Own Your Shadow

relationship alchemy sacred sexuality Jun 21, 2025

Let’s talk about the part of you you’ve been trying to hide.

The one you judge or feel ashamed of. 
The one you bury.

The dark side of yourself, that you'd rather not know or own, but that is still there. 
The one that leaks out sideways — in your triggers, your judgements, your stuckness, your drama, your sudden flare of rage or icy silence.

I am talking about the shadow. 

Shadow work sometimes gets a bad reputation.
Some people think it’s heavy, scary, too intense.
Or worse — that it’s “low vibe,” that you should just stay in the light.

The truth?

Shadow work can seem heavy or scary, but it is one of the fastest ways to recover your capacity for joy, bliss, ecstasy, and pleasure. Shadow work is a key to being a highly functioning and integrated human.

The more you work with your own shadow, the more you can meet the shadows in others with compassion. 

As Carl Jung said:
"One does not become enlightened by imagining figures of light, but by making the darkness conscious."

At its core, the shadow is simply this:
Any part of you you’ve rejected, shamed, judged, or repressed.

And when you exile a part of yourself, it doesn’t disappear.
It gets louder.
It starts to run the show from underground.
It triggers you in others.
It creates drama in your relationships.
It dims your capacity for joy, lightness, and shining brightly

There are four key shadow selves I see again and again — in myself, in my clients, in couples I work with:

✨ The Rejected Self: The part you judged wrong. This refers to aspects of ourselves that we deem unacceptable or "evil".

✨ The Lost Self: This represents the parts of ourselves we feel have been lost or forgotten. It can include our true desires, values, gifts or even our inherent intuition.

✨ The False Self: This is the persona we create to please others or conform to expectations in order to survive. It's the "mask" we wear to hide our true selves and can lead to superficial relationships.

✨ The Disowned Self: The shadow side of your mask that you try to deny. This refers to the aspects of ourselves we simply don't acknowledge or recognize. It's the "unknown" part of our shadow, the things we haven't even fully identified.

Examples:

In terms of sexual desire, the shadow selves can show up like this: 

  1. I was slut-shamed, so I reject my sexual desire. This is the rejected self. 
  2. Over time, I forget I ever had sexual desire. My desire becomes my lost self. 
  3. I am an empowered woman, though, so I create a self that is super sexual to make up for this lost self. This super sexual self is the false self. 
  4. Then I am rejected for being too sexual; this is the disowned self. 

 

In love, the shadow selves can show up like this:

  1. If someone grows up with an emotionally abusive father, he might not feel safe to 
    show love. The self who loves becomes the rejected self. 
  2. Over time, his capacity to love becomes his lost self. 
  3. On top of that he might build a false self of being misogynistic, to cover up the experience of not being loving. 
  4. He will sink into the disowned self because he now identifies as an alpha who is beyond experiencing love.

 

This is why shadow work is so essential in relationships.

Without it:

  • We get trapped in the drama triangle — flipping between victim, persecutor, rescuer.
  • We get triggered by our partner’s shadow — or our own (eg. when your partner is angry, you get triggered because you haven't owned your anger)
  • We sabotage connection because we’re acting from old, unintegrated wounds (eg. I believe I am unworthy of love, and so will perform / achieve / become perfect, maybe I’ll finally be worthy of love (false self); or I begin to hate the parts of me that want to be loved (disowned self).

With it:

  • We start to meet ourselves with compassion, not judgement or shame.
  • We start to see our partner’s defences for what they are — protection, not rejection.
  • We reclaim massive amounts of life force we’d been using to keep parts of us hidden.\

 

In the tantric path — and many spiritual traditions — the shadow isn’t something to be “cleared.”
It’s a teacher.
A doorway.
A friend.

In fact, as Carolyn Elliott writes in Existential Kink — when we fully meet our shadow, we can even begin to enjoy it.

To get turned on by the truth that was too dangerous to name. 

It can be liberating to own our shadow self, and it can be healing for the ones closest to us. 

Imagine your friend / partner told you: "I have a shadow that is trying to control everything. It assumes that you are not capable of fixing things yourself, and it uses every opportunity to make you feel small and incapable, to boss you around and micro-manage you. It's in constant competition with you and the world, and I mask it as love. Instead of being ashamed of myself, I will be more conscious of that part in me. I will practice to enjoy playing this role and how powerful I feel when I am in this role instead of actually playing the role out. Can you name it when you see this coming up in our relationship?"

Would you feel saver around them? Would you feel more loved? More cared for? 

 

Here’s the practice:

Next time you’re triggered — pause.
Ask:
“What part of me is not being allowed here?”
“Whose voice is speaking inside of me?” (THIS ALONE IS THE MOST POWERFUL QUESTION YOU CAN ASK YOURSELF)
“What would happen if I welcomed this part instead of shaming myself for it?”

This is not easy work.
It can feel vulnerable.

So go slow.
Resource yourself.
Surround yourself with spaces that can hold your wholeness — not just your mask.

Because here’s what I know:

The more I’ve met my own shadow,
The more I can meet yours.
The more I’ve loved the exiled and shamed parts of me,
The more I can hold space for others when their shadow erupts.

This is not about perfection.
It’s about capacity.
The capacity to stay present with life — in all its forms.

And I promise you:
On the other side of shadow is radiance.
The kind of aliveness no amount of spiritual bypass can ever fake.

 

BOOK A FREE RELATIONSHIP VISIONING CALL HERE

 

With fierce love

Bibi Gratzer 

Sex & Relationship Coach 

 

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