The shadow totem is an animal that challenges us somehow.
We fear it, or we dislike it. We experience an irrational feeling of distaste or revulsion towards it. It is an animal that we might kill, or avoid, or turn off when we see it on television, and it is an animal that can feature in our nightmares or that may even have attacked us in the past.
It is thought that we fear these animals because they teach us the lessons that we don't want to learn, because we fear what we might lose in the process and even what we may gain. We may fear what the animal may tell us about ourselves, often it forces us to confront harsh truths about ourselves.
What we dislike most about the animal, may be what we dislike most in ourselves, that we deny, or it might represent something that happened to us, or is happening to us, that feels harmful and unpleasant. In extreme cases, we can develop phobias of these animals. Or worse, we may begin to kill them en masse if we get the opportunity.
It is called a 'shadow' totem, because like many aspects of ourselves that we don't like, it is often marginalised and ignored. Even spiritual people have a tough time confronting and working with their shadow totem/s.
It is possible to have more than one shadow totem, and it is possible for them to change over time. And almost everyone has them. In some cases it's easier to know which animals we have problems with than others, because they might be animals we confront regularly like spiders or fleas. Sometimes it's more difficult, it's an animal that's easy to avoid because it might only be at the zoo, or in books.
