Shadow Work

[eskwire]

Has anybody been doing shadow work or have a solid grasp on what this is?

Someone in the YouTube comments recommended this book to me for shadow work but I'm not seeing it in the index. Google searches have provided nebulous definitions.

Thanks!

[Martin123]

Leo's video ahout childhood vows.

My favourite is - connect with all of your negative thoughts, question all of your negative emotions. Think about trauma in your childhood. Meditate.

 

search for video - Julien himself, the hpiness manifesto, he gives a technique by the end of the video that is extremely effective

 

 

[Martin123]

@eskwire Also train mindfulness

[Martin123]

@eskwire Ok I will write a little but more on this topic.
Shadowork, is way easier in a way than it is sometimes made up to be, but at the same time way more difficult than anything you will do afterwards.

We live in a suppresive toxic culture. We are told that certain aspects of us are bad, unacceptable, undesirable and we are forced to suppress them.
These aspects are suppressed in the form of emotions. Basically that is all there is to it. People tend to overcomplicate it by saying "Well you suppress parts of your personality, and this and that blablahblah..." and that is true. 
But isn´t necessarily practical.
The practical bit is - suppressed emotions - or rather suppressed energy in your body.
Once you access this huge pile of shit that you have been running away from for ages, there is no way you can "unsee" it, you will start going through it, slowly, gradually, sorting your shit out.

Where do you access it - learn to be as present as possible, the pressent moment is the gateway to the pile of shit that good ol Jung called "the Shadow".
The breathing exercise from Julien gets the energy in your body moving. 
When you think about it, about traumatic events etc. it can trigger some suppressed memories and emotions, and then work with that.
Shower yourself with unconditional love and positive regard. This is crucial. Because these emotions were suppressed because of the lack of love. Judgement took place instead of acceptance. Therefore you need to reverse the process.
"Treat your emotions as little babies:"

Other resources for shadowork, although called differently - Eckhart Tolle called it the pain body. Here you can see how he emphasized the idea of it being "life-energy" stuck in your body. This description is as close as it gets.
As you start dissolving the painbody you will feel this energy being released, this feeling is very unique and can´t be confused with anything else, then you will know it is working.

The process of healing your shadow can be lenghty (we´re talking years), but it  doesn´t really make sense to live your life without doing it. It is literally the only thing that stands between the "current you" and the you that is the "full human being" that you surely desire to become.

Bear in mind.
Subconscious mind = your body. (Not just someting Ralf Smart says, there is legit scientific research on that).
As you go through your shadows - your body will express different needs.
Horniness
Extreme apetite
Lack of apetite
Sleepiness
Insomnia
.
.
.
(If you watch The dark side of meditation, you will get some beautiful ideas of what your shadow can bring about =D)

Edited January 5, 2017 by Martin123

[eskwire]

@Martin123 That was a very thorough and helpful explanation and it definitely gives me some guidance on how to proceed! Thank you!

[Emerald]

On 1/4/2017 at 8:25 PM, eskwire said:

Has anybody been doing shadow work or have a solid grasp on what this is?

Someone in the YouTube comments recommended this book to me for shadow work but I'm not seeing it in the index. Google searches have provided nebulous definitions.

Thanks!

I made a video about Shadow Work fairly recently. I'll post it below. But to sum it up, repression is a very active process where you have an unconscious habit of ignoring or suppressing certain traits, emotions, and aspects of reality from your awareness. These traits get relegated to the shadow which is part of the unconscious mind. This is what creates distortion, delusion, disconnection from wisdom, and a lack of clarity. So, you find the traits that you are most resistant to in others, and you find your hidden beliefs that make those traits "wrong" or bad for you to have or express. Then, you let those beliefs go. 

Here is the video:

 

[eskwire]

@Emerald Wilkins Duuuude, I also had fixations on misogyny and "all metal, no punk" in my youth. This video was very clear and spoke to me.

An insight into a current fixation already came up. I harshly judge people who are "needy" and identify as independent. This is because there is actually a trend toward codependency under the surface that I hide and repress as much as possible. 

Thank you! I look forward to checking out your channel. 

[Emerald]

8 hours ago, eskwire said:

@Emerald Wilkins Duuuude, I also had fixations on misogyny and "all metal, no punk" in my youth. This video was very clear and spoke to me.

An insight into a current fixation already came up. I harshly judge people who are "needy" and identify as independent. This is because there is actually a trend toward codependency under the surface that I hide and repress as much as possible. 

Thank you! I look forward to checking out your channel. 

I'm glad to hear that you can relate. Your question on codependency and neediness reminds of an insight that I had as a result of my experiences of ego transcendence back when I was 20. I always harshly judged people who were "attention whores". Like if a person openly cried in front of people or over-dramatized to get attention or just did things to seek attention in general, I would secretly judge them very harshly. What I realized during those experiences, was that I had the same attention-seeking bone in me, only I was in resistance to it. So, if I needed attention, I would have to do other more subtle and occasionally manipulative things that fit within the range of the rules I had set for my behavior. So, I sought attention through academic success, unique style of dress, creativity, novelty, and making myself attractive where I could actually tell myself that it was okay to get a little attention. But these never satisfied that need. I was always feeling like I needed more, but was too proud. So, I starved myself of it. So, when that came flooding back to me after those experiences, I was like 'ya know what... I'm going to be an attention whore on purpose. So what if it gets on other people's nerves.' So, I did a lot of crazy, sometimes destructive, but incredibly liberating things that I had never allowed myself to do. Luckily I was in art school at the time, and I had a lot of open-minded professors.  But this was only the first phase in the reintegration process for me relative to this emotion. I had to find out why I felt the need to seek attention in the first place, and become aware of everything underneath that desire. 

So, it may be the case that you have a general tendency toward neediness that you're repressing. Like (this is a hypothetical scenario) maybe your parents didn't give you the attention you needed as kid. As a result you were needy as a kid and got made fun of by other kids for being too clingy. Then, you decided to not be like that. But your emotions that caused you to be that way in the first place weren't resolved. You just changed the outward behavior, to save yourself from the emotional pain of rejection from your peers. But inwardly and unconsciously, there would still remain a child, dealing with the emotional needs that never got met that the now-unconscious feeling of neediness was there to help with. So, I would say that it's important to first become aware of the neediness and accept and reintegrate that. Then you can assess why the neediness is there in the first place, then you can work on reintegrating and becoming aware of that emotional need. So, in this way, you can kind of follow your emotions deeper and deeper. 

Thank you for checking out my channel! 

Edited January 6, 2017 by Emerald Wilkins

[eskwire]

@Emerald Wilkins That is pretty much the size of it!  My family was quite dysfunctional (alcoholism, enabling, violence) and expressed disdain for sensitivity.  I was very sensitive and emotive.  They were stoic.  I now have a "stop being a crybaby" mentality about others, even toward people who are in physical pain.  There is even some degree of jealousy!

In romantic relationships, I seek out men who treat me with disregard.  Living with their disregard seems like the difficult but more evolved or correct way.  Like I've matured enough to handle it.  In response to this disregard, I become very needy.  I repress the neediness to keep the relationship and act equally "chill" (lies).  I see other people being "needy" (expressing their needs, asking for things, demanding attention or time).  I view this as greedy.  What happens in their relationships seem like the smallest of slights in comparison to what I've "endured" from family and men.  This brings up a lot of animosity toward them, the sense that they are crybabies, and also jealousy...because I want to be able to ask for what I need.  This is very clear now!  I was wondering why "neediness" made me SO ANGRY.  Thanks for walking me through that.

It will be interesting to think about how to reintegrate neediness.  Perhaps inner child work will help me do that -- just showering the inner child with love, attention, and babying.  That might get me to a place where I'm not needs deficient anymore and I can select mates on less dysfunctional patterns.

[Emerald]

42 minutes ago, eskwire said:

@Emerald Wilkins That is pretty much the size of it!  My family was quite dysfunctional (alcoholism, enabling, violence) and expressed disdain for sensitivity.  I was very sensitive and emotive.  They were stoic.  I now have a "stop being a crybaby" mentality about others, even toward people who are in physical pain.  There is even some degree of jealousy!

In romantic relationships, I seek out men who treat me with disregard.  Living with their disregard seems like the difficult but more evolved or correct way.  Like I've matured enough to handle it.  In response to this disregard, I become very needy.  I repress the neediness to keep the relationship and act equally "chill" (lies).  I see other people being "needy" (expressing their needs, asking for things, demanding attention or time).  I view this as greedy.  What happens in their relationships seem like the smallest of slights in comparison to what I've "endured" from family and men.  This brings up a lot of animosity toward them, the sense that they are crybabies, and also jealousy...because I want to be able to ask for what I need.  This is very clear now!  I was wondering why "neediness" made me SO ANGRY.  Thanks for walking me through that.

It will be interesting to think about how to reintegrate neediness.  Perhaps inner child work will help me do that -- just showering the inner child with love, attention, and babying.  That might get me to a place where I'm not needs deficient anymore and I can select mates on less dysfunctional patterns.

I'm glad to hear that my video and comment has been of help. So, I think the main thing, now that you're aware of your underlying beliefs around being deserving of or allowed to have attention, is to start unwiring those beliefs and exchanging them with new beliefs. And at various times throughout the day, you can question your beliefs as they come up relative to this repression. Sometimes repressions can impact other seemingly unrelated things as the aspects of the psyche are highly interconnected. So, becoming mindful of this throughout your day should be very helpful in consciously letting go of these limiting beliefs. 

[eskwire]

@Emerald Wilkins Got it!  Mindfulness and inquiry!  Woohoo!  The psychology of it really helps you see what you're looking at mindfully with clarity.

[Guest Annetta]

On 1/5/2017 at 4:35 AM, Martin123 said:

Shower yourself with unconditional love and positive regard. This is crucial. Because these emotions were suppressed because of the lack of love. Judgement took place instead of acceptance. Therefore you need to reverse the process.
"Treat your emotions as little babies:"

Oh snap, maybe that's where I'm going wrong with my shadow work.  I've been working on my demons, but it's just making me feel more unhinged.  

 

12 hours ago, Emerald Wilkins said:

Luckily I was in art school at the time, and I had a lot of open-minded professors.

Can I see some of your art??

[Emerald]

53 minutes ago, Babybat said:

Can I see some of your art??

I don't have much of it photographed by I can show you a few things. But I haven't created much art since I graduated from college. It sort of lost meaning to me.

Here are some animations that I made. I wanted to see how far apart I could push each frame in the series apart from one another visually and still have it read as a coherent animation.

 

Below are some of my paintings and drawings that I happen to still have images of. In the image on top, mine is the portrait that's second from the right. It's a self portrait of me back when I was 18 and used to be a bit chubbier.

Edited January 7, 2017 by Emerald Wilkins

[Guest Annetta]

@Emerald Wilkins You're an excellent artist!!  I love that first animation quite a lot.

I know how that goes, been in an artistic slump for yeaaars.  Do you think you'll ever take up painting again in the future?

[Emerald]

7 hours ago, Babybat said:

@Emerald Wilkins You're an excellent artist!!  I love that first animation quite a lot.

I know how that goes, been in an artistic slump for yeaaars.  Do you think you'll ever take up painting again in the future?

Thank you. As I move further away from having a career in the arts, I start to get little cravings to paint, here and there. I really do enjoy the task of resolving a painting. I think I got disenchanted with it because I was so involved in the idea of being a successful artist as opposed to just enjoying the process of creating. And I also had a lot of unwritten rules for how I had to create and how much I should create.