Bringing Your Shadow Out of the Dark

Breaking Free from the Hidden Forces That Drive You

By: Robert Augustus Masters PhD, Lissa Rankin MD

Narrated by: David Furr

"Our shadow," teaches Robert Augustus Masters, "is our internal storehouse for the parts of us that we’ve disowned or rejected, or are otherwise keeping in the dark."

Everyone has a shadow, but all too many of us are unaware of it. It holds the feelings and beliefs that we are most ashamed of or cannot accept about ourselves. For some, it may contain unacknowledged anger or grief. For others, pain or fear.

Our shadow contains our unfaced conditioning.

And the more unaware we are of our shadow, the more it influences and controls us.

Based upon Masters's four decades as a psychospiritual therapist and guide, Bringing Your Shadow Out of the Dark invites listeners to understand and skillfully work with this rich yet neglected dimension of ourselves.

With depth and clarity, he illuminates the process of meeting our shadow in beneficial ways, and how we can embody a more complete and life-giving experience of who we are.

In this book you’ll discover:

• The nature of our shadow and how to optimally work with it—exploring our conditioning and core shadow elements, including in the domains of shame, fear, aggression, resistance, addiction, death, and spirituality

• How to work with the child within, self-sabotage, narcissism, sexuality, dreams, and other matters deeply influenced by our shadow

• Why turning toward our pain is an essential part of shadow work—making wise use of our pain

• Collective shadow domains we share with family, social groups, political party, or nation—bringing them and their associated traumas into the light

When we uncover and work in-depth with our shadow, we free ourselves from its control and gain the opportunity to put its contents to work for us instead of allowing them to work against us.

Bringing Your Shadow Out of the Dark shows us how to navigate the full terrain of our emotions, drives, needs, and depths of who we are.

Foreword by Lissa Rankin, MD, New York Times bestselling author of Mind Over Medicine, The Fear Cure, and The Anatomy of a Calling.

©2018 Robert Augustus Masters, PhD and Lissa Rankin, MD (P)2024 Sounds True

Critic reviews

“Robert has offered us a marvelous hands-on guide, based on decades of exploration, on opening to and transforming the shadow. This is the work of a sage and skilled teacher who knows and names, in very clear and often poetic language, the many regions of the territory and the many details and nuances crucial to working with the shadow. Savvy about the range of emotions, narratives, and difficulties that one encounters in this work, Robert gives us a powerful and comprehensive map that clarifies not only the varieties of the individual shadow, but . . . also the collective shadow, so crucial to face and transform at this time.”—Donald Rothberg, PhD, author of The Engaged Spiritual Life and teacher at Spirit Rock Meditation Center

“This book is a game-changer, a majestic masterpiece of shadow work. Life-affirming, embracing, and evolutionary, Bringing Your Shadow Out of the Dark shows a true path of empowerment for humanity. Robert Augustus Masters is a ninja shadow guide who helps us to have real access to the most hidden forces compelling us in unconscious ways. Raise the bar of transformation, both personally and collectively, with this impeccable guide to navigating the most challenging aspects of being human.”—Sianna Sherman, internationally renowned yoga teacher

“Whether we like it or not, our unacknowledged and repressed self—our shadow—dictates much of our lives, including our actions, emotions, and reactions. In this succinct and wise guide to self-exploration, Robert Augustus Masters teaches us how to emerge from shadow—individual, generational, and cultural—into the light of awareness and freedom.”—Gabor Maté, MD, author of In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts: Close Encounters with Addiction

Great book, until....

Was very disappointed the author turned this into a political rant in the last chapters. I had questions about underlying motivations early on, the final chapters solidified them. In my humble opinion, leave your politics out of trying to help people! I still think the book is worthwhile, just skip Part 4 if you don't want to risk undermining the 8 hours leading up to it.