Doing shadow work is of significant importance - especially if you’re strangely drawn to horror and aren’t completely sure exactly why. The shadows may be calling you to face them. Bring a lantern or some other form of illumination with you as you heed the call. This is some messy Light Vs. Dark endeavor.
The term “Shadow Work” may sound sinister, eerie even, but it is primarily about psychology. Analytical psychology, to be precise. The “Shadow” as a blindspot, as an unconscious part of the psyche, is a concept explored by psychoanalysts like Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung, along with countless more that aren’t as widely known in the field. The "Shadow" is something to work on in order to develop psychologically toward a more cohesive and complete existence.
And personally, as someone inevitably obsessed with comprehending human nature, I have both observed and experienced the validity of it. Yes, we have a shadow. Some have a greater, more threatening one than others. But we all have what is called a shadow at some point and to some degree. As complex creatures, fitting molds and roles, there are aspects of ourselves that we’ve yet to see or even refuse to see. These are pushed to the background, repressed, suppressed, or even denied. There, they continue to operate in ways outside of our conscious awareness. Bringing self-sabotage, self-destruction, and more. Consequently, the remedy for this is exercising self-awareness. Ruthlessly so.
People that acknowledge their shadow rarely scare me. They announce or make obvious the presence of their darker traits and we can all prepare and act accordingly, taking them into consideration. But the people that hide it, that don’t engage in shadow work, often creep me out. And it is baffling to me that there are cultures, with “good manners and etiquette”, that normalize pretending that all is fine when it is not. It is so horribly unnatural and it shows through forced words and smiles, through a halved presence. Sure, there are cases in which a person is truly so utterly elated that there is little to no room for anything contrary to that; their light might be so powerful at that moment that it swiftly vanquishes any darkness. But those cases aren’t as frequent as we’re led to believe.
If you don’t do shadow work, you are prone to denial and to projection. This drives you away from the truth and, ironically, away from (genuine) light. The accuracy of your perceptions and interpretations will gravely suffer. And although you could try to convincingly still make sense of them, some will catch your incoherence and potentially, for good reason, see you as a hypocrite.
Besides manifesting in ugly ways that will make you look bad and ruin your reputation, not doing any shadow work can screw you up and your character in other ways: mental, emotional, physical, and spiritual. Many personal issues can be symptoms of an absence of shadow work, a lack of integration of your whole being into your life. They can be considered loud and persistent signs, as though creatures from the other side are desperately attempting to communicate with you however they can, that something is terribly wrong within you and should be addressed soon.
Because you are literally neglecting a huge and essential part of yourself, as it happens with other organisms, it will cause you to rot - and that rot will spread and stink. Maybe you’ll be able to cover it up enough to fool yourself and others, but it can still be sniffed out and give some a “bad feeling” about you, sensing “something off”, if not completely turn them off around you and push them away from you for reasons beyond their (current) understanding while their intuition picks up on what their logic could later put together. As for what it will do to you, specifically, if it continues to get worse, it will gradually or rapidly drive you mad - more so if you are one of the few meant for extensive shadow work and mastery.
Fortunately, however, shadow work can be done and, nowadays, the science behind it is not as obscure and the resources for it are in abundance...
Have you done shadow work? Are you or will you?