Persona / Shadow / Self - Who Are You Beneath the Role?

We all learn to play roles—the capable one, the caretaker, the achiever, the peacemaker, the person who has it all together. But what happens when the role that once helped us belong, succeed, or feel safe begins to limit who we are becoming?

Carl Jung used the word Persona to describe the social identity we develop in order to move through the world—the professional, the parent, the achiever, the helper, the strong one, the easygoing one. There is nothing inherently wrong with these roles. They help us function, connect, achieve, and belong. The difficulty comes when we become so identified with a role that we begin to confuse it with the whole of who we are.

When certain qualities do not fit the identity we have learned to maintain, they often get pushed outside our conscious self-image. Jung called this territory the Shadow. And shadow does not simply contain the qualities we consider negative. It may hold anger and fear, but it can also contain confidence, vulnerability, creativity, play, desire, tenderness, power, ambition, spontaneity, or other parts of ourselves we once learned were unacceptable, inconvenient, or unsafe to express.

During this experiential workshop, we will explore three dimensions of the Jungian psyche:

PERSONA — Who I learned to be. The roles, identities, expectations, and strategies that have helped us navigate life.

SHADOW — who I learned not to be. The emotions, needs, qualities, impulses, and capacities that may have been pushed outside our conscious identity.

SELF — Who I become when more of me belongs. The deeper organizing center capable of holding seemingly contradictory parts of ourselves without requiring one to defeat the other.

Through Jungian teaching, a Persona Assessment, reflective writing, embodied movement, breathwork, partner witnessing, resistance work, Emotional Power Integration, and guided Active Imagination, participants will have an opportunity to encounter these ideas as lived experience—not merely intellectual concepts.

You will leave with a clearer understanding of a pattern or role operating in your life, what that role may be protecting, what part of yourself may be asking to return, and one practical way to begin bringing that insight into your everyday life.

This is not about becoming someone new. It is an invitation to become more fully who you already are.

Together, we’ll explore the identities we present to the world, the qualities we have learned to hide, and what becomes possible when we begin living from a more integrated and authentic sense of Self.

During our time together you can expect:

• Grounding and mindful breathing
• Standing yoga postures
• Gentle-to-moderate flowing movement
• Forward folds and hip-opening shapes
• Seated and lying-down practices
• Restorative integration
• Guided breath and humming
• Periods of stillness

About your facilitator:

Adam Shehata is the founder of Inner Alchemy Collective, a depth-oriented coaching practice integrating Jungian psychology, embodied practice, dreamwork, contemplative traditions, and practical coaching. His work is grounded in the belief that meaningful transformation requires more than understanding ourselves intellectually. It requires developing a relationship with the unconscious patterns, emotional energies, and disowned qualities that quietly shape how we lead, relate, create, and make decisions.

Adam's training and practice span Jungian depth work, dreamwork, Active and Embodied Imagination, yoga, pranayama, meditation, nervous-system regulation, and complementary mind-body disciplines. His embodied training includes a 200-hour Yoga Teacher Training, Power Vinyasa certification, additional study in Qi Gong and Tai Chi, and extensive experience with breath and contemplative practices. His Jungian studies include formal training in dreamwork, Active and Embodied Imagination alongside ongoing study of analytical psychology, archetypal psychology, shadow integration, individuation, and the symbolic life.

His facilitation style is experiential, grounded, curious, and non-pathologizing.

Adam's role is not to give participants answers. It is to create the conditions in which they can encounter parts of themselves that may already know them.