THE ACCRESCENT™ PODCAST EPISODE 229

Leigh Ann Lindsey (00:00.906)
Okay, well, Nadia, welcome back to the Accrescent Podcast.

Nadia Rae Brackett (00:03.554)
Hi. Thanks for having me back. I’m really excited.

Leigh Ann Lindsey (00:08.518)
It was so sweet because after our last episode released, then we were on campus pretty soon for residential for our program. And I was like, Nadia, your episode is like by far the most listened to episode this whole year.

Nadia Rae Brackett (00:25.484)
I don’t even know what to say to that. I mean, I’m so grateful and humbled. Why do you think that is?

Leigh Ann Lindsey (00:27.489)
You

Leigh Ann Lindsey (00:33.708)
I think, and we talked about this a little bit, I think people are really hungry for the depth perspective to psychology. think there’s just an element that really resonates that the cognitive behavioral therapy, sometimes emotional bypassing approach that psychology takes is missing something. And I think there’s a part in all of us that’s yearning for the soulfulness and the psyche and the depth.

that comes with it. So it was just, it was really cool, especially because that was my first episode ever on the topic of depth psychology. So I had no idea where it was gonna go. I was gonna be like, I don’t know, maybe no one will listen, even though we’re fascinated by it. So it was cool to see.

Nadia Rae Brackett (01:15.048)
Yeah, I mean, it’s so heartening to know that people are really, really craving this work and this depth and we have more for you today. So stay tuned, right?

Leigh Ann Lindsey (01:28.09)
Yes, I know. Well, we had already planned a part two. And so now we’ll have to maybe make that a part three. But as we started talking off air, as we do, we were like, we got to talk about shadow work and how there’s a lot of rhetoric on social media and pop culture about shadow practitioners and shadow work and get rid of your shadow and face your shadow. And we got on a little bit of a little ramp between ourselves of like

That’s not it. goes so much deeper than what pop culture is making, quote unquote, shadow work to be. And so we were like, we got to talk about this. We got to have a conversation on this.

Nadia Rae Brackett (02:08.338)
yeah, I’m already getting fired up.

Leigh Ann Lindsey (02:10.72)
good. I love it. I think what I want to start, actually where I want to start is what is, what are you seeing pop culture, social media describing social, excuse me, shadow work as? What is kind of the essence you’re getting when you see these posts or some of these individuals posting about it? What is the sense you’re getting from that? And then I’d like to go into how does Young define the shadow and then we’ll kind of go from there.

Nadia Rae Brackett (02:37.99)
Hmm. Would it be okay if I flip flop those? Okay. Okay. Great. Like for my own brain. Okay. So Jung talked about the shadow as like any other part of our psyche, an archetype. A shadow is an archetype and it exists in the unconscious, both personally and collectively. And what it really is is

Leigh Ann Lindsey (02:40.686)
Flip them? Sure, totally.

Nadia Rae Brackett (03:06.944)
the place in which all of the disowned, disavowed parts of self go. So from a very young age, we begin to take note, very unconsciously, of the things that are not loved and admired by the ego of the world, the ego of our parents, the ego of community, of school, of culture, of friend groups, of society.

And we begin very, young going, this part’s getting attention and this part’s getting validation and this part’s getting praised, but these other parts aren’t. And so I need to disown these parts and make them go into the shadow. Again, this is very, very unconscious, but also a brilliant adaptation that us children do. And that’s where it goes into hiding.

What we tend to think is that the things that are disowned or disavowed just disappear. But what Jung was saying is they collect in the unconscious. And from that place, they begin to make noise. They begin to show themselves later in life in effort to be integrated. And you’ll see this.

Leigh Ann Lindsey (04:11.948)
Mm-hmm.

Nadia Rae Brackett (04:29.524)
in the collective shadow as well. So things that we as societies don’t want to pay attention to or don’t want to see, right? We can think of things like, ooh, greed. Okay, selfishness. Okay, like what are the things about yourself and about culture that you really, really wouldn’t want to be identified as or identified with? Those probably exist in the shadow somewhere. So what we’re seeing in

pop psychology is the term shadow work as something that can just be conjured up. Right? Like, okay, we’re doing a shadow work session or I’m a shadow work practitioner or we’re going into the shadow. And the first thing I’ll say about this before we kind of open up and have a conversation about it is

Leigh Ann Lindsey (05:10.958)
Hmm.

Nadia Rae Brackett (05:27.614)
The shadow is unconscious. So first and foremost, like, what’s in the shadow is unconscious. We can’t just willingly, from ego consciousness, conjure up shadow whenever we want. So even just the idea of those things, I have a hard time with because it’s not up to ego consciousness to allow shadow in at any given point. I’m curious what comes up for you.

Leigh Ann Lindsey (05:30.082)
Mm-hmm.

Leigh Ann Lindsey (05:40.846)
You

Leigh Ann Lindsey (05:55.243)
Mm-hmm.

Leigh Ann Lindsey (05:58.886)
Yeah, there, well, there’s just a, there’s a little bit of that ego self inflation, which is like, can go, I can go get the shadow anytime I want. When in reality, the ego needs to humble itself a little bit and go, actually it’s in the shadow because my ego self couldn’t handle it. But to your point, I think what, what can go amiss if we approach it in that way is there’s not enough, maybe safety.

and like attending container that’s created of shadow material can be very confronting. And do I have enough trust and safety with myself to

start to open up that dialogue and allow that to come through. And so my mind goes to two places. One, if we go into that without creating the trust and safety in the container, but also with myself, I might expose myself to things I’m not actually ready to sit with, or it just won’t be that fruitful. Nothing significant is going to come up because the defenses are just too strong because there wasn’t safety created.

Nadia Rae Brackett (06:59.233)
Mm-hmm.

Nadia Rae Brackett (07:05.269)
Yeah, you’re so right. mean, really, they’re one of two options. One, yes, our ego defenses exist for reasons and we need them. Again, the ego is an archetype. It’s not bad or wrong or evil, but it’s not the center of self. It’s just the center of consciousness. And that’s where our egos get us into trouble. Right. And so

The defenses really, really protect us in some very necessary ways, especially in childhood and as we’re growing developmentally. We need our defenses. Those same defenses become less helpful over life, right? And that’s why we begin this work and have to really confront the shadow because Jung said that the experience of the capital S self

right? This merging, this integration of conscious and unconscious is always a defeat for the ego. So it’s hard. It is hard to confront the shadow. It is hard to confront the unconscious. It will feel like a defeat for the ego. I always say it’s like tiny little paper cuts to our egos every day on this journey, right? And at the same time, our ego

Leigh Ann Lindsey (08:09.548)
Hmm.

Leigh Ann Lindsey (08:25.295)
Mm. Mm.

Nadia Rae Brackett (08:32.061)
is trying so hard to protect us. It’s what it wants is to protect us. And so we need to also protect it to allow it to protect us to be able to go into the unconscious. And this is why trauma and trauma consciousness is so incredibly important in these spaces, because if we aren’t tending to trauma and understanding how trauma comes alive,

then we are poking a bear that once it awakens, like it might take over, it might annihilate us. And that’s why it’s so important to have and work with practitioners who really, really take this work seriously.

Leigh Ann Lindsey (09:02.621)
Mm-hmm.

Leigh Ann Lindsey (09:20.674)
And I feel that some of the rhetoric I see on social media, pop psychology, is verbiage like, get rid of your shadow, out your shadow. And so it’s very, first of all, it’s very, what’s the word I’m looking for? Like there’s a start and an end to it.

almost as if it’s like an old expired food on the shelf that, I just need to like take that off my shelf and put it in the trash. And I just haven’t done that yet. But also that it’s something to get rid of or fix. And why might that not be really like a depth psychological approach?

Nadia Rae Brackett (09:51.027)
you

Nadia Rae Brackett (10:03.074)
Well, it’s very heroic that ideal. I can I just repeat this? Okay, great. it’s it’s very heroic that ideology.

It’s like this want and this desire to look at and tend to the shadow as if we are the hero archetype that’s going into the forest and can conquer this thing and will kill the monster and then will take the monster’s head and come back into society, right? And show the world what we’ve accomplished and…

That is so hard because I think our egos are very, aligned with the archetype of the hero. They want a linear nature. They want a goal, right? But the shadow, as Jung would say, is a moral problem for the ego. It is a reckoning, a lifelong reckoning of all the parts of self that we don’t want to see.

Leigh Ann Lindsey (10:55.736)
Mm-hmm.

Leigh Ann Lindsey (11:04.91)
Hmm.

Nadia Rae Brackett (11:16.313)
that we don’t want to acknowledge, that we want to pretend don’t exist. And that is not something that we can just will away. And I think it’s really enticing for our egos to want to desire that because if we can convince ourselves that our shadow is something that we can just get rid of through this like purification model, then it f-

Leigh Ann Lindsey (11:42.99)
purging.

Nadia Rae Brackett (11:44.263)
Yeah, then it feels so much better for our egos because then it’s something that makes us feel less icky or less dark or less capable of things that we don’t want to acknowledge has a potential or has a potentiality in our unconscious.

Leigh Ann Lindsey (12:02.368)
Yeah, and it’s an ongoing process. There might be a start to it, but there’s not necessarily a finish line. I also think the idea of how do you reference it in your practice? And to be honest, I don’t currently use the term shadow that much in my own practice. But if you do, how are you referencing it? Are you saying shadow work, but it means something else for you? Or…

I feel like I haven’t, I kind of know the answer already, but I’d want to hear your input. If, if, and when you reference it with clients, what does that look like?

Nadia Rae Brackett (12:34.516)
What?

Hmm, it’s such a good question because now I’m thinking, do I ever say shadow work? I don’t think I’ve ever said shadow work, you know? But I do think that I will name shadow. I think I will name and be curious about what might be happening in the shadow. What might we be hiding?

Leigh Ann Lindsey (12:47.007)
Yeah.

Nadia Rae Brackett (13:05.064)
What might we be protecting? I also think about internal family systems. And if we think of us having this inner family, these exiles, right, these very young, tender, vulnerable parts of ourselves often exist in the shadow. And our manager parts are more so operating from our ego defenses to protect this shadow. And so I don’t know that I’m often talking about it in that way.

Leigh Ann Lindsey (13:15.79)
Mm.

Nadia Rae Brackett (13:34.41)
But the way that I do conceptualize it with my clients is not always that it’s somehow bad or it’s protecting these terrible parts of ourselves, but sometimes protecting the light within ourselves that has felt too scary to really own, to hold. It’s whatever doesn’t feel safe to be fully conscious.

Leigh Ann Lindsey (14:00.001)
Yeah. Okay, a couple of questions. I’ll speak to that really quick and then a question. This is exactly what I thought you were going to say though, where it’s not, I don’t think many of us, and it’s not to say that it’s inherently wrong, but I don’t think many of us are going, okay, client, we’re doing a shadow work session today. That’s what today is about. I think it’s so much more organic and woven into the broader arc of a session where if in session I might go,

there’s some repressed aspects of self that are causing some turbulence. We might need to sit with those parts. We do that and we might do that for like 10 minutes and then maybe weave into something else. So it’s, I think the sense I feel, at least in my practice is it’s a lot less concrete where it’s like, okay, we are now doing this thing for this set period of time and then it will be done.

Nadia Rae Brackett (14:54.824)
Yeah. Yeah, totally.

Leigh Ann Lindsey (14:57.246)
To that end, I do have a question about the distinction between shadow is repressed aspects of self, disowned aspects of self. That doesn’t necessarily mean it’s just all repressed trauma. There’s a difference, right? And it sounds like the difference is we can have repressed memories and trauma, emotions, narratives.

Nadia Rae Brackett (15:17.344)
Correct.

Leigh Ann Lindsey (15:25.442)
What makes shadow different from that is yes, it’s repressed. Yes, it’s also unconscious, but it’s very specifically the aspects of me that I am disowning or denying exist.

Nadia Rae Brackett (15:36.979)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah, and for myself, for all of my clients, I would argue for everybody in the world, there are aspects in our shadow that, you know, you’ll hear post Jungians call the golden shadow, right? That there are these really beautiful parts that are also in the shadow that may have

gotten pushed into the shadow due to trauma, but they’re not inherently traumatic, right? And so for a lot of us, say you grew up in a family where you were dancing and singing and you were just this little joyful creature and you grew up in a family where that wasn’t okay. That didn’t get your attachment needs met. That threatened your safety.

Leigh Ann Lindsey (16:15.073)
Mm-hmm.

Nadia Rae Brackett (16:34.91)
you got told you were too much. All of those types of things are going to really threaten getting the very real attachment needs met. And Gabor Matei always talks about we have two primary needs as children. We have the need for attachment and we have the need for authenticity. And the need for authenticity will always be the first to go when our

attachment needs get threatened. And so we often will have our most authentic parts pushed into the shadow. And so much of our work is how do we how do we build up an ego, right? Like Jung would say the first half of life is really about developing an ego, right? So how do we develop an ego and use that ego to help us make choices in the world?

Leigh Ann Lindsey (17:05.41)
Mm-hmm.

Nadia Rae Brackett (17:31.454)
to make careers, to find out who we are, right? To like make a claim about who we are as humans in this lifetime. And the second half is to like learn how to really let that go by getting in touch with the shadow, right? And I think a lot of that is doing trauma work that allows us to get to what the contents of the shadow are, but not everything in the shadow is due to trauma.

Leigh Ann Lindsey (17:44.62)
Yeah.

Leigh Ann Lindsey (18:00.377)
Mm-hmm.

Nadia Rae Brackett (18:00.882)
Is that answering your question? Okay.

Leigh Ann Lindsey (18:02.799)
100%. I wanted to just make sure the audience understood shadow isn’t just anything that’s been repressed. It’s very specifically disowned aspects of me. I love that you brought up the golden shadow. This is something I was going to ask about or make sure we touched on, which is it’s not always inherently what we might label quote unquote negative things, right? I know for myself, I have shadow elements where I’m like,

I really hate it, but sometimes I can be really, really sensitive and like a little bit dramatic. And I have times I call her my princess persona. with my partner where I’m just like, I just, I just really want to feel like no one else exists in the world. And all I think, all you think about is me and you just can’t wait to hear from me and text me and like, what do you, what do mean? You don’t want to see me tonight. But I joke about it I’m like, yeah, princess persona is like really active right now.

And then it allows it to soften. But initially I get insecure about, my gosh, why am I prickling at this thing? it’s my princess persona. It’s the part of me that really wants to just be worshiped like a goddess by my partner. But I also have had to work with, and I almost feel like the golden shadow is harder for me. I’d be curious your thoughts on this because I have the shadow around.

Nadia Rae Brackett (19:15.593)
Yeah, yeah.

Nadia Rae Brackett (19:23.443)
Mm-hmm.

Leigh Ann Lindsey (19:30.883)
that’s too shiny. If I let that out, people around me will feel bad or insecure. Or if I really let that shiny part out, will I outgrow the people around me? Will the people around me feel like they can’t connect to with me anymore? Whatever it might be. And so that is, feel really important because I think that’s also something missing in a lot of pop psychology is the disowned parts of self can be

Nadia Rae Brackett (19:45.609)
Yeah.

Leigh Ann Lindsey (20:00.461)
really lovely, beautiful parts that are here to serve a purpose and maybe even be a part of our highest purpose here on this planet.

Nadia Rae Brackett (20:09.073)
Right, right. I love that you’re talking about this because it really goes back to what Gabor Mate says, right? It’s like that part of you might be acting in this princess persona way because if she were, if she felt safe to really embody what it is that she feels underneath it, that might be more threatening than to be acting more like the princess version, right?

that’s trying to get that same need met, which is, see me, right? See me. And that is so true about the shadow is that if we’re not conscious of it, it’s going to come out sideways. Even the beautiful, radiant golden aspects of self, it’s going to come out sideways because it needs to get our attention.

Leigh Ann Lindsey (20:44.002)
Yeah.

Leigh Ann Lindsey (21:07.407)
Hmm.

Nadia Rae Brackett (21:07.569)
And it doesn’t really get our attention when it comes out super positively, because how can it when it’s repressed? So it’s going to come out in a sideways way.

Leigh Ann Lindsey (21:15.673)
Yeah.

Leigh Ann Lindsey (21:21.035)
you’re, it’s so funny, it’s like you’re reading my mind, because you’re answering my next questions before I even get to them, which is the broader question that I think is important we sit with is why, why even talk about shadow? Why even be concerned with shadow? If we have a lot going on in our shadow that we’re not tending, how does that ripple out in our life in maybe limiting or sometimes negative harmful ways? And then

Nadia Rae Brackett (21:26.623)
You

Leigh Ann Lindsey (21:50.175)
What do you see start to shift with clients when we contend and go into relationship with the shadow and change our relationship with it?

Nadia Rae Brackett (22:00.318)
Yeah, I mean, I think the easiest way to see the collective shadow is look at what’s happening in the world right now. Look at the amount of war and genocide and pain and dismissal of humanity that’s projected from culture to culture, society to society, right? Like where we other and where we make ourselves right or make another wrong, right? That is where

not tending to the shadow individually compounds and creates this global scale collective shadow, right? So just painting it in very broad strokes. And then if we take it more personally,

Our shadow is the bridge to self, capital S self.

Leigh Ann Lindsey (22:52.675)
Hmm.

Nadia Rae Brackett (22:54.617)
It is the thing we have to get in touch with if we ever want to truly be in relationship with self or with consciousness, with highest self, with whatever you want to call it. And this is very, very depth psychological in the sense that Jung talked about integration. It’s not about

healing, it’s not about fixing, it’s not about anything other than integration, connection, consciousness, because it is a lifelong journey to be in relationship with self. And we will never in this lifetime get to a place where we are fully whole, fully healed, fully aware of our shadow. The well just gets deeper and deeper, right?

But the very real repercussions of not doing this very real inner work is never really living to our potential. And I don’t mean that in a very achievement, linear, like patriarchal potential, heroic kind of potential.

Leigh Ann Lindsey (24:08.399)
Hmm.

Nadia Rae Brackett (24:19.698)
but more so your soul’s potential. What does it really mean for you to be here, to be alive, to be human, to take up space, to have dreams and desires and wants and longings and hopes and disappointments? Like, what does it really mean to be here? And when we aren’t grappling with the unconscious, it’s like we’re not really living.

Leigh Ann Lindsey (24:49.293)
Yeah, there’s, it’s funny now this word shadow, as you were saying that I get the image of a ghost moving through not fully embodied, not fully formed. It’s a wisp of itself. And when we don’t integrate the shadow, we move through life like a shadow. Not fully vibrant and in color and…

and embodied in material were kind of a wisp of ourself.

Nadia Rae Brackett (25:21.66)
Yes, it’s so true. And Jung said that enlightenment does not come from imagining figures of light, but by making the dark conscious. Like, the enlightenment, the fullness, right? When I think of a ghost, it’s translucent. Like, it’s not grounded, it’s not here, it’s not alive, right? It’s like…

Leigh Ann Lindsey (25:34.219)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Leigh Ann Lindsey (25:48.665)
Mm-hmm.

Nadia Rae Brackett (25:51.359)
to not be living fully is to avoid the shadow. And that’s really hard and really painful because to get in touch with the unconscious and with the shadow is painful. It’s why so many people don’t do it.

Leigh Ann Lindsey (26:11.683)
Yeah, in practical terms, there’s two things that come to mind too expanding on this. One is what you’ve already spoken to, which is shadow is gonna talk to us whether we’re listening or not. And so sometimes it’ll come out screaming and that will cause us to, I think, show up and act in ways that aren’t maybe our most authenticity where.

because it’s been ignored for so long, it’s coming out in ways we don’t necessarily want it to. So that’s one. And that might look like, my gosh, why did I just go off on my partner like that? That’s super out of character for me. That doesn’t happen very often. I almost felt like out of control of myself, like some other part of me took over and that just came out. Or I’m actually, thinking of myself in this golden shadow a little bit where it’s like,

I think because I’m denying some of these parts that feel they have a lot to do, I can get self-inflated in ways because those parts are like, I want to be seen. I deserve to be seen. I deserve to be let out, but I’m not letting them out. So it almost comes out in this like excess of inflation in other ways that I really have to work hard to check myself with.

Nadia Rae Brackett (27:28.861)
Right.

Right, the grandiosity is coming in to try to compensate for this very real aspect of you that’s like, look at me. But doesn’t know how to do that in a way that’s conscious and embodied. So it has to come out in that way to get your attention, right? It’s like, it’s brilliant.

Leigh Ann Lindsey (27:39.886)
Yeah.

Let me out.

Leigh Ann Lindsey (27:49.935)
Yeah. And then on the other side of that, so that’s, that’s more external, how it, that could impact my family, my relationships, my career, my professional relationships, so many different things. And I think that’s easier for us to click into is, yeah. Ooh, yeah. I’ve seen where I can kind of act out in those ways and project in these ways and feel like something just took over me and that wasn’t my most authentic self.

And so that helps us go, yeah, that might be, you know, okay, if I maybe sat with my shadow intended it, that might be something that could support some of these things that happen. But on the flip side of it, more internal is just, I think the dis-ease that is ever present when we are not integrated. When we have these exiled, cast off, denied parts, it’s not, I think sometimes we think of them so,

What’s the word I’m looking for? Almost like an object, right? Back to the food analogy. Like this is just a can on my shelf I need to throw away rather than, this shadow part, that’s like four-year-old me. Are we actually trying to like kill four-year-old me? No way. And I’ve heard clients tell me that they’ve had practitioners tell them like, we need to kill that self or get rid of that part of you. And I’m like, ugh.

Nadia Rae Brackett (29:17.085)
What?

Leigh Ann Lindsey (29:17.227)
I don’t think that’s it. And so it’s not it’s. Yeah, but to that end, like I really do get this visual sometimes of like my house, right? My inner house. And sometimes I have these parts like locked away in a room. Sometimes they’re not even allowed in the house. They’re like locked out in the backyard. They’re not allowed in to the party and the.

Nadia Rae Brackett (29:22.718)
scary.

Leigh Ann Lindsey (29:45.215)
dis-ease that creates within my soul of how I’m treating myself on this very, very fundamental, unconscious level that I think so many of us have wounds of people telling us we’re not good enough, your bad parts aren’t allowed here, and that hurts us so deeply, but we don’t realize we’re doing that to ourself.

Nadia Rae Brackett (30:09.682)
Yeah, yeah, thank you so much for sharing that. Yeah, we’re fragmented. And these parts of self in the unconscious are fragmented from consciousness, right? And whenever we’re fragmented, we are not living authentically. How can we? What does it really mean to live authentically? Right?

It’s a word I keep having a harder and harder time with in my life every day. It’s like, what does it really mean to be authentic?

Leigh Ann Lindsey (30:38.69)
Thank

Nadia Rae Brackett (30:44.765)
When we just so willingly, and I like how you put it about when we inflate ourselves so much to think that we just have access to our shadow at any given point, we’re actually missing the whole point. The shadow, our shadow will open up for just like a minute and then close back down, right?

Leigh Ann Lindsey (31:09.305)
Totally, totally.

Nadia Rae Brackett (31:11.289)
It’s like so much of what we call shadow work is actually ego work. And if we want to get in touch with our shadow, we first have to get in touch and build a healthier relationship with our egos, because without a healthier, more resilient ego, without ego strength, we will never be able to actually touch shadow material. And I think so much of what people are calling shadow work sessions.

Leigh Ann Lindsey (31:34.895)
Hmm.

Nadia Rae Brackett (31:40.399)
are really ego work sessions.

Leigh Ann Lindsey (31:42.975)
Mm-hmm. Yeah. How can I develop the courage, strength, anchoring to be able to look at this thing that I have avoided looking at probably my whole life? This is such a well timed conversation because, like I totally had an act out this weekend with my partner where we had one of the best couple days together we’ve had in the

Nadia Rae Brackett (31:56.817)
Mm-hmm.

Nadia Rae Brackett (32:06.16)
Great.

Leigh Ann Lindsey (32:12.739)
that we’ve been spending together. And two days later, I am overcome with the need to like grill him on all these questions. And the urgency and the franticness beneath it where it’s just like, can’t wait, I need to call you, like we need to talk about these things right now. And God bless him. just was like, first of all, I’m a little kind of, I feel kind of blindsided. We just had the most amazing weekend.

Nadia Rae Brackett (32:23.229)
Hmm.

Leigh Ann Lindsey (32:42.363)
Where is all this fear coming from? What is all of this about? And I’m able to see, yeah, this is a little bit of sabotage. This is a little bit of this is too good to be true. I’m missing something. Let me go through everything again with a fine tooth comb to see if I’m missing something. Because when it’s actually this good, I get really scared. But it was that feeling. then I really do. I don’t know if this happens for you, Nadia, but when I have moments like that,

Cause there’s so few and far between for me that I go through like the dark night of the soul for the next two days of what happened. Where did that come from? Why do you feel taken over? What took over me? Why did it take over me? What can I do differently so that it doesn’t take over me? But to the point we’re making, it’s not

Wow. I really need to lock that part up in a vault. clearly must not have locked her up enough. She was able to get out. It’s, it’s the opposite. It’s maybe if I actually let her out and have a voice at the table, she won’t need to like kick me aside and get into the driver’s street and start driving like a crazy person.

Nadia Rae Brackett (34:03.518)
Mm-hmm. my gosh. Well, one is your friend. I want to hear everything about this. So call me later. And two, as it pertains just to this conversation, it’s like, yeah, these are complexes, right? And what are complexes? Complexes are splinter psyches. They’re split off fragmented pieces of psyche that were injured.

And Jung would say that at the core of every archetype, or at the core of every complex, is an archetype. So if we think of, okay, what is that archetypal energy that wants to come through? Right? Like, what energy is here? But there’s something that, in your own psyche, hasn’t been able to hold

and hasn’t been able to like be in conscious relationship with yet. So it comes out as like an archetypal possession because you said it, it takes over you. It’s no longer you, right? It’s this like ethereal thing that comes through and we all have them. We all have complexes and complexes are such a great way of locating where our shadow material is, right?

Leigh Ann Lindsey (35:10.03)
Mm-hmm.

Leigh Ann Lindsey (35:26.945)
Yes.

Nadia Rae Brackett (35:28.057)
So when you feel that something has taken over you, right? Like, what’s that old saying? I don’t know what came over me. Like the devil made me do it. Right. It’s like, yeah, you were in a complex. Right. So looking at those moments, there’s, they’re teaching moments. They may have very real repercussions in our relationships at work, right? In the classroom, whatever it is. Yeah. We’ll have to.

Leigh Ann Lindsey (35:36.152)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Nadia Rae Brackett (35:56.923)
be responsible and hold ourselves accountable for the ways that they impact us and also what beautiful lessons in those moments it’s an access point to the shadow whereas sometimes we’re like how do I get there right another way is to document your dreams

Leigh Ann Lindsey (36:06.255)
100%.

Leigh Ann Lindsey (36:17.581)
I wanted to ask about this because it’s how might dreams hold shadow material content parts. Yeah.

Nadia Rae Brackett (36:28.957)
Mm-hmm, yeah. Well, I’d like to think that all of our dreams come from capital S self, even when they’re hard, even when they’re nightmares, even when they’re images that don’t feel good. Our psyche is showing us where we are doing too much of one thing, not enough of another thing. Our psyche’s always wanting to bring equilibrium.

Kind of like our nervous systems, we hear a lot about this, right, with our autonomic nervous systems, how our nervous systems want us to be regulated. They’re doing so much to help regulate us. I think our psyches are always trying to help us regulate psychologically. And our dreams show that. And so if we pay enough attention to our dreams, and this is why working with, you know, union analyst or a union…

or depth-oriented psychotherapist or somebody that does dream work is so important. like, just, don’t, I can’t really imagine a world where we’re doing shadow work without doing dream work. Like I just, I can’t see that because I think our dreams are showing us so much without ego interference. We can say whatever we want in waking life, but when we go to sleep, what?

Leigh Ann Lindsey (37:40.355)
Hmm.

Nadia Rae Brackett (37:55.749)
what is our psyche actually showing us?

Leigh Ann Lindsey (37:59.663)
To that end, starting to move into some practical pieces just for the listeners. One, and we might have already covered this, but if there’s anything we missed, where do clues of shadow come out? And one of the, we already talked about one might be, where am I acting out? Where do I feel taken over and just kind of like, whoa, I don’t know where that came from. But if someone’s like, huh, how can I start to…

Get in touch with shadow. Observe where it might be rippling out. Is there anything else you might suggest for them to observe? Reflect on.

Nadia Rae Brackett (38:41.636)
Yeah, I mean, this is such a lifelong conversation and such a nuanced conversation, so I’ll add pieces knowing that it’s going to show up differently for everyone, but one, dreams, two, projections. What are we projecting onto other people when you meet somebody and you really, really don’t like them? Ooh, how do we pay attention to that? Because

Leigh Ann Lindsey (38:54.127)
Exactly.

Leigh Ann Lindsey (39:09.036)
I’m ready.

Nadia Rae Brackett (39:09.596)
Oftentimes, it will show us something that we don’t want to acknowledge within ourselves that we have access to, and or a part of ourselves that maybe this other person embodies so much more easily than we do, that we have a harder time. Really paying attention to the complexes that come into your life and take over you, like

Leigh Ann Lindsey (39:24.321)
Yeah, the envy.

Nadia Rae Brackett (39:38.768)
Like you’re saying, Leanne, you had this part just like, okay, clouded your vision. Those lenses came on and you saw the world in a very specific way for a little bit. And then after you really had to grapple with, my gosh, what just happened? Right? We all have those. And the beautiful thing is that they’ll never leave. Complexes never go away. Right? So paying attention to complexes and

Leigh Ann Lindsey (39:54.723)
Totally.

Nadia Rae Brackett (40:08.335)
and paying attention to inner dialogue when we feel really righteous about something or we say something like, am this, I am not this, I like this, I would never do that. When it becomes this absolute kind of black and white thinking, black and white behavior, we’re hitting a place in ego consciousness.

where the ego feels it has to defend itself. And we want to get curious, well, why? Why does the ego feel like it needs to defend itself, right? So paying attention to when our egos get really activated. And then also the last thing that I’ll say is paying attention to where our nervous systems continually get activated. I feel like that is a portal into the unconscious we don’t often talk about.

Leigh Ann Lindsey (40:38.755)
Mm-hmm.

Leigh Ann Lindsey (40:59.364)
Mm-hmm.

Nadia Rae Brackett (41:04.06)
because we talk so much about nervous system regulation. But if we were able to actually be with the sensations and have capacity to be with the feeling sensations discomfort, what might be hidden in the shadow underneath that?

Leigh Ann Lindsey (41:19.725)
Yeah, completely. And then still on this practical frame and this, this might be hard to answer, but I do want to see if we could give the audience something, which is what might it look like to start to tend our own shadow? We’ve already established in best case scenario, you’re working with a practitioner who has a really, you know,

nuance perspective on shadow has education in that. that’s the ideal, but is this something we can do a little bit on our own? If this is a totally new concept to someone, how might they enter into it? Or are you just like, if this is totally new to you, don’t try and do this on your own, work with someone first.

Nadia Rae Brackett (42:07.421)
Well, I’m laughing because I don’t know that we can always see our own shadow. I think we need another. I think we need a mirror. And so if you want to know your shadow, go ask your partner, go ask your best friend, go ask somebody who’s in your life, go ask your coworker, right? Like they see things in you that you’ll never be able to see in yourself.

Leigh Ann Lindsey (42:23.791)
you

Nadia Rae Brackett (42:35.512)
We need those mirrors. And I can tell you, that’s a hard thing. It’s a vulnerable thing to leave our own little shell and have to go out and really face what those shadows are. I don’t think that if we do it alone, if we could even do that, that it’s really risking in the same way. Not to say that

Leigh Ann Lindsey (42:47.641)
Yep.

Nadia Rae Brackett (43:04.364)
There isn’t shadow work that can be done alone. Again, this is a lifelong process. But if you want to know where your shadow lies, look no further than somebody that sees you every day. Go ask them!

Leigh Ann Lindsey (43:14.447)
Yes, totally, totally. It’s reminding me that maybe a year or two years ago, I asked a couple very, very close people, like, what are three ways you see I hold myself back or sabotage myself? And wow, that was confronting. It’s like, I don’t want to. And you know, there’s a container that’s set up of like,

You know, please share. won’t hold anything against you. You know, this won’t be something I bring back to throw in your face. So I’m even creating safety for them with that. And I’m not just asking random people that that is like a very safe thing that only my inner circle gets to participate in. Because I also think the reality is there are some people who would jump on that opportunity with malice to try and bring you down. So there definitely needs to be discernment.

Nadia Rae Brackett (44:08.356)
Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Who do you trust? Who is there safety with? Yeah, don’t go ask your coworker that you’ve had tension with and have had to go have mediation sessions with your boss. You know, it’s like ask people that you really trust and who really love you. I think it’s great. I mean, just one example for myself is

Leigh Ann Lindsey (44:11.019)
in who we take that to. But yeah.

Nadia Rae Brackett (44:37.123)
When we were at school together last year, I was approached by Holly and Holly’s like, I have something I’d like to share with you. And at that point I was so worried. My ego was so worried that I had taken up too much space in class, that I had talked too much, that I had, you know, asked too many questions, that I was just too much. And there’s a piece of my own shadow, right? So.

my ego will come in and try to do a bunch of things to protect that shadow. And Holly came up to me and I was getting ready to hear the feedback that I just took up way too much space. And she was like, I really encourage you to not have to pad everything before you speak it, because whenever you speak, it’s so powerful and people just want to hear what you have to say without you minimizing it. And I was like,

My God, you know, it was the absolute opposite of what I wanted.

and what I thought I was doing. I thought I was doing something completely different. And it just goes to show that people can see us in ways that we can’t always see ourselves. It challenges our perception of what we’re doing. And, you know, for me, a part of my shadow is feeling safe enough to show up in the world and like make claims, like feel strong enough or

Leigh Ann Lindsey (46:13.23)
Mm-hmm.

Nadia Rae Brackett (46:15.194)
have enough authority to make those claims without padding that here’s this person that gave me permission and she can only see it because it’s coming out sideways in my unconscious.

Leigh Ann Lindsey (46:28.427)
It totally, completely, absolutely. It’s softening. There is so much power in your words. I know. then when this shadow is having all these complexes, it’s bringing to it. And now I’m like qualifying everything I’m saying and padding it with all these things and softening it. kind of dilutes the power of the message. So yeah, it’s so, so powerful.

Nadia Rae Brackett (46:56.411)
Holly.

Leigh Ann Lindsey (46:57.471)
Yeah, thanks, Holly. She’s so great. What I’ll add here is because I’m with you, the essence of shadow is first that it’s unconscious and also that it’s like we don’t want to see it. Otherwise, it wouldn’t be there. So to think that we might be able to just randomly one day be like, OK, what’s in my shadow? And it’s all just going to come up is a little bit of lofty thinking. And to have a safe guide or support or

partner in that can be immensely powerful and I’m always of the mindset that we can always enter into deeper relationship with ourself. And that is what the essence of this is, is how can I be in a more fuller integrated safe relationship with myself? And so I think what comes up for me as we talk is that might not look like trying to immediately identify shadow.

That might look like just conversations in your head or as you’re journaling or as you’re meditating with your inner self of, I know I have exiled parts. I don’t totally know how to get to you. In fact, I don’t even totally know if I’m ready to meet you, but I want to let you know, I’m interested. You’re on my heart. Ultimately, I want to be integrated. I’m going to do what I can to be ready to meet you. Like that’s where it could start in my mind.

Nadia Rae Brackett (48:24.195)
Absolutely, I love that you said that. Yes, let’s stop actively looking for shadow and start actively living and trying to just be conscious, right? it may take years before…

you feel safe enough to really open the doors to the unconscious. This is why ego work is so powerful. This is why, you know, talk therapy sometimes just if we’re at that cognitive level for a little bit can be really helpful, right? Or doing art therapy or doing things where the intention doesn’t become this fixated thing on finding shadow because when we’re doing that, there’s often an unconscious pursuit of

purity or perfection that colludes with the ego and then makes us want to find everything, to fix everything about ourselves. we are not things to be fixed, right? Psyche is not something to be fixed. Psyche is something to be in relationship with.

Leigh Ann Lindsey (49:35.619)
Yeah, that’s it, 100%. I think, and it kind of takes me back to that bigger point, which is yes, how shadow ripples out on family and friends. And we want to care about that. I think all of us as kids experienced our parents’ affecting us in potentially negative, harmful, traumatic ways. And what I do bring it back to is,

the relationship with me, myself and I and the dis-ease, that like chronic low level, maybe sometimes high level just dis-ease, almost like an itch that you can never scratch, an ache that never goes away. And it makes me think of the work I do with cancer and chronic illness and that there are huge elements of this where just where is there just such a dis-ease because I’m just not in relationship with myself.

And when we start to go there, how quickly things can shift and it comes back to, and I promise I’ll start to land this plane. It’s so powerful when I see people just have a quick dialogue with themselves of, I want to have a fuller relationship with you. And I say outer self and inner self oftentimes to avoid like, you know, clinical words, know, outer outer land being like inner Leanne. I want to know you.

I want to have a relationship with you. want to be a safe space for you. And to be honest, I have no fucking idea how to do that right now. And I don’t, I don’t think it’s going to happen today or tomorrow, but my commitment is I’m going to work on it. I’m going to find external support to help me get there and be in relationship with you. But if I’m just coming to you honestly, interlian, I’m not there yet, but there’s an intention to be there and to work towards that. And just that sometimes can be.

Nadia Rae Brackett (51:09.434)
Yeah.

Leigh Ann Lindsey (51:31.989)
massive the piece that comes in from that.

Nadia Rae Brackett (51:35.576)
Yes, yes, yes. Just to piggyback off of that is it’s about feeling safe enough to turn towards ourselves versus turn away from ourselves. And I feel like that’s what I’m hearing with you is it’s sometimes just that intention coupled with the safety to do so. And in that is a remembering, right? Where once we were fragmented, we’re remembering.

Leigh Ann Lindsey (52:00.015)
Hmm.

Leigh Ann Lindsey (52:03.991)
Yeah, what a perfect place to close. Thank you so much, Nadia. This was phenomenal. As always, I can’t wait to hear audience feedback on this because it was so, so needed and so nuanced and soulful. So thank you.

Nadia Rae Brackett (52:17.9)
Mm.

Nadia Rae Brackett (52:23.109)
Thank you so much for having me again.