What Is Shadow Work? Lessons from My So-Called Life About the Parts of Ourselves We Leave Behind
There is a moment in My So-Called Life when Angela Chase seems suspended between worlds. She is no longer the child her parents recognize, but not yet the person she will become. She dyes her hair crimson, drifts away from Sharon, is pulled toward Rayanne’s intensity, and becomes captivated by Jordan Catalano. From the outside, these look like ordinary teenage choices.
From the inside, they feel like questions.
Who am I?
Who do I want to become?
Who am I allowed to be?
Part of what made My So-Called Life unforgettable wasn’t simply its honest portrayal of adolescence. It understood something timeless about becoming a person. Every relationship invited Angela toward one version of herself while quietly asking her to leave another behind.
Most of us imagine this struggle belongs to adolescence.
Jung believed it belongs to all of us.
To live with other people, we develop a personality. We learn which parts of ourselves invite love, which create conflict, and which seem safest to keep hidden. Gradually, almost invisibly, we begin identifying with certain qualities while distancing ourselves from others—not because those qualities disappear, but because they no longer feel like us.
Today, the phrase shadow work often appears alongside journal prompts and invitations to “face your dark side.” While these practices may encourage self-reflection, Jung’s understanding was both broader and more hopeful.
Shadow work is not simply about confronting what is dark.
In Jungian psychology, shadow work is the ongoing process of recognizing, understanding, and integrating the hidden or disowned aspects of the personality. It is less about uncovering something broken than entering into relationship with the parts of ourselves we left behind.
What Is Shadow Work?
At its heart, shadow work is the process of becoming conscious of aspects of ourselves that exist outside our usual awareness.
Those aspects certainly include qualities we struggle to acknowledge—envy, resentment, fear, shame, selfishness.
But they also include confidence, creativity, anger, tenderness, desire, and vitality.
The shadow isn’t a psychological storage room for everything bad about us. It is the place where the psyche holds everything that no longer fits the story we’ve learned to tell about ourselves.
One of Jung’s most enduring insights is that personality is always partial. Every time we say, “I’m just not an angry person,” or “I’m the responsible one,” we are also deciding—often unconsciously—what doesn’t belong in that identity.
Perhaps confidence was called arrogance. Sensitivity became weakness. Anger threatened connection. Creativity seemed impractical. Sexuality felt too dangerous.
The shadow isn’t your worst self.
It’s who you learned you couldn’t afford to be.
The shadow doesn’t begin with evil.
It begins with exclusion.
Becoming Someone Means Leaving Someone Behind
Children rarely think in psychological language.
They don’t say, “I’m repressing part of myself.”
Instead, they absorb thousands of small relational experiences.
The excitement that makes a parent smile.
The joke everyone laughs at.
The dream no one takes seriously.
The tears met with impatience.
The curiosity that’s dismissed.
The anger that’s punished.
Over time, the psyche learns something essential:
Some parts of me belong.
Other parts are better left unseen.
The shadow forms because the psyche is trying to preserve relationship. Before we know ourselves, we learn how to stay connected, becoming exquisitely attuned to the emotional climate around us. We discover which parts of ourselves invite closeness and which seem to threaten it.
Sometimes authenticity and belonging grow together.
Sometimes they come apart.
When they do, many of us choose belonging.
The cost is that pieces of ourselves are quietly left behind.
Angela, Rayanne, Sharon, and the Many Selves We Carry
Seen through a Jungian lens, My So-Called Life becomes less a television show about teenagers than a story about the formation of identity.
Angela’s relationships are psychological.
Sharon represents continuity—the familiar self, the version of Angela that already knows how to belong.
Rayanne embodies spontaneity, instinct, rebellion, and intensity. Angela is drawn to her because Rayanne expresses qualities Angela has barely allowed herself to imagine.
Rickie Vasquez represents another way of belonging—and not belonging. His vulnerability and resilience remind us that identity is never formed in isolation but within relationships that either make room for us or ask us to become someone else.
And then there is Jordan Catalano.
Jordan is one of television’s most famous crushes, yet what makes him psychologically compelling isn’t simply who he is.
It’s how little Angela—and we—actually know about him.
His emotional distance leaves enormous room for imagination.
Angela falls in love not only with Jordan, but with everything he awakens inside her.
Longing.
Desire.
Mystery.
Possibility.
A version of herself that feels larger than the one she already inhabits.
Jung called this projection.
Projection isn’t simply seeing something that isn’t there. It is discovering that another person has become the bearer of qualities we have not yet recognized within ourselves.
The less Jordan reveals himself, the more room there is for Angela’s imagination—and her unconscious—to fill in the gaps. She isn’t merely captivated by Jordan himself; she’s captivated by the possibility of who she might become in relation to him.
The same thing happens throughout adult life.
We admire someone whose confidence feels impossible.
We resent someone whose freedom feels irresponsible.
We envy an artist whose creativity seems effortless.
We become captivated by someone we barely know.
These moments matter because they suggest that unconscious life is trying to become conscious.
The relationship is real.
But it is rarely only about the other person.
Why Shadow Work Can’t Be Done Alone
One of the great paradoxes of shadow work is this:
How do we become aware of something that, by definition, exists outside awareness?
This is why shadow work is often misunderstood as an exercise in introspection.
Journaling can be deeply valuable. Meditation can deepen awareness. Reflection matters.
But the shadow is not simply forgotten information waiting to be remembered.
It is a way the psyche has organized itself.
Instead, the shadow tends to reveal itself through encounters.
A relationship that feels strangely charged.
A recurring conflict.
An unexpected emotional reaction.
A dream that refuses to leave us.
A creative block that seems to carry its own intelligence.
These experiences interrupt the story we already tell about ourselves.
That interruption is often where shadow work begins.
Dreams and the Symbolic Life
Jung believed the unconscious speaks differently than consciousness.
Where the conscious mind prefers explanations, the psyche speaks through images.
Dreams.
Poetry.
Paintings.
Films.
Fairy tales.
Myths.
Rather than telling us directly who we are, symbols invite us into relationship with meanings that cannot yet be fully explained.
Like myths and fairy tales, My So-Called Life gives form to experiences that are difficult to describe directly. We recognize ourselves in Angela not because her life is identical to ours, but because her questions are.
Who am I becoming?
What have I left behind?
What parts of myself are still waiting to be lived?
Jung believed these questions don’t have final answers.
They become companions for a lifetime, returning through dreams, relationships, creativity, and moments of unexpected recognition.
The task is not to solve them.
It is to remain in conversation with them.
Therapy as a Relationship With the Unknown
If the shadow forms in relationship and reveals itself in relationship, perhaps it also heals in relationship.
Many people imagine therapy as a process of figuring themselves out. Jung imagined something more collaborative. Within the therapeutic relationship, recurring patterns, dreams, projections, and familiar ways of relating gradually become visible—not because the therapist possesses hidden answers, but because two people are paying careful attention to the life of the psyche together.
The work isn’t to expose every hidden corner of yourself or finally become “fixed.”
It is to become less frightened of what you’ve had to leave outside awareness.
This is one place where Internal Family Systems (IFS) beautifully complements Jungian thought. While Jung wrote about archetypes, complexes, dreams, and symbols, IFS offers another language for understanding our inner world. Although these traditions developed independently, they share an important assumption: we are not one simple, unified personality. We are composed of many inner experiences that deserve understanding rather than rejection.
Whether we call them shadows, complexes, or parts, healing begins when we stop asking, “How do I get rid of this?” and begin asking, “What is this part trying to protect?”
The goal is not to eliminate the shadow.
Nor is it to become perfectly self-aware.
It is to cultivate a relationship with yourself that is spacious enough to welcome what once felt impossible to acknowledge.
The Recovery of Wholeness
Perhaps the most hopeful aspect of Jung’s understanding of the shadow is that it asks us to reconsider what has been hidden.
Not every forgotten part of us is wounded.
Some are simply waiting.
Waiting for a relationship where they can emerge safely.
Waiting for a dream that lingers after we wake.
Waiting for a painting, a poem, or a conversation that reminds us they are still alive.
Many people come to therapy believing something inside them is broken.
Jung suggested something different.
Perhaps the problem is not that these parts disappeared.
Perhaps they adapted.
Perhaps confidence became arrogance because it threatened someone else’s comfort.
Perhaps tenderness became weakness because it wasn’t welcomed.
Perhaps creativity was dismissed as impractical.
Perhaps anger became dangerous because it risked losing love.
If those qualities once had to disappear in order for you to belong, it makes sense that they would become difficult to recognize later in life.
Shadow work invites us to meet those forgotten qualities again—not with judgment, but with curiosity.
This is why Jung called the larger process individuation.
Individuation is not self-improvement.
It is not becoming a more polished version of your existing personality.
It is the lifelong movement toward psychological wholeness through a more conscious relationship with both the known and unknown aspects of yourself.
At the end of My So-Called Life, Angela is still becoming.
So are we.
Perhaps individuation is less about inventing a new self than welcoming home the selves we once believed we had to leave behind.
That is the deeper invitation of shadow work.
Not perfection.
Not self-improvement.
But the quiet, lifelong work of becoming more fully ourselves.
Continue the Conversation
If you’ve been recognizing yourself in this essay and want to explore your shadow with greater curiosity and compassion, therapy can help.
At Lumenso Wellness, we offer Jungian-informed psychotherapy in Cincinnati and virtually throughout Ohio, Arizona, and Minnesota. We integrate approaches such as Internal Family Systems (IFS), EMDR, and ACT to support the lifelong work of psychological growth and wholeness.
If you’d like to learn more about our approach, explore our pages on Jungian Therapy or IFS Therapy or reach out to schedule a consultation.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is shadow work dangerous to do on your own?
Shadow work isn’t inherently dangerous, but it can bring powerful emotions, memories, or longstanding patterns into awareness. Journaling, meditation, dream work, and creative practice can all be meaningful places to begin. If your exploration starts to feel overwhelming or touches unresolved trauma, working with a therapist can provide a supportive relationship in which those experiences can be explored safely.
What’s the difference between shadow work and therapy?
Shadow work is the process of becoming aware of the parts of yourself that exist outside conscious awareness. Therapy is one place where that process can unfold. You may encounter your shadow through dreams, relationships, creativity, or major life transitions. Therapy offers a space where those experiences can be explored with curiosity and care.
How long does shadow work take?
Shadow work isn’t a technique with a finish line. Jung described psychological growth as individuation—a lifelong movement toward greater wholeness. Rather than completing shadow work, most people return to it throughout life as new experiences reveal new aspects of themselves.
Do I need to know Jung to start?
Not at all. You don’t need any background in Jungian psychology to begin exploring your inner life. The work begins with curiosity: noticing recurring relationship patterns, paying attention to dreams, engaging creativity, and becoming interested in your own emotional responses.
