Shadow Dance

Liberating the Power and Creativity of Your Dark Side

By: David Richo

Narrated by: Russell Bentley

Discover how to embrace the dark side of your personality, the unconscious and repressed aspects—or the shadow self, as introduced by Carl Jung—to live a fuller, more authentic life.

Our “shadow” is the collection of negative or undesirable traits we keep hidden—the things we don't like about ourselves or are ashamed of, but it also includes our positive, untapped potential. The shadow is often a source of creative inspiration and greater self-acceptance. Befriending the shadow makes fear an ally and enables us to live more authentically. It also automatically improves our interpersonal relationships, because we are freed from the need to project our own negativity onto others, and we become more acutely aware when theirs is projected onto us.

David Richo looks for where the shadow manifests in our personal life, family interactions, religion, relationships, and the world around us. He shows how to use the gentle practice of mindfulness to work with our shadow side, and he provides numerous exercises for going deeper. He is remarkably skillful at making the shadow concept not only easy to understand but supremely practical for enhancing the quality of our lives.

©1999, 2024 David Richo Trust (P)2024 Shambhala Publications

potential plagued by left-wing bias

I have all of Richo's books and they make interesting, worthy points at times.
This one book, however, intermixes equal parts of self-help with the usual left-wing manifesto.
For example, the footbal macho guy who is a closeted homosexual ought to discover his hidden self in the open...what if his hidden self requires to join the ALT-RIGHT or to take a tiki torch to protest the removal of a Confederate statue? The political messaging gets in the way...too much of the time: 1/5