My shadow work journal

[meadow]

I was doing really well in life and then I did again some bad decisions that I'm now suffering from every day. I'm now going into serious mode with my shadow work to unleash my full potential and feel happy again. To allow my vision to form. To get better at feeling. To unblock my slump these last few years, where I've only had limited forward momentum. I want to break my bad patterns. I want to live fully, express fully.   

Step 1: Awareness

I'm feeling sad. I'm feeling really sad and disappointed. I'm feeling angry at myself. Why did I let myself get influenced by these two immature morons. I feel like I am wasting my life force on them and they are oblivious as to the value that I carry. Why did I buy such an expensive place? It was a total ego-backlash. 

Ask yourself, who is this feeling representing?

I am your conscience. What you did was not fair to yourself. You spent so much of your resources and changed so much of your life to the worse due to wanting to be liked, and wanting to appear virtuous. You fucking completely ignored us. What we want. You put us in a situation which will set us back years financially and mentally. 

I managed to cry a tiny bit. I fetched a pillow and let rage come out. I screamed in the pillow and tried to tear it apart, activating my muscles and aggression.

Step 2: Forgiveness

Meet the pain, ask for forgiveness for having rejected it for so long. 

I see you, pain. you are rooted in us not feeling good enough, worthy enough. This is one of the reasons we engage in self-sabotaging behaviour. I see you. I'm sorry I am not in touch. I'm sorry I forgot about you. I love you. I'm sorry I rejected our true form by not doing what we really want, and succumbing to doing things others want us to do, others influence us to do. I'm sorry, I want to do better. I want you to feel safe. I love you. Thank you for being. 

Step 3: Integration

Thank you for continuously edging me towards where we should be. Thank you for keeping us real. Thank you for showing me the way. I love you and we will reach a safe place together. You are safe with me. I accept that this happened and want to move forward with you, if you will allow me. 

[meadow]

Emotional log:

Got panic signals last night. Stronger than in a long time, probably a few months. 

Feel into it:
Where: Stomach
How does it look: Swirlning dark ball. 
What does it say: I'm not happy about where we are. I'm concerned about the future. Confusion. Why are we here and not where we want to be? I'm afraid we won't have money soon. I'm afraid I'll turn out a failure, like my father. 

 

I feel a constant anxiety. I feel a constant regret for the bad decisions I made. I'm hyper-focusing on it. I feel dizzy at times. I get panic signals and cramps when I go to bed. I feel very lonely at night. I masturbate and play games to cover the feeling instead of going to bed early and getting my act together in the mornings. 

[ZenRising]

This is really courageous and powerful work you're doing... well done @meadow... it's inspiring!

[meadow]

4 hours ago, ZenRising said:

This is really courageous and powerful work you're doing... well done @meadow... it's inspiring!

Thank you for seeing me, this really made me happy. And please know I will send love to you during my gratitude meditation tonight.

[meadow]

Experiment

I noticed when I sent the voice message to L that the unworthiness feelings were peaking out. As I was speaking, the inner critic came out to say things like: "she won't be interested in this", "you're over-sharing", "she will think you're a weak and boring man". It is connected to my innate understanding that there is something wrong with me, that I am not worthy. This understanding is as natural as gravity. 

Step 1: Awareness
Ask the feeling who it is representing. I am your protector. I protect your from hurt. I protect your from abandonment. I make sure you stay liked and don't ruffle any feathers. I make sure you are safe. I don't want us to get abandoned by this girl. We like her, she's cool. She doesn't need to know all these potentially boring and exposing details. So I want to modulate what comes through the filter. 

Fear. I feel fear. Fear of opening up. Fear of risking losing her once she sees the true me. I feel fear that I am not enough. 

When was the first time I felt like this? 

I was on Greece. I was 7. My mother had a new husband. I woke up at night and couldn't find them. It was dark in the hotel apartment. I couldn't find them anywhere and got really afraid. I thought they had fell of a cliff and died. I could see them in front of me, white dress and shirt outlined on the sand 50 meters below me where I stood on the cliff. This image I conjured up in my mind I can still recall to this day. I left the apartment and went out alone to look for them. I walked around crying, couldn't find them anywhere. I walked to the restaurants where we had eaten but they were all closed. I was feeling alone and terrified and I was sure they were dead, that I would be alone. Just like my father left me, I would now be abandoned by another parent. 

A man asked me if I was ok I think. I remember suddenly walking with a man, telling him I was looking for my mother. Luckily he wasn't a child rapist or trafficker. He followed me back to the hotel and notified the staff. A few hours later my mother and her husband came back, drunk, and I can't remember if I got the emotional attention I needed. I do remember that the husband was very dismissive towards me and clearly didn't want me to be there, in general, that trip. A gesture I now pay forward to one of my younger cousins who annoy me, probably because he is like I was back then. 

What an utterly sad and terrifying situation for a 7-year old to experience. Fucking shit parenting of my mother! How could she let that happen, the fucking bitch! Don't bring your son with you on your honeymoon if you're not going to own that responsibility! It's a damn miracle I still have a lust for travelling.

How does the feeling feel like physically? 

It's a hard, solid, heavy ball right behind the navel. It sits deep and it is very rooted. It is an old one, part of its environment like a shellfish on a ship. It is anxious energy.  It seems like I yawn when I focus on it. It slowly swirls. It is potent. 

As I'm feeling into this I feel restlessness and I start yawning. The yawns never complete, leaving tension behind. I sit for 10 minutes, breathing, massaging my stomach, trying to focus on the feeling from the fear, abandonment. It did not feel like a breakthrough. I like that I am doing this, even so. The knowledge that I am doing the work, giving myself this, is warm.

Step 2: Acknowledgement
I see you. I understand you. You want to protect me from harm. You want me to not have to endure such pain as the abandonment wounds have already caused me. You are protecting me from the abandonment of my father and the neglect of my mother. You've been with me all my life. Protected me from potentially harmful situations. I see that, and I appreciate that. I accept you. 

To my inner child: Please know that you are safe. We can handle rejection and abandonment together. I will lead you home safely every time now. There are so many fantastic things I will show you. You will be so excited about everything. And we are doing it together, you and I. You are not alone. You will never be alone. I love you exactly the way you are. You are worthy of my love and of all love. I love you.

 

Step 3: Integration
Thank you for being a part of me. Thank you for protecting me. I see you, and respect you. Together we are strong. Thank you for making me into the person I am today. I am proud of us, of me. I thank you for your contribution in that. I love you, great things are to come. Please stick around and enjoy the fruits. 

 

 

[meadow]

General log

I was lying on the couch earlier today staring into the ceiling. Everything was so, so dark. It was like I could touch the sensation of how bad I felt. I told my friend over the phone that I had never felt so terrible as I was doing in that moment. I think that was untrue now that I think about it. The panic attack I had a few years ago is the worst that I've felt. That was however more acute and physical. I really thought I would die. I can still recall the feeling of dread, realising that I would not have the opportunity to achieve and do the things I had expected to be able to do in life. 

Today was a different low, a more encompassing and heavy low. A pressure, not a stab, like the panic attack. 

I went to the sauna place and did a few rounds of hot sauna and cold sea. It's about 8 degrees now in the water. In the sauna I exchanged a few words with some other men there, and got a small HP boost from the socialising. 

It's a few hours later now, and I managed to make food for myself. Well, I heated whatever was left over from the lunch with my friend yesterday. I listened to one of my favourite songs very loudly, which kind of caressed my soul a bit. 

I just finished the call with my coach. He's such an interesting character. I feel so good just talking to him. There's something with his smile, his energy. It just penetrates the cold digital reality, goes through layers of screens, cables, networks and electrons and arrives lossless on the other side, warmly affecting me. Maybe I say that because I haven't met him yet. Might be even more in reality. 

Tonight I will do some yoga. I will go and buy a lighter so I can light up candles. I will then make it dark, light some candles and actually use the yoga mat I bought but never used. I'll do some yin yoga and then 30 minutes of shamanic breathing. If I feel all right I will also do some shadow work. 

Like I told my coach, I am not feeling well however I am still positive about the future. I can feel that this is transformative. That it is a phase. It is part of the breakthrough I will experience as I leave the plateau I've been on for almost 4 years. 

 

[meadow]

General log

Today I was in the space of OK. Which was a bit frustrating because I was expecting more ammunition for my emotional and shadow work. I'm afraid that I will never pass the plateau (which might or might not exist) unless I do active work also when I feel ok. Until this point I've only done the work when I've had the urgency - when I've felt bad. But nursing myself back to OK is not the level of ambition I have. I want to be free. 

An emotional reflection
I'm feeling a fear. It is almost inaccessible. It is connected to the panic attack, and the fear of dying. Fear of time running out. Fear of not achieving what I want to achieve. Fear of missing out. 

I did 30 seconds of rapid, violent and deep breathing. Then held my breath and made my muscles really tense up. I relaxed into the chair and almost blacked out. 

Step 1: Awareness

Ask the feeling who it is representing. I am small Meadow. I protect you against hurt. What hurt? Being bullied. By your class mates. 

Memory of a fight in school comes up. I was feeling really low one morning. I'm 10. I fought a lot in school. I decide to leave and go home, because I forgot something. I think I forgot some books. 

This is my social anxiety speaking I realise now. 

As I exit the doors and pass my nemesis, he pushes me and says something sneerful. The proverbial switch is flipped and I go berserk. I turn around and deliver two consecutive low kicks and he visibly suffers, squeals and is defeated in sheer shock. I yell with a mighty force "YOU SHOULD JUST SHUT THE FUCK UP" and turn around and storm away. He starts crying and heads into the school where the rest of the class had seen most of the scene. 

As I'm walking up towards my bike, a girl E and two guys J and P runs after me. They are allies of my nemesis. A 10 year old's exchange is had and I was called a coward as I left, even though I left to fetch my stuff. I remember feeling hurt in many ways. 

I felt like I was the victim in the scenario but I got the social fallout. The bully got the sympathy. 
I felt like the whole class hated me.
I felt undesireable. I feel undesireable. 
I felt like the tribe was about to exile me. I felt existential dread. Fear of being cast out. 

As a result I didn't have a single group until university. I couldn't manage being in or around groups and the internal struggles there, the constant power play. This is part of me still today, as I am very vocally anti-power play professionally. I don't compete, because I don't like either winning or losing. Winning means that someone else loses out. This hurts me. Losing means I fail. This also hurts me. At least conceptually, this is how I think about it. It's a good thing I'm not always aware of the people losing out over me winning. 

I lose focus for a while. 

Step 2: Acknowledgement

I see you, little Meadow. You had to endure a lot of shit in school. You lived in an environment which was not suited for your highly gifted calibre.

HIGHLY GIFTED

Even the teachers gave you resistance. The other kids were jealous and you were too young to understand why. They struggled with school because it was hard to them. You hated school because it was under-stimulating. You didn't study and got great scores on tests. They had to study really hard to just pass. It's ok now. You don't have to struggle or be tense anymore. I'm here, and together we are doing really cool stuff. We are building businesses and making money. We buy the stuff we like. We plot our own course. We have great friends who love us. We have our own identity and plot in life. Thank you for protecting me up until now. Thank you for staying vigilant for me. Please know you are safe. We are safe. If something were to happen we are well trained as well. Your vigilance saw to that. But we are safe. It's ok to ruffle some feathers socially. It's ok to be a nuisance a bit sometimes. You have a good heart. 

Step 3: Integration

Thank you for your service. Thank you for being there. I love you. We are one, and I will never abandon you. You are safe with me. We are safe. You are perfect the way you are. I love you and all you have done for me. Thank you, you can rest now. 

 

[meadow]

Reflections

I want to reflect on the topic of aesthetically pleasing women a.k.a conventionally beautiful women, and the intrinsic power of their beauty and how I think it's actually a signal that I'm weak for status.  

When I was sitting with J at the bar, a woman came in who hit all of the checkboxes in what I want physically in women. Very beautiful. I notice her and immediately I get a tension in my body. I'm trying to focus on the conversation with J. I manage, but I had to put effort into it. In my head I have scenarios of what I should say to her and how she shoots me down and I feel terrible afterwards and make it super awkward. 

Before she walked in to the room I had no intention to do pick-up. I was just there to have a hamburger with my friend. When she walked in, the entire agenda in my head shifted and I felt this performance anxiety appear. Somehow a part of me was already disappointed that I "didn't have the balls" to approach her. Some part of me wanted me to do it and this part has this intrinsic "disappointed father"-disposition. The kind where you only get approval if you perform with something he asks from you.

My mind came up with excuses to not do it. Excuses like "you're not dressed right", "you're not toned enough right now", "you're looking too tired", "she probably wants to be left alone", "you won't know what to say", "it'll get awkward" etc

I would have loved to be in that mind-state that I could have approached her, for good or bad. Now I just obsessed about the fact that I didn't. I felt my self-esteem get lower. I think I even started talking more silently. 

I guess there are a few things I want to unpack here. 

There is the fact that I fear the outcome, and the tension I get in the body from her simply just walking into the room. This seems to me to be part of my shadow. 

There is the fact that I obsess about beauty like this, when I honestly have no clue whether or not she would be interesting or fun to be with. 

There is the fact that I get this build-up of pressure to perform, which totally brings me out of a relaxed state and drives me further away from being able to connect or access my charm. 

I'll continue another day. I'm too tired now. 

 

[meadow]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yk2bpo5paPw

 

Continuing from above.

Why do I fear the outcome? I fear rejection. I fear the pain of feeling like I am not good enough. I fear the embarrassment. Or rather, I have an intuitive understanding of the fact that I am not what I could be, and I resent myself for it. In the scenarios where I impress her in my head I am full with confidence, I know what I should say and do and I act with no social fear and full social liberty. It is within grasp, but is held back due to fear and stagnation. 

Who am I talking to? I am your judge. I am the perfectionist. I ensure work gets done right so that you don't fail. I protect you from failure. When we fail, we risk not getting love. We risk abandonment. We depend on doing well for recognition and love. 

A memory comes up, which has come up many times actually, but it didn't strike me as significant until now. I am 3 years old. I have glasses. I am at home, and my father is there with his brother. I accidentally drop my glasses on the floor and I can't remember if they break or not. The next thing shook me; my father kicked me and I felt it through the entire body. It made me so scared and I started crying, feeling so unsafe. It was the first time I experienced violence directed at me. 

What a fucked thing to do to a child! I realise now that this has caused me to have big reactions whenever someone raises their voice or similar. It has caused a fear of getting hurt in me. 

I focused on the feeling and invited the anger. I visualized shouting at my father and tensed up, shaking in my muscles. I took the pillow and screamed multiple rounds, drawing the anger out. 

I felt another wave afterwards, and tensed up and squeezed the chair all I could, making a very tense, loud noise from my throat. There is more there.

To my inner child: You are completely safe. I love you. It is ok to make mistakes. It is ok to drop things. You are lovable, and I love you. You are a beautiful boy, and you are loved. It doesn't matter if you make mistakes, you are still loveable. I will always be here. I will always protect you. You don't need to be afraid. There is nothing to fear. You are a fantastic creature, and I love you. 

Wow. I was sitting for a few minutes really spending time with my inner child of that age. I took him through all kinds of awesome activities that we both love. It is the first time when I do visualization like this that I could actually feel it so vividly. I think I understand now, I think this is some kind of breakthrough. I could sense my emotions more as well, and they were easier to call up. I am seriously impressed with both the process and myself and I am feeling super excited about continuing!! I can really feel it in my being that I am doing the right thing here, that I am moving forward. It is my time now, after these few years of preparation. I will bloom! 

[meadow]

It really did feel like bridging time and space. 

[meadow]

Sleep log

Something is making itself known. I could not sleep last night. Every time I almost fell asleep, panic signals were triggered, and I got wide awake and moved into deep breathing. I saw the connection, the panic itself, the sensations are unheard emotions. Each flush of sensation in my body was energy I hadn't released before. It must have been triggered and awoken by the work I am doing and the process I am in. 

I realised that I am outspoken and careless in nature but I have been silenced by conditioning. Getting rid of my panic is getting rid of my silencing and re-aligning myself with my sigma mindset, fully owning it. I always walked my own path. I never cared about status and I constantly try to level the field by elevating those around me. 

 I have previously doubted these qualities, feeling like I was too soft. Not "alpha" enough. Since I am not writing into a vacuum I want to highlight that it was a long time ago that I rid myself of macho behaviour. However the doubts have still been there. I could see that I am not like most, and I haven't found a relatable idol to model after. 

I did something really well last night. As the panic was washing over me, going out into the fingertips and leaving a prickly sense behind, I did not fear. I observed, fully accepting whatever was to be the outcome. I am proud of myself for this. I still feel the cramp in my chest muscles and I am very tired. I have a positive outlook though and know it in my deepest parts that I am moving in the right direction.  

[meadow]

I have been with M the last few days and it has been very soothing. She has a positive impact on my emotional state. It is a crutch, but sometimes it's nice with some support in tough times. 

Last night my coach (whom I absolutely adore) suggested I do an exercise with M. The exercise was simple - access the inner child and ask questions while being responded to and comforted with unconditional motherly love. 

I snuggled up in bed with M and I started the practice. At first I was a bit uncomfortable and nervous, almost like stage-fright. But after each successive question it came more and more naturally to me to know what I needed to ask. It was like a cloud of sensation, diffuse, suddenly and gradually took shape until I had a clear question in mind.

"Why don't the others like me?" This was me in school. I felt left out and different. We didn't understand each other, I and my classmates. 

M responded with something motherly and I soaked in the love and assurance. 

After a while a visualisation came to me. I could see the energy of the wounded child. It looked like a source orb (Divinity) with a hard glass shell around it. I could see the energy swirling inside. I could understand the energy, and could feel the absolute beauty of this purest form of innocence which had been protected to shield me from the atrocities I had to experience. I tried to assure it, send it love, welcome it. It will be a long process I'm sure, and I'm not done yet. It did however expand a bit, and the compact shell became a bit more diffuse. Instead of being in one concentrated spot in my gut it kind of expanded to cover a large part of my torso. 

At one point I felt the urge to be left alone. I think what happened was that I went from the anxious nice guy to the avoidant bad boy archetype as my defenses were being meddled with. I moved away from M and started to do breathwork.

It didn't take long before I was ok with crying. I started crying, a bit disconnected at first, and took a pillow to cover my face. There is still for me a lot of shame connected to crying and it's not natural for me to be so vulnerable in front of myself. The connection to the crying came in bursts. I had to tell myself that I had endured terrible things and I was right to feel pity for myself. When I did that I could connect to my self-empathy somewhat. It is still very hard to allow myself that self-love and empathy. 

Perhaps I should have continued a bit more to give the ball of energy more attention and nurturing. However, after having cried for a while all the while M caressing me, I kind of just relaxed and felt into my body. I could feel myself being more open and vulnerable. 

It was a strange night, in terms of dreams. I dreamt of an ocean with stormy waves. A lighthouse with some significance. I would climb it even though it was very windy. Scenarios played out where the lighthouse came crashing down in different ways. The scenario would reboot a few times until I didn't climb up the lighthouse but just watched it from a bit away, observing the storm. 

I woke up a few hours later and I had to pee. The sensation of having to pee was much stronger than I've experienced before. It was to the point where I got really annoyed by the feeling. This is in contrast to how it normally goes in the morning where I am not really sure if I need to pee or not, due to my default dissociated state. 

I feel like I definitely made progress last night, however, I also feel like there's so much more. I don't want to create an expectation of a "big break" but it's hard not to look for it and expect it. 

[meadow]

I went out tonight. 

It was the first time I went to this club. Somehow I've been aware of this place since I was 17, but always got the idea that it was a dangerous place. In a way it was kind of defusing to see the place. In another way it was triggering to think that I'm now basically too old to pick up any of the girls. 

It feels like I've been chasing some state I will never get to, and now or soon I'm too old anyway. 

What is it with the club scenario that I can't move forward from? I've had incredibly pretty girlfriends and girls in my life. Still there's this scenario in my head that triggers me, that I'm always facing while I'm at a club. I see a pretty girl and I just choke. It's not even that I want to approach her, but I just see her and immediately I feel like a failure. It's like I'm being judged simply by her presence. I'm too drunk to do shadow work now but I feel like this is the holy grail for my progression. I need to move forward from this idea, this place, where an in my eyes beautiful girl handicaps me simply by existing in the same vicinity. 

The pretty girls I've had have all approached me. They've seen my value from some kind of social/natural proof and chosen to approach me, to select me. From that point on I've just sailed on easy winds, until I start doubting whether she's good enough since I never picked her up myself. "Maybe I can do better if I go out and just learn to pick girls up from the dance floor". This fucking thinking ruined my best relationship with the only woman I've ever truly loved on all levels. I think this is also the reason it still hurts, 5 years later. Knowing that I gave her away, even though I was still in love with her and she with me, just because I felt I could "do better". This is such a painful point and I'm afraid I'll end up like the weird old guys at the club, who obviously know they're too old but hoping for some breadcrumbs to fall their way once some girl gets too drunk. 

 

[meadow]

Awareness, acknowledgement, integration.

J sent a message seemingly randomly and it immediately sent my stomach churning. 

It always feels like there's an agenda behind her messaging. It's been so long since we were together but the toxicity between us from the break-up still exists. It is trauma in its own right, so it'll always exist there unless both sides work it away, I assume. I want to reflect on this, see if some shadow work can help me at least to not get triggered. 

She sent me a message to ask if I knew any cleaners, since it's a chore to clean three bathrooms. Is she telling me she's wealthy now because she has three bathrooms? Is she signalling that her new relationship is good, that her new guy is better than me? Is she trying to make me jealous or simply trying to signal her own worth? 

Step 1: Awareness
It's that usual feeling of dread and anxiety in my gut. It's dark and swirling. It is afraid of being hurt. Of being rejected. Of not being good enough. It is warning me of dangers ahead. Making me aware of the danger of talking to her. There is so much hurt there. So much unpredictability. She is unpredictable, revengeful and dangerous. She's a fucking maniac actually. She severely damaged my life and stood in the way of much better options. She's damaged goods and not trying to do anything about it, wielding her beauty and sex addiction as primary means of getting forward in life. She's a user, an abuser and a master manipulator. It's only right that I get on my toes when she shows up anywhere. 

Ask the feeling who it is representing. Ask it what it is protecting you from.

I am younger Meadow, who just got cheated on by L. I protect you from hurt, from dangerous women. They hurt you and it makes you feel terrible. So I protect us from that. Whenever a woman who has hurt us shows up, messages, interacts I put us on high alert. They are unpredictable and dangerous, and I protect us from that.

I stretch out in the chair and try to yawn. It doesn't fully come out. I focus on the feeling in the gut and think back to when I was betrayed by L. I feel convulsions of yawning go through my body, none of them fully develop to feel satisfying. I start to breather harder, breath work hard, for half a minute and then hold my breath, quite tense. I almost black out in the chair but I feel some tension being released in my gut. It was the trauma response my body has been in absolving a little bit. I start yawning a lot, with a much more satisfying result. I must have relieved some of the tension from now and some of the trauma from then. This is about betrayal, I realise. It goes further back. 

Betrayal. Being cast aside. Being shown the proof that I'm worthless. Being left. Abandoned. Loneliness, dread, uncertainty of future life. This is the fear. 

Step 2: Acknowledgement

I see you, every version of Meadow who has been betrayed, cast aside, discarded, abandoned. I see you, and I feel your pain. You have had to endure too much loneliness, too much disappointment and pain. It's so sad the things that have happened to you, the betrayal and abandonment you have had to endure. You are such a lovable creature, full of curiosity, kindness and beauty. I love you, Meadow. You are a fantastic, lovable person and perfect the way you are. 

Something happens. There's a huge relief in my stomach, and I feel it relax like what feels like never before. A tension so deep I had mistaken it for part of my default is lifted. When I focus on the feeling I now have in the stomach I experience a few strong vomit reflexes, convulsions. I sense a freeing notion, some spell is lifted off of me. I realise that I'm free. I don't give a damn about neither J nor L anymore. I am free! It was always there but I let guilt and responsibility over them stand in the way of my absolution. I start laughing deeply, crossing over towards crying. I feel a strong urgency to get up and exercise this energy. I run to the couch and start screaming into pillows, tensing my entire body up. And then the fists start flying into the couch and the pillows. I'm venting everything via frustration and anger, screaming as hard as I can bare. I do this for probably 10 minutes and then ease my way into the gaming chair again. 

I'm free, for now. What an absolute glory if so! I've carried this unresolved relationship trauma for the last four or maybe five years. I haven't been able to go into relationships without comparing, missing what J brought. Now, hopefully, I can forget all of that. I don't fucking care about her! She's not relevant anymore. I absolve you, I forgive you. We are not related anymore. There is no connection, no bond. We are severed, and shall remain so. I do not want you by my side again. You're free to go! Hah! 

Step 3: Integration

Meadow, thank you for protecting us. You have done a great job. I love you. You can relax now. There is no one threatening in our lives and we are so much better at picking the right people now. We are also so much stronger and can deal with any emotional danger and hurt being thrown our way. We have such good tools, wisdom and support now. You are not alone. I'm here, I see you and I love you. Thank you for being you. I love you, you are perfect the way you are. We are great together. It is so impressive what we are doing together. 

[meadow]

There is no trick. It is simply awareness and focus. 

It usually takes me 10-20 minutes of focusing on that feeling. Being curious, welcoming and open about it. The inner being will respond to the attention. And with love, nurturing and safety the inner being will relax and start to trust you to take control. It wants to be playful, bring creative energy and feel and give love. It doesn't want to be tense, defensive and have walls up. 

You have that power. You can give the joy back to your inner being. And it's totally free and fairly easy, effort-wise. 

I can't believe there's not more attention on this topic. This should be instead of commercials on TV. 

[meadow]

I am happy to receive feedback and comments here in this journal. It would actually encourage me and make me feel seen. So bring it on, if you happen to read

[Yoremo]

@meadow hi, how do you do integration? what am I supposed to do at that stage?

[meadow]

@Yoremo sorry for the late reply, didn't get a notification anywhere. I need to look into that.

The integration stage for me is possible once we understand the reason behind the defense mechanism. When we understand that we can invite our younger self to release control and lower the defences. They want to be the playful young child or exploring, safe, young teenager. They are holding tight to the control and have the defences up because they had to because at some point they were not receiving the protection from and guidance to the world as they should have. With our protection, our adulthood, they can relax into a state of effortless beauty and joy, the way they were intended to be. 

Practically speaking this phase can look like you saying thank you to your younger self for having coped all this time. Thanking for their strength, patience, care, whatever comes up that you're grateful for. Thank yourself for doing the work. Connect with the feeling of love towards your younger self, you now and the universe as a whole. I often sit and hug myself for a long time and feel into my body. Typically the feelings show themselves physically if we let them. I can sit for 30 minutes just letting the feelings expand. Afterwards I usually feel so much lighter. 

I wrote this guide I use myself: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1bUPHfyHA-MNzUmL4JYj-FZ8ctLX8mKV7ScnVtwVFYIQ/

[Yoremo]

thank you dude, really appreciate it. What has been your experience with shadow work? I have a sense that you have been doing this for a while. for me I haven´t sensed much since I haven´t done it for that long nor many sessions, but I have some sense of what it might bring in the future.

[meadow]

Awareness, acknowledgement, integration.

I've been feeling so good many of the days in the last few weeks. Peaceful. Strong. Valuable. 

Yesterday I went to kickboxing at a new gym. I haven't done it in a while and felt a fair bit of apprehension before the sparring started. During the sparring I felt overwhelmed multiple times and got hit in the head multiple times. After the sparring, going back home, I was tuned up to 11, jacked to the tits, in some kind of heightened state of stress and response. I didn't think much about it more than that I decided I wouldn't do any more sparring as I need my head to work. 

I slept all right but woke up very tired. I also noticed that I still had a heightened stress response when waking up. I felt disconnected from myself and last evening I even had to close a call with a friend because I didn't feel like I was there. This continued in the morning and I realised that I was actually in a trauma response and was dissociating. I inquired briefly into what it could be about and an old memory surfaced almost immediately. 

Step 1: Awareness - let's get to know the feeling

I feel a heavy resistance towards digging here. It's disguised as laziness. I'm feeling urges of watching porn. Sulking. Being difficult. Young teenager is responding right now. Angry about something. Feeling is everywhere right now. 

I'm trying for a good while to get ahold of the feeling. I can not. It is evasive. It seems like this is a whole other league. It might be a version I haven't talked to yet, who isn't feeling safe. I feel like the head trauma might be a cause too. I feel duller than usual, dissociated. Also definitely in a trauma response as I feel like prey today and not like the king of the lands. Peasant mode. 

I had a glimpse of it. There was intense sadness. This is the part of me that has suffered the most with the least amount of support. Completely alone. No prospect of a great future. This version of me was 100% sure he didn't want kids because he didn't want to inflict the useless genes on someone else. Intense self-loathing and absolutely no understanding or support around him. It was a damn tough time for this kid. I feel so sorry for him. I also love him so much. 

This is my ultimate teenage trauma. The trauma of being a small boy. The trauma of being late in puberty. The trauma of feeling completely insignificant. The trauma of living every day through hell, being teased, bullied and pushed down. Understanding that I am not ok, that I am not valuable. Having no-one there to protect me. No one to understand me. This is the trauma that taught me paranoia and how everyone is out to get me. How everyone derives pleasure and purpose from my suffering. How other human beings are simply threats to my existence. This trauma taught me to not trust anyone, to close down, it taught me that the only one I can count on is me. It showed me that the only relationship worth having towards other humans is that of spite, hate and anger. I learned how to lie, how to manipulate, how to indirectly damage. I wanted to destroy them all. It feels like I still do. I wanted to blow that building up with all those retarded kids inside. It would have been my happiest moment alive. Watching them burn. Watching the building crumble. I would have taken their remains as trophies. Fuck them all and fuck this planet. So much hate inside of me now. I _fucking_ hated them. Useless, dumb, piss-ants. They didn't even deserve to be spat on. Fuck them and their useless families. 

I sat for another 30 minutes feeling into it. Grabbed a pillow. The anger and anguish is a bit more pronounced now and I could connect with it in short intervals. It is a very, very angry and sad part of me which is not interested in connecting. He is depressed, lonely, sad and absolutely hopeless. It breaks my heart. He has been hiding in plain sight while all other versions are coming out and blossoming. Their mere existence feels like judgement to him. I tried to connect and start crying with the pillow but I couldn't get the machine running, The more I focus, the more I feel, and I don't feel like stopping. 

I love this part of myself. He is the strongest I've had to be. I want to say that I wouldn't have been able to survive like he did if I were thrown into the same circumstances now. He not only survived, he did it his way. He didn't fall for any group pressure. He didn't care about forming alliances with people who didn't match his alignment. He was ready to take on everyone if necessary. An absolute Genghis Khan. When the other kids were out drinking and smoking he was at home learning what he was interested in. He was playing computer games, which in itself was a technical challenge back then. The computer was such a marvel to him. The tinkering, the booting, the registry hacking. Finding cracks online. Those awesome tunes from the warez and crack loaders. 

This guy is such a lovely dude. He was a bundle of joy, really. But he was cast out to this hell-hole with people of half his intelligence and none of his ambition. 

I am hesitating whether I can deal with this trigger and trauma response myself. This feels like it's the biggest one so far. Feeling small has defined so much of my experience as a human being. The fear of not being good enough is rooted in this one too, from all of the shunning of girls, in his mind. He didn't of course really try, as he was too afraid and too certain of the outcome. 

I'm feeling a pain in my gut now, a dense, pulsating pain. This is the one I should focus on. 

I got ahold of the feeling after another 20 minutes of sitting. Boom. Passion. Anger. Fury. Raw, unbridled emotion and violence opened up. I connected into my wolf. I heard the snarls, saw the fangs. Ripped my enemies apart. Blood covering the whole hallway and lockers. I did it many times and basked in the pleasure of the violence and power. I was on top of my bed and screamed from the top of my lungs into a pillow and violently thrashed about. I truly felt like an animal and I loved it. In my mind I saw my claws tear apart the boy who assaulted me. I ripped through his flesh like it was nothing. I cried and raged intermittently until I felt exhausted and just settled. I am not done with this one. I think I have only just started. It was truly an awful period and it has gone unnoticed for very long. I want to believe I will feel invincible after truly integrating this one. So much power there, wow. 

Thank you young Meadow for taking us through this episode. Thank you for doing it with your integrity intact. Thank you for not becoming a sheep. Thank you for never settling. I love you so damn much, you don't even know. I understand you don't trust me. You don't trust anyone. It's ok, I have patience. I am here for you. Whenever, wherever, I will make time for you. My love for you will never go away no matter how you behave or what you do or how you feel. To me you are truly a remarkable and beautiful young wolf. You grow up to be a truly majestic being, full of love and loved by many. I want to show you the world you created for yourself. I want you to be able to worrilessly enjoy sitting at the computer and tinkering with hacks and cracks. Exploring this incredible phenomenon that is the internet that you just had an instinctive understanding that it would change everything and be absolutely pivotal in your life. You were such an intuitive young genius and completely outshone all of the poor flat kids around you. I love you so much. Thank you.