The Shadow Self,

Shadow Self

I want you for a moment to go back in time to sense and think of the time during your formative years. Who was around you? (Your parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, friends of the family, your personal friends, schoolmates, etc.) From whom did you learn personal values? Many of us, as we were going through the various learning processes, realized that not all things we were learning were good things but did not know it at the time. In other words, they tried to create themselves in us. These are the types of things that we have hidden in our personal closet or were the beginnings of our shadow self.

We grew up in an environment where we were to be "seen and not heard." If we were doing something outside the realms of acceptance (according to our parents), our parents would simply reach for a paddle in order to persuade our thinking to the way they believed we should think. As children we learned to keep our thoughts to ourselves so much so that some of us lost the ability to think altogether.

Many of us, as children, were looked at as a possession. Some parents reasoned that, since they have the moral responsibility to feed and house us, and the legal power to make decisions for us, we must follow every rule and ordinance they chose to concoct. How many of you have heard, "My house, my rules?"

In some respect now, we, even as adults, are mirrors for our parents or anyone that has influenced us greatly in the past. We are the embodiment of certain aspects of our parents' personality and the people that we aspired to be. Their passion became our passion and curiosity, freshly directed towards desires and goals that may have been forgotten or laid aside in their pursuit of security and/or social standing.

Our personality became artificial. Many parents tried to install, and tended to suppress the clear reflection that their children bring concerning the parents' shadow self, and became our parent's own hidden issues. Instead of seeing that reflection in their children, resistant parents become busy about the task of breaking or distorting the mirror. On some level, children realize this and they either learn to resist the whole business or they accept the teaching, thereby losing their individual personalities, sometimes their souls.

"Beneath the social mask we wear every day, we have a hidden shadow side: and impulsive, wounded, sad or isolated part that we generally try to ignore. The Shadow can be a source of emotional richness and vitality, and acknowledging it can be a pathway to healing and an authentic life. We meet our dark side, accept it for what it is, and we learn to use its powerful energies in productive ways. The Shadow knows why good people sometimes do "bad" things. Romancing the Shadow and learning to read the messages it encodes in daily life can deepen your consciousness, imagination and soul." Carl Jung

"The Shadow describes the part of the psyche that an individual would rather not acknowledge. It contains the denied parts of the self. Since the self contains these aspects, they surface in one-way or another. Bringing Shadow material into consciousness drains its dark power, and can even recover valuable resources from it. The greatest power, however, comes from having accepted your shadow parts and integrated them as components of your Self." John Elder

"Everyone carries a Shadow, and the less it is embodied in the individual's conscious life, the blacker and denser it is, at all counts, it forms an unconscious snag, thwarting our most well meant intentions. One does not become enlightened by imagining figures of light, but by making the darkness conscious." Carl Jung

The shadow self is neither good nor bad, but it has a density that we need to clear out. It is a way of liberating yourself from conscious or unconscious bias that we have been carrying for a long time. In a way it allows you to leap outside your fixated self to fully embrace your new entire self, this is who you truly are.

The Shadow is a psychological term introduced by the late Swiss psychiatrist, Dr. Carl G. Jung. It is everything in us that is unconscious, repressed, undeveloped and denied. These are dark rejected aspects of our being as well as light, so there is positive undeveloped potential in the Shadow that we don't know about because anything that is unconscious, we don't know about.

The Shadow is an archetype. And what an archetype simply means is that it is typical in consciousness for everyone. Everyone has a Shadow. This is not something that one or two people have. We all have a Shadow and a confrontation with the Shadow is essential for self-awareness. We cannot learn about ourselves if we do not learn about our Shadow so therefore we are going to attract it through the mirrors of other people.

Make the commitment to yourself to direct your vision inward, not just to your spirit, but also to the temple that carries it. The wisdom of the universe lies within your cells, and the keys to your own happiness within your body. Making energetic contact with your physical body will help you to unlock the secrets of the emotional and spiritual self.

Are these are some of your beliefs???

There is something wrong with me.
I cannot trust anyone.
I'm not loveable.
I don't deserve to have what I want.
Love does not last.
I am worthless.
I am never going to be successful.
I have no talents.
I am a bad decision maker.
I will always be alone.

Carl Jung defined the Shadow Self as "that which we think we are not." As we continue to work and clear up our personal issues, those things, which we think we are not, must be embraced as an aspect of the Greater Self, and integrated. You may think you are not like your neighbor who does this or that thing, or has this or that behavior but if any seemingly negative quality you judge, were not also a part of you, the issue(s) would not trigger your emotions.

We may believe that we are spiritual people who are not cruel or unjust, but that belief is a blockage that casts a shadow that can blind us to the cruelty within our own ego that is hidden. The shadow shows us what we judge ourselves not to be. We are what we judge others to be.
It has been said that sometimes people resist their shadow's reflection so much that it takes them over---sorta like pro-lifers who bomb abortion clinics. So invested in their accusations of murder that they feel justified in becoming murderers themselves. (Now, I know this is extreme, but I think you get the idea). Some of the most abusive passive-aggressive people I have met insist that they are gentle nonviolent beings simple because their aggression is hidden under an ego of "good intentions: but actually show themselves to everyone but the person themselves.

We all have a shadow, which is a force that is both creative, and at the same time destructive. We all have an inner demon that can be the violent eruption of repressed emotion that makes a crime of passion, or the companion to a passionate life that makes skydiving fun because it is scary.
Some people have referred to the shadow self as a reflection of the dark wall of Karma that separates you from knowing yourself as light. It is a reflection, a dark mirror of Karma. Keep in mind here that dark doesn't mean bad or evil... it just means hidden. We feel the best way to understand this is in Shamanic terms, by introducing you to your personal.................Portal Guardian to the Shadow Self.

The Portal Guardian is an energy assigned to you specifically that is made up of non-dual light, unconditional love manifested. It has no duality of its own, no emotions... it is pure light. In order to descend into human polarity space in which we live, it must have shadow and since it has no shades of gray within itself, it often first appears as a negative polarized image of darkest shadow. It truly has no darkness of its own, it's simply a reflection of your own fears, your own doubts, your own denials. It reflects your hidden side.