Shadow work using IFS therapy

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I've been looking into my social anxiety and people pleasing behaviours. I imagine others judging me as a negative energy field surrounding my body. It manifests even when I am alone just thinking about the way I appear to others. Perhaps it came from my childhood where I was ostracized, shunned and bullied by pretty much everyone in my life. I live my life trying not to provoke this energy field.

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Yet another ego backlash. oof.

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I really should be doing ifs but I keep procrastinating. ffs

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I'm working on parts that hold other peoples disapproval. The root of social anxiety and people pleasing. This part equates peoples disapproval of me to physical pain. This is the part that physically hurts every time I think of an embarrassing moment.

By making peace with it, the embarrassing moments and social anxiety by extension no longer have any charge to them. I haven't exactly become ultra confident but I'm much less a prisoner of other peoples opinions.

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Music plays a key role in my IFS practice and I don't see it talked about in conventional circles.

Music is an easy way to connect with parts, especially exiles. For example, listening to heavy metal music allowed me to connect to exiled parts that held my anger and rage. The music allowed me to understand where the parts were coming from and allowed my to form a better relationship with my exile. Interestingly, once I had unburdened my angry parts, I no longer had any desire to listen to heavy metal music.

This has led me to believe that people subconsciously are drawn to music that resonates with their exiled parts as a subconscious way of understanding them. People that listen to angry music do so because their repressed anger wants to be understood and expressed. And its the same for every emotion.

Here's some music that helped me connect to my exiles:

 

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I managed to unburden a part that was blocking sexual energy in my sacral chakra. When it happened, sexual energy flowed through my body and I had a full body orgasm. It was like every part of my body was as sensitive as my penis and the slightest touch would make my entire body contract and create waves of pleasure. It was way more intense than any orgasm I've had. 10/10 would recommend.

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I woke up with feelings of despair and hopelessness. Instead of fighting it, I allowed it to express itself and it transmuted into inner space. 

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I unburdened a few parts near my root chakra related to childhood trauma. When they unburdened, it created a buildup of energy in my lower body. I moved the energy up through my chakras into my crown and once it was there I pushed energy from my root chakra, through my spinal cord into the crown. This created an intense kundalini awakening experience. The only analogy I can make is a lightning bolt in slow motion. My entire energetic body lit up and I felt insane amounts of energy course through my body. 

I have no yoga experience at all and yet I was able to reach kundalini awakening in a few months. I'm convinced IFS is actually a secret form of yoga.

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My family is an absolute shitfest. Fuck me

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I managed to access repressed rage from childhood abuse. When I released it, my body started tensing up and thrashing around. I wasn't possessed or anything, it just felt like the right thing to do. I wanted to scream but I didn't want to wake up my family. It felt very primal. Once I released the rage, a space opened up in my body and I began to calm down. 

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I've done a lot of unburdening and I'm getting backlash from protector parts that are scared of so much internal change.

IFS recommends not working with exiles without permission from protectors but I guess I skipped that step... oh well

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I'm getting bursts of frustration. An important part of me desperately wants my life to change and to be honest I agree with it. I've been healing but my life has been stagnating for nearly a year now. A self help guru would be appalled at my life the past few months. If anything my life has gotten worse on a material and social level. Its hard to make progress when my foundations are constantly being ripped apart. I guess this is one of the downsides of IFS.

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I'm struggling with some really sneaky protector parts: The distractor, the procrastinator, the monkey mind and the tiredness part. These parts are uniquely difficult because they have so much power over me and also they prevent me from doing my IFS practice. They can distract me for hours both from IFS work and real life work that needs to be done. These have been around since my childhood and have had a huge effect on my life.

They are also working together synergistically. Any attempt to work with one of these parts results in the others doing their thing.

This is going to be really difficult

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I think I'm losing against my parts. The alliance of protectors is really powerful. I get brief windows of clarity where I can then apply IFS methods but for the majority of the time, these parts reign supreme.

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The more I watch Leo, the more I realise that he hasn't really done this kind of shadow work. It reflects in his behaviours, his teachings and this community. Dude would really benefit from taking a break from psychedelics and doing shadow work but I doubt he would do that.

The ironic thing is it would make him even more awakened if he did it.

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Managed to unburden a protector part in my throat chakra that I've been struggling with for months now. When It happened, I started laughing uncontrollably.

It's interesting how different parts create different effects when unburdened. From crying, sobbing, laughing, screaming in rage, muscle spasm and full body orgasm. It's like each part holds a different form of emotional energy.

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I find myself getting triggered a lot by highly pessimistic and nihilistic people. I was browsing the antinatalist subreddit and a lot of the things they were saying provoked a visceral reaction in me because they were so against my values. I then realised that this reaction was caused my a firefighter part trying to suppress an exile. The exile was my inner worry, doubt and pessimism. Thoughts like, what if I'm wrong and reality is just fundamentally negative and awful? This gets triggered by extreme negativity and pessimism towards life and humanity. 

 

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Holy shit! I just confronted my shadow.

While working with my existential dread and nihilism, instead of avoiding it, I jumped straight into the fire and fully embraced these feelings and I ended up facing my shadow.

All my preconceived notions of shadow work were wrong. The shadow isn't just a part, Its an entire world filled with darkness, dread, hatred and malevolence. 

And its been here all along pulling the strings.

I understand why its called the shadow now. My shadow isn't just a part, It is me! Its just as much me as the conscious me, just a dark aspect of me that never sees the light of consciousness. Everything I hated out in the world was inside me all along being projected outwards. I thought, I was suppressing it, but its been in control the entire time. If my self is a reflection of the light of consciousness, then my shadow self is a reflection of the void. Once I embraced by shadow, all my existential dread remained, but to my shadow, the dread was ok, it was just one of many emotions in the void.

The experience was equal in intensity to a psychedelic trip although none have allowed me to access my shadow like IFS. The shadow hasn't changed, It's just been illuminated. I don't know what the consequences will be or if I can even trust my shadow, but its not like I was ever in control in the first place. I can only allow things to unfold. 

I tried to draw my experience with midjourney:

 

 

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Damn, I'm getting huge protector backlash after meeting my shadow. I guess my protector parts really didn't want me to do that. I probably should have asked them for more permission but oh well...