Hidden Selves: Shadow Work and Architect (INTJ) Personality Types

“There are no secrets in life, just hidden truths that lie beneath the surface.”

Shadow work. It sounds seedy, but in this case, the “shadow” is just aspects of your personality that you don’t consciously recognize – the unknown you. Shadow work refers to exploring those hidden facets of yourself to bring them into the light of consciousness. It’s one of the most beneficial kinds of personal growth, for several reasons.

The shadow tends to mostly represent your dark side, because it’s the least comfortable part of yourself to consciously acknowledge. Yet your shadow influences your behavior, whether you realize it or not, which is antithetical to the reasoned, conscious decision-making that Architects (INTJs) prize. Shadow work helps you integrate your unconscious and conscious selves, which empowers you to shape your life.

Perhaps even more intriguing is the fact that your shadow may contain beneficial, untapped qualities. Some unconscious aspects of your personality may be positive, and others can be leveraged usefully. Shadow work can unlock those hidden potentials. Some aspects of your personality may be hidden not because they’re uncomfortable to face but because you haven’t sought them.

But the most important part of shadow work might be that it can make you happier in your own skin. Suppressing parts of yourself is stressful and unhealthy, especially if you hide from inner aspects because you fear that they make you bad or unworthy. It’s not always easy to face your darker aspects, but self-awareness grants you far more strength and security than denial or self-criticism can. Shadow work is about learning to accept yourself by coming to truly know yourself.

Exploring your shadow can help you find peace, focus, and a sense of authentic control. You are what you are, and knowing your full self is the first step to being your best self. Do you dare to shake hands with the hidden you? Of course – you’re an Architect.

Exploring Your Shadow

“Don’t run away; it’s only me. Don’t be afraid of what you can’t see.”

As an individual, your shadow differs from others’, even other INTJs. Your life experiences and unique mind have resulted in something that only you can fully understand. However, there are some likely potential shadow aspects that I can highlight based on our personality research as well as my own observations as an Architect. I can only offer prompts for self-inquiry, not external judgments. Exploring your shadow is a personal process.

Architects love dispassionate analysis and objectivity, and shadow work is made easier by applying these values. It’s very important to remember that your shadow aspects aren’t necessarily good or bad – they simply have effects. How your shadow affects your life depends on how you express it. Certain parts of your shadow are best acknowledged but not fed, while others, you may want to embrace and experiment with.

Architects are well-suited to spotting shadow aspects around them. You’re well aware of the hypocrisies and frailties of the human soul, and you can see through cheery surface veneers to the motivations underneath. You’re more willing than most personalities to confront the darker side of humanity. But can you turn that analytical eye on yourself equally well? Here are some behaviors that you might look for in your shadow work.

Potential Architect Shadow Aspects

“I am not a dark person and I don’t consider myself dark.”

Schadenfreude

Enjoying other people’s misfortune is often unconscious, something that we try to ignore because we think we shouldn’t feel that way. We may consciously rationalize others’ hardship as being deserved, partly to justify our unempathetic or critical response: “Play stupid games, win stupid prizes.” But the shadow aspect that we Architect personalities are not always aware of is just how much we enjoy it when someone “gets what they deserve.”

That feeling is extremely common and doesn’t make you a bad person. But I will point out that it’s a much more likely (and stronger) response among insecure people. We may feel threatened by others’ ability, status, or fortune, and when those others are brought low, they seem like less of a threat. Shadow work in this area might mean exploring why you feel pleasure from other people’s adversity.

Schadenfreude may simply be a surface indicator of a hidden insecurity that you can work on. While this shadow aspect may not be very useful in itself, exploring it may put you on a path to developing greater inner strength and confidence. That’s an extremely useful avenue for your personal growth efforts, and your darker impulses can serve as signposts for your development.

Critical Perfectionism

We Architects are famous for our love of deconstructing, critiquing, and optimizing things. But it can be harmful when we don’t properly acknowledge positives – we may fail to validate people we care about and be too hard on ourselves. Negativity bias plays a part, and as that tends to be unconscious, it can count as the shadow. But it’s more than that – it can be hard for Architect personalities to feel heartfelt appreciation.

Perhaps it’s because we’re subconsciously afraid of mediocrity – anything less than perfection feels like failure, so we don’t dare approve of it. Our shadow may contain a dislike of averageness and a critical inner voice that devalues effort in favor of idealized results. But in the external world, perfection is often the enemy of progress. Useful shadow work here could mean facing that harsh inner critic and asking, Are such strict ideals realistic?

Unconscious perfectionism can be a good motivator, but so is consciously appreciating success in any form, even incremental advancements or minor improvements. Perfectionism and realism work best when integrated together, each tempering the other – just like you and your shadow. Facing the harsh shadow critic can help you achieve a more balanced perspective on your abilities and accomplishments, which tends to boost your progress.

Emotional Reserve

Architects aren’t known for being warm and fuzzy, relative to most personality types. Your reasons for being emotionally reserved may be perfectly valid, and how you approach emotional interactions with others is up to you. But some of your reasons probably stem from shadow aspects and deserve some investigation to help ensure that you’re truly in harmony with yourself. What might your shadow tell you?

Exploring your unconscious responses to emotion is powerful shadow work, especially if you feel discomfort or distaste when facing strong emotions in yourself or others. You may have an aversion to emotional intimacy due to an unconscious sense that you’re unworthy of love, or from fear of rejection or failure. And you may avoid offering or seeking emotional support because, deep down, you’re unsure how best to do so. You can learn a lot about yourself by trying to answer two questions: How do I truly feel, and why?

Yet as valuable as it is to understand how you experience and express emotion, it doesn’t necessarily mean that you need to change. Just seeing how you function and the cause-and-effect patterns of your behavior can be powerful growth. You may conclude that practicing more overt emotional expression can improve your relationships (or not). But for Architects, the most appealing reason to pursue shadow work in this area is that emotional self-awareness tends to enhance your emotional self-control.

Frustrated Principles

Few personality types can match Architects’ sense of frustration at the world and its failings. When you like to envision grand possibilities, it’s hard not to feel disappointed by all that’s wrong in the world. The conscious expressions of such feelings can be fairly negative, such as anger, but what you may not realize is that they can stem from some lofty impulses hiding beneath that anger. Your shadow isn’t always dark.

Bitterness often comes from unrealized hope, and frustration from a deep sense of caring. Feeling cynical on a conscious level may be driven by latent empathy, optimism, and compassion in your shadow – things that you may not always be likely to identify in yourself. But exploring why you care so much about what you perceive as wrong can put you in touch with some of your grandest virtues. That’s excellent shadow work.

Your driving principles may be more humanistic than you’ve yet recognized. You may unconsciously avoid empathizing with the pain in the world (because it’s painful) yet still be deeply passionate about fixing such woes. Exploring the inner motivations that drive your outer intensity can positively reshape your view of yourself and how you fit into the world. Architect personalities are at their best when creating something wonderful.

Final Thoughts: Setting Judgment Aside

One of the main reasons why we have a shadow in the first place is that we believe that some of our natural thoughts and feelings are bad. Much of that stems from cultural programming that misunderstands human nature, and some of it comes from our own ideals – we don’t want to face what feel like weaknesses. But like an undiagnosed illness, ignorance of ourselves tends to make things worse.

Self-acceptance can be a challenge, but it helps to think of it as a lifelong practice rather than a goalpost. Architects have active, critical minds, and we’re always going to question things, including ourselves – and that’s good. Yet deceiving ourselves because we’re unwilling to face the true answers to those questions is worse than leaving them unasked. To seek the answers hiding in your shadow, it’s often necessary to set judgment aside like a proper scientist and just observe.

The more knowledge you have, the more accurate your perspective, and the better your decisions in life. Exploring your shadow may challenge your ego or reveal uncomfortable truths, but try to reserve judgment and simply accept what you find before deciding what to do with it. Chances are, you’re better than you think you are.

Further Reading

• What controls you? Our Locus of Control Test will give you insight into the forces that seem to run your life.
• 7 Strengths and Weaknesses of Architect (INTJ) Personality Types
• The Courageous Architect (INTJ)
• 7 Workplace Success Tips for Analyst Personality Types
• Dive even deeper into your personality type with the Architect (INTJ) Premium Profile.