Shadow Work Quotes

• One does not become enlightened by imagining figures of light, but by making the darkness conscious.

  Carl Jung

  Love Life, Suicidal, Knowledge

  Carl Gustav Jung, Herbert Read, Gerhard Adler, Michael Scott Montague Fordham (1973). “The Collected Works of C.G. Jung: Alchemical studies”

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• Shadow work is the path of the heart warrior.

  Carl Jung

  Heart, Warrior, Path

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• 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

  Intention, Individual, Conscious

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• The true work of art is but a shadow of the divine perfection.

  Michelangelo

  Christian, Art, Perfection

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• 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 psychotherapuetic measure frequently requires much painstaking work extending over a long period of time.

  Carl Jung

  Real, Dark, Self

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• 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

  Life, Self, Profound

  Connie Zweig, Steven Wolf (2009). “Romancing the Shadow: A Guide to Soul Work for a Vital, Authentic Life”, p.6, Wellspring/Ballantine

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• 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

  Work, Shadow, Who We Are

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• 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.

  Chuck Palahniuk

  Fall, Association, Jung

  Chuck Palahniuk (2003). “Diary: A Novel”, Doubleday Books

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• 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

  Fall, Dark, Cameras

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• Poems are always interested in what Ivan Illich called 'shadow work,' not least because that is no small part of their own way of working.

  Jane Hirshfield

  Shadow, Way, Small Parts

  "Of Amplitude There Is No Scraping Bottom: An Interview with Jane Hirshfield". Interview with Rebecca Olson, tinhouse.com. March 16, 2015.

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