When you consider words like "shame," or "fear," what do they bring up for you? Is it some aspect of yourself you'd rather not think about? Well, congratulations, because you may have just found your shadow. Within it lies some of the hardest—but most worthwhile—inner work we can do as people.

The reason you reject these aspects of your personality goes back to your childhood.

When we're young, we depend on our parents or main caregivers for survival. As a result, we become very attached to them and their way of doing things. So, say a caretaker scolds you for being outspoken, there's a chance that you won't feel safe speaking your mind from that point on, even as an adult.

"Because what it means to you is, the person I need to love me to survive won't love me if I do this thing," Swart says. That message becomes internalized—buried within your subconscious—and can therefore become a trigger for you for seemingly no reason.

Short answer: yes. Long answer, according to licensed therapist and co-founder of Viva Wellness Jor-El Caraballo, LMHC: Yes, but you might hear it called by a different name.

"The concept of the shadow [...] is generally a widely accepted perspective in analytical psychology," he says, but it's by no means the only perspective of the human psyche. Shadow work can also fall under the umbrella of self-reflection, self-examination, etc.

Regardless of what you call it, "Most therapists are tapped with helping clients make the unconscious conscious, which is a fundamental tenet of shadow work," Caraballo explains. "As a therapist, I subscribe to the belief that we all have a version of a shadow that, when integrated, can be well-accepted and help us better manage our own mental health and relationships."

So, how do you actually do shadow work? As Caraballo and Swart explain, it's all about bringing the unconscious mind to our conscious awareness. "This is something psychoanalytic theorists (like Jung and Freud) prized as important to maintaining psychological health," Caraballo tells mbg.

It's typically done with a "Socratic approach" of questioning and exploration. This entails asking objective questions that elicit critical thinking and a reexamination of old stories and beliefs we hold about ourselves.

"The idea is that a more objective entity (such as a therapist) can help provide an interpretive mirror to the parts of ourselves we have a difficult time seeing and accepting," Caraballo says.

And while it is often work done with the help of a mental health professional, you can begin to explore your shadow solo too, by examining your thoughts, feelings, and assumptions. Below, you'll find some prompts to help you do so.

To quote Jung himself, "Everything that irritates us about others can lead us to an understanding of ourselves." As you're doing this work, you'll become more and more aware of the little things that trigger you—and why. So, keep an eye out.

Shadow work is by no means easy, and offering compassion to those parts of ourselves that we have hidden away for so long is important.

Again, shadow work is never easy—especially if you've been through trauma. If considering the shadow sides of yourself brings about pain, suffering, or fear that you feel ill-equipped to handle, it's time to seek the help of a licensed professional.

"I think it's important for anyone doing shadow work to have things that help them feel grounded and accepted," Caraballo notes. "A nonjudgmental therapist can go a long way to help with this, but we also need our own tools that help us reaffirm and accept ourselves as we face the more difficult feelings, and parts, of ourselves."

"One way in which the shadow shows up for us is in what we find most distasteful or difficult in others," Caraballo says. "Often these images are a reflection of parts of ourselves that we find unlikable."

Swart provides another starter exercise to dip your toes into shadow work: analyzing your family tree.

"Make a family tree of your two sets of grandparents, all of your aunts and uncles, and your parents because they're the generations above you whose attributes—good and bad—might be in you," she explains. This practice is all about getting honest enough to say, "I love my family, but one of my uncles drinks too much," Swart gives as an example.