“Filling the conscious mind with ideal conceptions is a characteristic feature of Western theosophy, but not the confrontation with the shadow and the world of darkness. One does not become enlightened by imagining figures of light, but by making the darkness conscious. The latter procedure, however, is disagreeable and therefore not popular.” - Carl Jung
We are who we are at birth based on our energy at that moment in time (time, place and date) and one of the ways this will continually play itself out is as our personal shadow complexes.
Our complexes (strongly emotional charges of energy that activate autonomously both positive and negative) in the psyches of everyone is a concept of Carl G. Jung.
So, our shadow self is everything about us that is unconscious, unacknowledged, undeveloped and denied. Let’s take each one of these words separately as to why these complexes are created in the first place and why it behooves us to continue to do inner work and come to know ourselves.