A friend of mine was in the midst of purchasing a church. It’s so marvelous that he was constantly in prayer around the purchase and was guided to the right lawyer who initiated a discovery process that revealed that the building had a sewage line under it. If this wasn’t discovered and an issue came up in the community it would have cost my friend and his congregation thousands of dollars. It would have been a city problem; it would have been his problem.

I have been doing a lot of work on my shadow side lately and I realize that our shadows hold the keys to our true freedom and our power. The psychologist Carl Jung says, “We have a shadow that contains parts of us that we try to hide or deny.” Why? We’ve been taught to believe that they are unacceptable. Yet, they are still there.

We all have these hidden powers within us. But we don’t always allow ourselves to use them. We have all been hurt and we have learned to hide parts of ourselves so we don’t get hurt again. This is understandable. Yet the barriers that we have built keep the good out, as well as, the not-so-good.

In Debbie Ford’s book, The Dark Side of the Light Chasers she says, “Everything we hate, resist or disown about ourselves takes on a life of its own, undermining our feelings of worthiness.” The hidden aspects that we have rejected still need our attention. Inside of these hidden aspects are our most valuable treasures. It takes a lot of energy just trying to keep these hidden parts hidden.

Psychotherapist Connie Zweig, author of Romancing The Shadow says, “The shadow represents one of the most important yet least understood aspects of human nature. We all have a shadow, the challenge is to meet it face-to-face. Unless we come to terms with our own dark side we’re condemned to be its victim.”

You can identify your shadows by looking at what you project onto others. When you deny a trait in yourself, you tend to be very aware of that trait in other people. In the 12-step tradition, they say, “If you spot it, you got it.” This means that you are most aware of those traits in others, which reflect your own shadows. You may react irrationally to one of these traits in someone else, becoming unduly annoyed and blowing things all out of proportion.

You can also notice the traits, which you admire the most in others. Who do you look up to? Who are your idols? We often project our golden shadows onto others and get stars in our eyes, because these people represent the qualities we have disavowed in ourselves out of a false sense of modesty. You could say that we paint other people with our shadows, for better and for worse.

Another way to spot your shadows is to look for things you find yourself doing by accident. No matter how hard you try to keep your bag sealed, your shadows may leak out in a way that seems beyond your control. For example, you may promise yourself that you’re going to spend more time with your family, when you actually spend more time at work. You may find yourself jumping into a questionable relationship, when you know that this person isn’t right for you. You may ignore your own rules about eating, smoking or drinking. When you repeat a pattern of behavior involuntarily, it is a sign that your shadow is running the show.

Jung says, “The gold is in the dark.” We must find that gold in order to reunite with our sacred self. We are here to make peace with all the various parts of ourselves.

If we feel good about our own lives we seldom care what others say. In order to be truly authentic we have to allow the aspects of ourselves that we love and accept to coexist with the parts that we judge and make wrong. It’s a process of integration. We can then take off our masks and live in transparency.

I invite you to take a journey this fall. A journey to the land called “You.” The rewards of this exciting and tempestuous journey can be tremendous. This quest can lead to the possession of the inner Holy Grail: The vessel of fulfillment in love, happiness and a deeper, richer experience of life. This deep journey takes place on the interior. The journey is not for the meek. It requires the courage and faith to enter into your own darkness and harvest the gems of maturity, honesty and greater self-awareness.

The path begins when you are willing to muster up the courage to see yourself honestly. When you can permit yourself to be in a painful situation without shutting down or moving into black or white thinking. When you can “just be” and allow yourself to feel all of your feelings surrounding a situation, then you can tap powerful creative and spiritual energies that are waiting to go to work for you.

Joan Gattuso in her book, A Course In Love illustrates an easy exercise she learned from author Ken Keys.

Write down the name a person who affects you at the top of a page. Draw a line down the center of that page and write down all the things you like about the person on the left side and all the things you dislike on the right side. Before each item that you have on the left side, write I love myself when… (complete the sentence with what you have written about the person on the left side). Next, for each item that you have on the right side, I don’t like myself when… (complete the sentence with whatever you wrote about the person on the right side). This is a simple way to recognize that what you see in another person is really about you.

Look at everyone in your life to whom you react strongly – parents, lovers, co-workers, friends… everyone. Once you uncover a layer of traits another layer will expose itself. This is an inner journey about you. This work is about you removing the sewage lines that prevent you from “feeling” free and happy. This work is about you reuniting with your sacred self. For more “how to’s” I strongly recommend Debbie Ford’s book, The Dark Side of the Light Chasers.