by Oli Anderson, Transformational Coach for Realness

How to Reverse-Engineer Your Reactions to see Your Shadow Self and Integrate What’s Real

Most people think the shadow self is something to be feared or overcome but the truth is much simpler and more liberating:

The shadow self is not evil, dark, or ‘bad’ – it’s simply all the ‘parts’ (‘good’ and ‘bad’) of you that you’ve sent into exile because you’ve decided they’re ‘unacceptable’ in some way.

Sometimes, those ‘parts’ are destructive impulses or unresolved pain; other times, they’re beautiful and powerful things – like your natural confidence, sensuality, or creativity – that you’ve buried in the Shadow Territory because they didn’t fit the image of yourself you thought you had to uphold to fit in with the world.

The key thing to understand is that everything in your shadow is real and what’s real never disappears because what’s real is always real meaning that when you suppress parts of yourself, they don’t just ‘vanish’ – they simply move out of sight, hidden behind the mask of the ego: the image you built to be “acceptable” in the eyes of the world.

The ego is like a self-made prison warden keeping the “unacceptable” parts locked away so that we can function without confronting the discomfort of our own depth but what’s real always finds a way to express itself and so, if we won’t meet those parts consciously, they’ll speak to us through projection and reflection usually via other people.

That’s where things get interesting and it’s exactly what this article is going to help you understand.

Let’s dig a little deeper:

Your shadow self is often (not always) revealed in what you don't like about others.

Seeing Your Shadow Self in Others: What We’ll Cover in this Article

How to Reverse-Engineer Your Reactions to see Your Shadow Self and Integrate What’s Real

The Mirror Effect: When People Trigger You, They’re Often Showing You You

One of the most consistent ways our shadow tries to get our attention is through our instinctive reactions to others:

When somebody frustrates, annoys, or even disgusts us, it’s often not just because of them but also because they’re showing us something we’ve disowned in ourselves by sending it into the Shadow Territory so our ego can stay where it is.

This doesn’t mean every emotional reaction is projection because sometimes people really are behaving in ways that are genuinely harmful or toxic but when your emotional response feels disproportionately strong or irrational, that’s usually a sign that something deeper is being poked.

It’s like life is holding up a mirror and saying, “Here’s the part of you you’ve forgotten about”, and if you can listen and feel your way to the other side of your frustration then you can accept some deeper truth about yourself and start taking more real action in your life.

A Personal Example: Strength, Weakness, and Dialysis

When I first started dialysis many years ago, I built a self-image around strength as a kind of survival mechanism for dealing with the situation:

Basically, I decided that the only way to get through such a physically and emotionally challenging situation was to take extreme personal responsibility for my emotions and remain composed at all times.

This aligned with the ego I (unconsciously) created for myself at the time which was based on the premise that ‘strength’ meant never showing weakness.

This strategy worked for a while but, one day, I met another patient around my own age who was the complete opposite of how I had chosen to show up:

For example, he got emotional every time the needles went into his arms, panicked when the machine alarmed, and wore every feeling on his sleeve (often breaking down in tears and sobbing).

To me, back then, it looked like he was just being a bit of a wuss (the direct opposite of how I wanted to see myself) and, so, I’ll be honest – I found it incredibly annoying. His tears, his flustered energy, his open display of fear – it all got under my skin and I started to find myself loathing this guy.

I kept feeling this loathing every time I saw him acting like this until, one day, he had the biggest breakdown he’d had so far:

I had finished dialysing and was off the machine at this time so I went over to comfort him and we talked for a while.

As he opened up about his fears, something ‘clicked’ inside of me:

I realised that what was really bothering me wasn’t him at all…it was me.

His “weakness” was mirroring the fear and vulnerability I’d buried inside myself but I’d been pretending those feelings didn’t exist because I was terrified of what would happen if I let them all out.

What it all boiled down to was that my self-professed ‘strength’ was just a coping mechanism – a mask that kept me from feeling the raw truth of my experience.

Without realising it, he was showing me the part of myself I had banished to the Shadow Territory.

Once I saw that, my entire relationship to him and to myself started to shift:

Instead of being annoyed, I felt compassion – not just for him but also for the ‘part’ of me I’d been rejecting:

I realised that real strength isn’t about never feeling weak but about having the humility to accept every part of what’s real – even the bits that scare us.

Seeing Ourselves & The Shadow Self in Others

Once you start paying attention, you’ll notice this pattern everywhere because people constantly act as mirrors for our unconscious material (whether they ‘know’ they’re doing it or not).

Here are a few common examples of how this can play out:

You get irritated with someone for being closed or emotionally unavailable but deep down, you know you’ve stopped expressing your own truth.
You judge someone for being too loud or too confident but that’s because you’ve buried your own spontaneity and freedom of expression.
You feel uncomfortable around someone who’s openly sexual but that’s because you’ve suppressed your own sexual energy and feel safer keeping it hidden.
You roll your eyes at someone who’s angry or confrontational but that’s because you’ve told yourself you’re “above” or “beyond” anger when really you’re just afraid of it.
You distrust someone for being suspicious or guarded but that’s because you’re forcing yourself to trust and believe and the world around you (though you don’t really believe it).

The examples are endless but the mechanism is always the same: t

The traits we reject in others often reflect the traits we’ve rejected in ourselves.

The moment you realise that, your entire experience of human relationships changes and, suddenly, every irritation, every judgement, every reaction becomes an opportunity to grow real.

The Shadow Self’s Real Agenda: Wholeness

Your shadow self isn’t your enemy – it’s one of your teachers and its whole purpose is to bring you back into wholeness.

When someone triggers or activates you, then, it’s not an attack but a call to integrate and to become a little more real – it’s life’s way of saying, “Look! Here’s something real you’ve forgotten”.

Integration in this context doesn’t mean indulging every impulse or romanticising darkness (which just causes you to get lost in Shadow Work and never taking action) – it’s about balance and truth and about allowing what’s real to come home.

In my dialysis example given above, what I needed wasn’t to abandon strength and start crying like a baby every day but to integrate my fear and vulnerability so that my strength became grounded in truth instead of repression…that gave me emotional freedom and a more stable foundation for real growth.

When we integrate a shadow trait, we don’t become ‘less’ of who we were – instead we become more because we stop playing a role and start living in reality (in other words, we stop performing and find presence).

Reverse-Engineering Your Reactions: How to Spot the Shadow in Action

Here’s a simple way to start recognising when your shadow self is being reflected back to you through others:

Notice the Charge: When you feel an emotional surge like annoyance, anger, disgust, or envy pause and reflect on what’s going on. Strong reactions are usually where the gold is buried but first you have to become aware that you’re reacting in a strong way.
Name the Trigger: What, exactly, is bothering you about this person? Be as specific as possible. Are they too needy? Too loud? Too proud? Too lazy? Naming it clearly helps you track what’s really going on.
Own the Mirror: Ask yourself: When have I shown this trait before? Or When have I wanted to show this trait but stopped myself? Be radically honest: the ego will fight this but stay curious instead of defensive and you’ll start to see yourself.
Look Beneath the Trait: Every behaviour has an underlying energy to it – for instance, someone’s “arrogance” might actually reflect confidence or self-assurance that you’ve buried because of your own ‘stuff’. Someone’s “laziness” might represent your own unacknowledged exhaustion. What’s the real quality underneath the surface behaviour and how does it fit into your own real life?
Reframe the Lesson: What might this reflection be trying to show you about yourself? What’s asking to be reintegrated or accepted? What do you need to embrace about yourself instead of rejecting about the other person?

Practical Steps for Shadow Self Integration

Integration is not an intellectual exercise but an experiential. lesson:

You can’t think your way into wholeness; you have to feel your way there.

Here’s a process you can use whenever you catch yourself being triggered:

1. Awareness

Bring conscious attention to your reaction and notice where you feel it in your body. Don’t judge it – just observe it as a physical sensation without attaching any stories to it. Awareness is the first step towards reclaiming what’s real.

2. Acceptance

Accept that this reaction is showing you something valuable. Instead of trying to ‘fix’ it, allow it to just be whatever it is by breathing into the feeling. Remind yourself that nothing real can threaten you and that what’s happening is just life trying to make you whole again.

3. Action

Do something practical to honour the ‘part’ of yourself that you’ve discovered – for example:

If you’ve realised you suppress anger, try expressing it in a healthy way like journaling, physical movement, or setting a boundary.
If you’ve realised you hide your joy, do something spontaneous or creative.
If you’ve realised you’ve buried your vulnerability, share a genuine feeling with someone you trust.

Every time you take a small, real action, you loosen the grip of the ego and make space for realness to flow back into your life.

Why Recognising Your Shadow Self in Others Matters

Recognising your shadow self in others is one of the fastest ways to grow in realness because it transforms conflict into clarity and turns (self) judgment into acceptance – in other words, it helps you to build relationships that are based on truth rather than projection.

The paradox is that the more you embrace your own shadow, the less shadow you see in others and so the world becomes less about “us versus them” and more about “we’re all learning to remember what’s real“.

The next time someone gets under your skin, try this: pause before reacting, breathe, and ask yourself:

What is this person showing me about myself?

If you follow that question all the way through, you might find that the person you were judging was never your enemy at all – they were a reflection of what you’ve made an enemy of within yourself and guiding you back home.

Check out Trust: A Manual in Becoming the Void, Building Flow, and Finding Peace if you want to go deeper into your shadow self and finding your own realness.

A Reality Check: Not Every Irritation Is Your Shadow

It’s worth emphasising that not every person who annoys, frustrates, or triggers you is a reflection of your shadow self because, sometimes, people really are just… annoying.

They may have habits that clash with yours, personalities that grate on your nerves, or behaviours that are genuinely inconsiderate.

The key is to hold both truths at once:

Check for projection: Ask yourself whether this reaction is disproportionately strong or revealing something about your own disowned traits.
Stay grounded in reality: Recognise when someone’s behaviour is simply unpleasant, disruptive, or even toxic, without needing to turn it into a psychological mirror.

By doing this, you avoid falling into the trap of over-analysing every irritation while still keeping yourself open to the lessons your shadow can offer.

Life will always present both challenges and reflections and a big part of growing real is knowing which is which.

Seeing your shadow self can be terrifying which is why you often try to hide from it (behind ego).

Seeing Your Shadow Self in Others: The Final Word

The shadow self’s ultimate goal is not to haunt you but to heal you:

Every reaction, every irritation, every uncomfortable encounter is an invitation to reclaim a piece of your wholeness and so, when you start seeing the world this way, life stops being something that happens to you and becomes something that’s happening for you.

That’s when real transformation begins and how you build a life that’s true.

Stay real out there,

Oli Anderson, Transformational Coach for Realness

P.S. If you’re ready to start integrating your shadow self so you can flow with life instead of continually being frustrated by it then book a free coaching session with me and I’ll help you shift gear.

Trust: A Manual for Becoming the Void, Building Flow, and Finding Peace is a book about learning to return to your realness by cultivating trust in yourself and trust in life.

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