Healing the Shadow Self

HEALING THE SHADOW SELF

Much of our inner life with its feelings and deeper motivations of why we do what we do is hidden in the deeper recesses of the soul and remains unknown even to ourselves. These feelings and doubts and fears get pushed down and suppressed, and they make up what are called the shadows of the unknown self – our shadow self. 
When David wrote Psalm 32 he portrays to us his life as a man who was taken from shame and guilt into acceptance and forgiveness, and from despair and depression into fulfilment and joy - and transformed from his shadow self into his true self. And he encourages us to embrace this kind of transformation through God’s love and mercy and forgiveness. In this psalm David starts off paying tribute to the blessing of the magnificent mercy and forgiveness of God. He then recounts the damage and torment he did to his soul by keeping everything in the shadows before finally opening up to God and letting his light and truth come in to his heart. Then he gives thanks for the safe place of refuge that he finds in the presence of God and he rejoices in the powerful blessing of his inner transformation, encouraging us to trust God for this same blessing.

Psalm 32:1 Blessed is the one whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered. 
2 Blessed is the man against whom the LORD counts no iniquity, and in whose spirit there is no deceit. 
3 For when I kept silent (h?âra??; concealed or ignored the state I was in), my bones wasted away through my groaning (aga) all day long. 
4 For day and night your hand was heavy upon me; my strength was dried up as by the heat of summer. 
5 I acknowledged my sin to you, and I did not cover my iniquity; I said, “I will confess my transgressions to the LORD,” and you forgave the iniquity of my sin. 
6 Therefore, let all the godly pray to you while there is still time, so that they may not drown in the floodwaters of judgment.
You are a hiding place for me; you preserve me from getting stuck in a place of trouble: you surround me with shouts of deliverance. 
7. (And then God says) I will instruct you and teach you in the way you should go; I will counsel you with my eye. Don’t be like a horse or a mule, without understanding, which must be curbed with bit and bridle, and will not stay close to you. Many are the sorrows of the wicked, but steadfast love surrounds the one who trusts in the LORD. Be glad in the LORD, and rejoice, and shout for joy, all you upright in heart!

DAVID’S TRIBUTE TO GOD’S LOVE AND FORGIVENESS
This Psalm starts off speaking about three expressions of God’s of love, in his forgiveness and covering and mercy towards us of our three areas of failure and liability in our human nature which are, transgression, sin, and iniquity. Each of these is defined specifically in the original Hebrew language; 

Transgression - (p?e??a‘); means active resistance, revolt or rebellion. This is the act of deliberate and wilful disobedience to God’s moral and spiritual laws. David said that he received forgiveness for those things from a forgiving and eternally loving God (Jeremiah 31:31). Right from the beginning God never stopped loving his children Adam and Eve and he forgave them their transgression. He also required that they bear the consequence of their disobedience – primarily the startling and unfamiliar experience of feeling separated from God, which would disappear whenever they repented and received his forgiveness and redeeming love. 

Sin - (h???t?â’â); means an offence – turning from the path and missing the mark. This is the experience of being led astray by wrong desires and falling into sin through temptation. David was temped into committing adultery with Bathsheba and subsequently sending her husband into the front line of battle where he was killed. 
And even though David knew that he was covered by God for those things because of the blood of sacrifice, he also knew he would bear the consequences of his sin, and suffer much grief because of it. We read in this psalm of the sorrow and remorse he went through because off his guilt.

Iniquity – (avown); means the twisted or distorted nature of our flawed humanity right from the time of our birth. David said that this was not counted against him.
David describes his iniquity (avown) in another psalm; 
Psalm 51:5 Behold, I was born in iniquity… You delight in truth in the inward being, and you teach me wisdom in the secret place of my heart. 

DAVID’S PAIN AND SORROW THAT OPENS HIM UP TO GOD’S LIGHT
That is why David said in Psalm 139 Search me, O God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts. See if there is anything offensive in me, and lead me along the path of everlasting life. 
David realized he was getting in the way of God’s light into his heart so that all he could see was his shadow - the shadow of the unknown side of his sinful self, the false vision of himself living independently from God and getting stuck in a place of trouble (vs 6). He knew that God knew everything about him and that God didn’t have to search him in order to find out what he was like. What David was saying was ‘Lord I want to know about me what you know about me’. David wanted to know what was in the shadow side of his life so that he could make way for God to transform him into the man that God wanted him to be. David knew by his guilt and shame that there were things inside him that had led him into deep sin. He also knew he had been driven by his natural instincts to react defensively and aggressively in the face of threat and danger. 

He tells us in this psalm that what caused him so much sorrow and suffering was the struggle with the burden of his hidden sin and his doubts and fears and wrong motivations, and he was honest enough to want to know about them and to be transparent about his shadow self.
Our shadow self is a bundle of everything we don’t want to know about concerning this painful life of ours because we have a life full of our own aspirations and plans that we want to get on with and it is scary and painful to face the why and how of the pain. We cannot ignore the very real pain of those hidden shadow feelings even though our inner shadow self with its hidden feelings and deeper motivations and its doubts and fears can get pushed down and suppressed so that we can remain unconscious of them. Our pain will always come to the surface while everything else can stay hidden. 
when David faced that shadow self and came into the light of God’s Word he received healing from the guilt and shame and the emotional and mental pain.

When David wrote in the Psalms, he opened up his life to us as well as to God - his thoughts and feelings and his successes and failures. He does not only open up his own life to us but he also mirrors the soul of humanity and the journey of that soul as it changes its attachment from a self-serving pursuit of fulfillment and happiness to its attachment to God’s heart.
David is an example in the Bible of an Old Testament person living with a heart for God and prophetically enjoying a New Testament experience of mercy and forgiveness and the attainment of true fulfilment and happiness through God’s love. The Bible tells us that he was called ‘a man after God’s own heart’ (Acts 13:22) and he writes in Psalm 139:16 – all the days for me were written in your book, as God has done for each one of us. We are drawn into the life of David where we can often see our own hu manity reflected in his life. Even Jesus in his humanity as the perfect Son of God who was without sin is called many times in the Bible ‘The Son of David’. David opens up that book of his God-loved and God-forgiven life for us to read, inviting and challenging us to do the same and to be healed from our shadow self to our true self. 

THE NEW LIFE OF TRANSFORMATION 
Paul quotes David from Psalm 32 in Romans and brings this experience of David’s healing of his shadow self into the New Testament through the work of Jesus on the cross and he mentions those same three areas of failure and liability.

Romans 4:6 … “Blessed are those whose transgressions are forgiven, and whose sins are covered; blessed is the man against whom the Lord will not count his iniquity.”

So this psalm is central to the gospel and points out the path of true peace and happiness to all of us who are made aware of our shadow self, and upright enough in heart (righteousness) to take responsibility for it. This awareness often comes about when we have failed ourselves and God through our stumbling and falling and our hurtful reactions to situations. However, this blessing in disguise of being made aware of our shadow self can set us free from the harmful spiritual and emotional and physical effects of darkness so that we can find healing and growth in our spirit and soul. 

Just as our weakness and failure of our natural life is hidden in our shadow self, our New life of faith is hidden with Christ in God. And just as light and truth reveals our failures, his light and truth reveals to us our true self as God created us to be in Christ, accepted and forgiven, endowed with individual creative gifts that are waiting to be expressed and enjoyed. 

The journey of the old natural mindset that creates its own pathway to fulfillment and happiness starts at around age 3 or 4 when we begin to plan ways to achieve our own program for happiness, which is about having what we want when we want it, and using unpleasant measures such as demanding attention, emotional manipulation and crying, and anger tantrums. The difference between children and adults is that adults have learned to become more skilled and subtle about pursuing their fulfillment and happiness program. 
In this old natural mindset as adults we still want to control the circumstances around us, and to get attention and approval for everything we do and to feel secure about our material possessions, and along with around 8 billion others we pour all our emotional and mental and physical energy into those pursuits. We are willing to change our careers, our appearance and identity labels, and even our names, but ask us to pour our energy into changing our heart to pursue a life devoted to God and we resist at all costs. People are too busy with their programs, even religious and prayerful ones, wanting that bit of extra control maybe just over a few things, even sometimes over God, and quoting a Scripture to him just for good measure.

The kind of transformation that David is talking about in this psalm is not about being changed from a bad person to a good person, or from a non-churchgoer to a churchgoer; transformation is about being changed from living in the natural shadow of our false self to living in the light of The Holy Spirit in our true self. 
That transformation is what the Bible means about what our salvation really is – sozo – salvation – healing of the shadow self at the present moment. It means far more than going to Heaven one day – where there will be no more tears no more sorrow no more shadow self. 
That is why the Bible says ‘Now is the day of salvation (2 Corinthians 6:2 - sozo – healing). This is the time for the healing of our shadow self – here and now. We have the presence of God but what can be missing is our being present to God. Being present to God means two things; the first thing is simply to BE THERE and honouring that time as belonging to God and CONSCIOUS of his love for you and of his supernatural activity for good towards you at that moment. The second thing is to PRESENT yourself to God as his new creation yielded to his will for your life and confirming this by giving thanks to him in your current circumstances. I believe that at this time in history there is a work of the grace of God drawing us into being PRESENT with him and to him with our whole heart and mind.