The parts you don't like about yourself were there to protect you!

It’s strange, isn’t it? The parts of us we try so hard to hide, the jealousy, the defensiveness, the anger that flares out of nowhere, are usually the ones that once kept us safe. They were never the villains. They were the shields.

This idea comes from shadow work, a term first introduced by Swiss psychologist Carl Jung. He called the “shadow” the part of our psyche that contains everything we repress: traits, memories, or emotions we learned weren’t acceptable. Maybe you were told to “stop crying” when you felt hurt, or that “good kids don’t talk back.” So you pushed down anger, sensitivity, assertiveness, or whatever part of you was labelled “too much.”

But here’s the thing: the brain’s first job is survival, not happiness. So it adapts. It builds strategies.

If, as a child, being quiet kept you out of trouble, your brain learned silence equals safety.If being overly helpful kept you loved, your brain learned self-sacrifice equals belonging.If acting tough stopped others from mocking you, your brain learned walls equal protection.

Those patterns don’t disappear when we grow up; they just change shape. The quiet child becomes the adult who can’t speak up in meetings. The helper burns out trying to please everyone. The tough one struggles to trust love.

That’s the shadow at work: not evil, not broken, just outdated protection.

So what does “integration” actually mean?

Integration isn’t about fixing or getting rid of those parts. It’s about seeing them, understanding why they exist, and bringing them back into balance.Think of it like inviting an old guard dog to rest. You thank it for protecting you all those years, but you let it know the war is over.

When we integrate the shadow, we become whole again. We stop fighting ourselves. The anger that once exploded becomes assertiveness. The fear of rejection turns into boundaries. The people-pleaser learns that saying no is not abandonment; it’s self-respect.

It’s not glamorous work. It’s often uncomfortable, sometimes raw. But it’s also deeply freeing, because nothing has more power over you than what you refuse to look at.

Try this: Journaling prompts for shadow integration

1. What behaviours or traits in others trigger me the most, and how might those live in me too?

2. When I was a child, what emotions was I not allowed to show?

3. What part of me feels most “unacceptable”? What might it be trying to protect me from?

4. How does this protective part still serve me today, and how does it limit me?

5. What would it look like to honour that part instead of fighting it?

You don’t have to dive into your shadow all at once. Sometimes it’s enough just to notice it, to pause and think, Oh, that’s my protector showing up.

Shadow work is not about becoming someone new. It’s about remembering who you were before the world told you to hide.And learning that even your darkest parts were, in their own clumsy way, trying to love you all along.