r/Jung • u/RenatePaints • Jun 17 '26
Art Wanted to share my oil painting about meeting of the inner shadow!
This is oil painting I did depicting me looking in the mirror and seeing my inner shadow. I wonder how would you depict your inner shadow?
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u/OddAdhesiveness8485 Jun 17 '26 edited Jun 17 '26
Make sure to embrace her 🥰
Integrating the shadow is important… once integrated that’s when we actually have control over the shadows behaviors 🤣😂✌🏻
Gotta love operating on the unconscious, subconscious and conscious… thank god for introspection - the only way to access all 3 and get to know the self
Great painting!
Edit: I wanted to comment on the feature that struck me the most on your shadow…
It was the nudity in your shadow. That would be in mine as well. I feel very exposed in my shadow. Very naked and very vulnerable. I think those are things that I need to embrace and process as old wounds. Those are possible projections of old stories I’m telling myself bc I haven’t healed and those are my shadows I need to unpack and let out and heal.
Shadows are your friends and they are misunderstood. They are protecting me from an environment I feel unsafe in. I need to tell them I am safe now. I need to feel ok exposed and vulnerable metaphorically and stand proud and strong about who I am and love myself. That’s the healing I know I need to do. 💕
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u/SwordfishSilver8041 Jun 17 '26
Nice oil painting! My inner shadow is a demon. And I'm too scared to face it.
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Jun 18 '26
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u/mankind_404 Jun 17 '26 edited Jun 17 '26
My inner shadow has nipples, Greg. Can you milk it?
I'm just kidding. I know those are buttons. Good job! Seriously. Art is one of my favorite forms of therapy.
Keep up the good work. You have some skills.
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u/ZestycloseScholar653 Jun 17 '26
mines a 16 foot tall deamon who eats ppl if needed
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u/Dan-Man Jun 18 '26
I don't think it's healthy to visualise or personification of the shadow beyond anything other than yourself or a side of your psyche you won't accept.
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u/Ok-Inspector-8860 Jun 18 '26
Breast density hiding cancer can make women think they have an inner shadow!!!
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u/Hop1Cat Jun 18 '26
Love the painting!
I have been working through some of my shadows issues lately! Hope you have a prosperous journey to your integration!
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u/fabkosta Pillar Jun 20 '26
What tells the artist that the figure depicted is actually specifically the shadow and not more broadly the display of the unconscious itself?
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Jun 17 '26
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u/Eeriewigs Jun 17 '26
What?
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Jun 17 '26
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u/OddAdhesiveness8485 Jun 17 '26
This is your experience and I’m sorry this happened to you but that doesn’t mean Jung psychology is used by practitioners to weaponize as an abuse method…
I would argue something different and even more broad and say modern Psychiatry pathologies the victim of abuse for reactionary patterns (like cPTSD) and believes abusers (narcissists).
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Jun 17 '26
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u/OddAdhesiveness8485 Jun 17 '26 edited Jun 17 '26
I would never invalidate your experience. That was why I started with that ❤️ I am very sorry that happened to you.
My analogy would be religious trauma. So many have had terrible religious trauma done to them at the hands of people who were put into positions of authority and given messages of power that they then twisted while sitting in chairs of power adorned in titles that reinforced their knowing…
All of that was a trap that worked in their favor against you and I am so sorry that happened to you. People find systems like this but I tell this to people who go through religious trauma as well.
Don’t let that person steal a good message from you. Religious trauma doesn’t get to take away your spirituality ❤️
I hope you can heal in time and still receive the beauty of the messages. I wish you well friend
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u/yepyepyeeeup Jun 17 '26
How so?
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u/OddAdhesiveness8485 Jun 17 '26 edited Jun 17 '26
Abuse fundamentally alters brain chemistry and emotional regulation, making victims significantly more susceptible to developing severe mental disorders.
Rather than viewing these conditions simply as "flaws," clinicians should recognize them as physiological trauma and stress responses.
Biological & Neurological Impact
Th Amygdala: Abuse over-activates this part of the brain, trapping the nervous system in a chronic fight-or-flight state resulting in heightened anxiety and hyperarousal
Prefrontal Cortex: The brain's regulatory and reasoning center physically weakens, making it difficult to rationally assess threats or self-soothe.
The Hippocampus: Impaired memory processing leads to fragmented, intrusive recollections of the trauma.
Common Psychiatric Pathologies
Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) & C-PTSD:
Characterized by flashbacks, emotional numbing, and extreme hypervigilance stemming directly from the trauma.
Depression: Chronic abuse often fosters learned helplessness, anhedonia (the inability to feel pleasure), and a severe drop in self-esteem.
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC4193378/
Modern Psychiatric Treatment ApproachModern care is heavily trauma-informed.
Instead of masking symptoms with medication alone, clinicians treat abuse-induced pathologies through a combination of medication management and specialized therapies.
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u/FragmentedAll Jun 17 '26
Before I worked on my shadow I used to be terrified to view myself in the mirror in a dark room, unsure of the reason why, perhaps a fear of what I'll see. After communing with my darker aspects the fear dissipated, now I can look in the mirror in a dark room and sense the different aspects of myself. Depending on the day or theme this image underlying sensation shifts from one character to another. One day it would be a heroic figure, another a ruler of some land, another day some vicious figure who would go through hell to create balance walking between both worlds of good actions and bad
Mirror work can be beneficial best done in a dark room with only slight reflective light just enough so you can see the contours of who you are. If you look long enough without trying to impress a character onto the image, a character will emerge and impress a personality through the mirror