know, the sin the devil and

Things like that. Right. And I'm not even making a value judgment about whether that's true or not. I'm using it as an example of projection. So then what happens is I hate this part of me. Right. I'm taught to hate this part of me. And it like hurts to do that. Right. Because you're

it's very exciting. And it's like potentially even love. Like these are like people who will fall in love with someone of the same gender. And then I want you all to imagine for a moment how painful it is for something like love to be demonized so much. Now, the ego can't handle this level of cognitive dissonance. You know, you just can't function

Unless your ego is like unified in some way. Right. And some of y'all know what I mean, because there are times where you are so internally conflicted that you literally can't do anything. I want to study, but I don't want to study.

I'm trying to avoid this thing, but I really need to do this thing. And you are literally paralyzed. That's what happens, right? So when we're internally conflicted, if I'm trying to pick up this glass of water with one hand and pull down this glass of water with the other hand, the glass of water doesn't move anywhere. So our ego, in order to move in any direction, suppresses particular things.

And then it has to get rid of it. So I've learned to hate homosexuality within myself. And then what pisses me off when I see someone else who's gay, who's living their best life? Oh, I had to make these sacrifices. I had to. I learned that this was the most terrible thing. The only way I could function was to demonize it so much. And now I see you out there living your life, being happy with the person you are, and

I want y'all to think for a moment about how hard that is for me to sit with. I lopped off my own arm and here you are waving at me with two hands. Impossible to deal with cognitively. So then what happens is I take the self-hatred, because it's really hard to hate yourself, and I project it out towards this person. This person is wrong. This person is a sinner. And this is why, like, you know, not to, I'm not trying to get political here, but the number of, you know, stories I've heard about people

conservative politicians who end up having very homophobic rhetoric who engage in homosexual acts is like really high. Like it's really weird, right? Like, I don't know if you guys have heard of those stories, but whatever. So another example we've already touched on, which is the bully, which is I feel bad about me in here.

So instead of like feeling weakness in here, because oftentimes bullies are abused, right? So they're like physically abused at home. So I'm made to feel small or emotionally abused or sexually abused. So I feel bad in here. How do I deal with those feelings of badness? I'm going to take these feelings and I'm going to put them onto someone else.

I'm going to project them out. You're pathetic. You're weak. I'm going to show you how weak you are. That's like, like this is something that always, you know, confused me. I got bullied a lot when I was a kid and I was like, why the hell does this guy do this? Right? Why do they show up every day? What do they get? Like, I'm just minding my own damn business. I'm not bothering them. And they show up every day on the playground and they just randomly show up. And for some fucking reason, it's like,

You know, just like you sneeze occasionally, it's like occasionally this person comes up and bullies me for no apparent reason. That's because it's a psychological conflict in here. They're being motivated. It has nothing to do with me.

It has everything to do with what's going on inside them. I'm simply the screen on which their projection arises. So bullying is another good example. A couple of quick examples that we'll go through. One is like marital infidelity concerns. So this is something that I see quite a bit where like when I'll see the inside of relationships, sometimes there'll be one partner who is

that the other partner is cheating. But one of the most likely outcomes is the partner who is paranoid is the one who is either cheating...

Right. Or is has desires to cheat or wants to cheat. But those kinds of feelings are so hard for our ego to sit with that we push them out onto other people. So that's how projection happens to the last thing that we'll talk about is victim blaming. So victim blaming, I think, is a really good example of projection. It's a very much more modern example. Right. Where we're like, so, you

you know, we don't want to accept that I am guilty for something. So instead what I'll do. So like, if I feel like I am guilty of something that's hard to sit with, there's a really easy way, right?

To deal with your internal guilt, which is simple. You just make it somebody else's fault. If you make it somebody else's fault, you have no reason to feel guilty. Your guilt goes away. Right. So I see this a lot with like, you know, people who are survivors of trauma and stuff where like their their abusive partner will say, like, why do you make me do this? Right. There's a hilarious like South Park episode, which is terrible, but also funny.

But where they sort of like, you know, in classic South Park fashion, where like there's someone who's an abusive relationship is like, why do you make me do this? That's not no one's making you be an abusive asshole. Right. But that's what happens is you feel guilty in here and then you can project that out and blame someone else. So this is kind of how the shadow works. Projection is a really, really important part of like how to understand your shadow.

And more broadly than projection is, I would say just judgment in general, right? So if you want to understand where your shadow is, you need to look at the things that you judge harshly. And then you need to ask yourself, where did you learn to judge this harshly? Where did you learn that artists are pathetic, right? Where did you learn that, oh, like...

people who like don't work really hard, right? So I see this a lot with these like toxic Sigma grind set folks where they're like, unless you've got a side hustle and a double side hustle and a third side hustle, like unless you are working your body to the point of absolute destruction, you are not working enough. Like you hear all this kind of crap, right? And you've got to like ask yourself, where does that come from? Where does the loathing

laziness come from? It comes from themselves because they hated themselves for being lazy and then they changed, right? They stopped being lazy. They had to take this part of their laziness and they had to destroy it. And when they destroyed this part of laziness, they became something else. And

And if they see someone else with work-life balance, that really pisses them off because that person didn't have to make all these sacrifices. What do you mean you can make a sufficient amount of money and have fun? Yeah, it didn't work like that. That means I made a big mistake. I didn't have to make these sacrifices. That's how you know you're projecting. Now, here's the next thing. So a lot of times when we talk about shadow work, I see this a lot with like the podcast bros with like, yeah, like I did shadow work and I had such a great like revelation. Now I feel like interconnected does all that.

Fine. But the primary thing, here's how you know if you're getting close to your shadow. The thing that you'll feel the most often is humiliation. So remember, you are harshly judging something, right? So that's a negative thing. So as you reconnect with it,

the most common emotion you will experience is actually humiliation. So let's run through a couple of examples. So for the person who has repressed homosexuality, right? So they have immense feelings of guilt and humiliation if they ever explore their sexuality. Makes sense. For even someone like the bully, when a bully realizes what they do, right? When they realize...

Like this negativity within them, generally speaking, what do they feel? They feel ashamed of themselves. I see this in the failure to thrive crowd too. And this is so devastating, right? This is the gifted kid crowd. When they, if they ever try to connect with their positivity, if they ever try to connect with their potential, they feel so humiliated because if they had the potential to do it, if you really could have done it all along, why the hell did you end up here?

Right. You could have had a good life, but you squandered it. The amount of humiliation with like the realization that, oh, I could have done it, but I screwed up. Instead, what they do, and this is how the shadow works, like they wall it off. They say it was never possible for me.

I'm lazy. I have ADHD. They make excuses for themselves. So they never have to face up to the responsibility and therefore the humiliation of recognizing even at the age of 32, if you wake up tomorrow and you really are willing to face the music, deal with your emotions, put yourself in humiliating situation after humiliating situation, apply for an entry level job, even though you graduated from Harvard. Start.

Start socializing with people who you think are rejects. Start having conversations with people where you feel really ashamed of yourself. You can even do it today. And I've seen it, right? I've helped these people do this. But the primary thing they encounter is humiliation. So if you're trying to figure out where your shadow is, first of all, look at the things that you judge harshly and then ask yourself, where did you learn to judge those things? Chances are those are things that you yourself experienced, right?

which because of the way you adapted in life, you had to make those things, those parts of you bad. Second thing is as you get close to those things, you may feel pathetic and humiliation. If that's what you feel, you're moving in the right direction. This is internal work. We don't want this to be like,

other people humiliating you. Now, what are the advantages of doing this kind of work? So when you find what this thing is, recognize that it is a part of you, right? There's a part of you that is angry. There's a part of you that wanted to have fun. When we start to integrate this part back into, instead of suppressing it, it's a part of me. I am flawed, right? Turns out I'm gay. Turns

Turns out I do have the potential. Turns out I can do it. Really hard to deal with. Turns out that I don't need to work this hard. Turns out that I want to have more fun. Turns out that I do feel angry towards my boss. Turns out that I do have these feelings of insecurity and infidelity, and I'm not sexually attracted to my partner anymore.

These are all things that are really hard to deal with, but you have to accept them. Once you start accepting them, depending on what your problem is, all kinds of things will change. So when I work with high performers and they accept their shadow, they tend to have more vigor in life. They feel less burnt out. They start being motivated towards useless things, things that don't pad their resume, but just bring them enjoyment.

It's amazing. Like they start to live a fuller life. Now, fuller doesn't I think it's better. But here's what we have to understand about fuller. Fuller means a wider range of experience. So that may mean feeling more sadness, more anger, more guilt. But it's a more complete life. When I work with people who are high performers, their life is like empty but successful. And so if you want to live a fuller life, not necessarily a better one, this is what's also hard to understand.

It's a fuller life, but then you'll feel better. On balance, it's absolutely better. You'll start to become more innocent. Now, for people who are like failure to launch, their life will also be fuller. But what they will add to it is confidence, positivity, potential, hope. And hope is a very, very hard thing to have. I don't know if this kind of makes sense because once you open yourself to hope, you open yourself up to crushing disappointment.

And that's how you learned how to be hopeless in the first place, right? It was a protective mechanism to protect you from disappointment. Because what hurts human beings the most, if I expect this much and I get this much, I'm fine. If I expect this much and I get this much, I'm sad.

If I expect this much and I get this much, I'm happy. So I want y'all to think about this for a second. If I want to win this equation in life, what do I need to do? Have my expectations at rock bottom. So at a minimum, I'm not disappointed and anything else becomes positive. This is how people learn hopelessness. So to be able to hope again is one of the benefits if you're a failure to launch person and you do shadow work.

So there's been a lot of information about shadow work kind of going around. I really love it as a concept. And at the same time, I think that it's not quite what people think it is. If you feel like your life is incomplete or you feel like you're angry at the world and you judge people really harshly and you want to change those things, shadow work is the way to do it. Thanks for joining us today. We're here to help you understand your mind and live a better life.

If you enjoyed the conversation, be sure to subscribe. Until next time, take care of yourselves and each other.