It’s important to explore the shadow side of yourself. It is within the shadow side that you can start to release underlying emotions that cause unease or turmoil. Often as children we were discouraged, if not punished, for expressing the so called negative emotions. The suppressed emotions manifest years later with a wide spectrum of symptoms. People suffer from anxiety, anger, depression, lack of self-esteem, people pleasing, general uneasiness, insecurity, feeling unloved and a whole host of other issues. All these things sit in the shadow side of our personalities.
The point is to get in touch with your shadow side, don’t fear it: explore it. By having the courage to explore the unpleasant and destructive patterns that swirl beneath the surface you give yourself permission to let it go. Make a conscious choice about your behaviour, thoughts and feelings and to do this you need to understand the underlying processes that are running within the shadow side of yourself.
In a recent discussion on the impacts of how shadow can operate on the human psyche I used the analogy of being a little child in bed with the lights off and thinking there is a monster under the bed. The child is scared and the more noise coming from under the bed invokes more fear of a bigger monster. However, when you turn the light on and check under the bed you realize it is just a cat. Shadow aspects manifest with a lot of noise because it is scary to look under the surface of your own shadow.
When you have not been taught to have a healthy respect and value for your own feelings: the feelings find a home in your shadow side and they manifest in toxic or unhealthy actions. Some people have immense rage simmering beneath the surface and they keep swallowing it until they let rip at the next unfortunate person in their path or they find fault in other people.
There are a lot of techniques that can help release toxic patterns and unconscious thought processes that are a barrier to being in a state of peace. Alternative health therapies like Kinesiology or EFT (tapping) can help to release old patterns of behaviour and bring about lasting change for a more peaceful and happy life. Most of us have probably heard about the benefits of practicing meditation to calm the mind. Meditation is beneficial, sometimes it’s not enough, it might take the edge off, but meditation does not address inner turmoil. Exploring shadow is a powerful technique on the path of peace.
Recent Comments