The shadow is about what parts you have rejected of yourself, when you were told by someone else, your environment and your society that it’s not good to be different, strong or opinionated. It’s just about your rejected characteristics, you decided to keep them in a box inside you but never use them. And possibly, all characteristics out of those were not as bad as someone told you, just to keep you suppressed and in control.
When you integrate your shadow-self back within you, after that there’s no shadow anymore, it all becomes you. You can love all parts of yourself and not be afraid of anyone’s disapproval. You just need to accept yourself, let everyone else do there bid. You love yourself completely, regardless!!. Shadow work is not only about integrating your rejected parts back, but also about looking at your own wounds, accepting them and healing. When you work on your wounds, you also get to see all of your subconscious fears and insecurities. So shadow work is a lot more than anyone can think, it’s the ultimate self-development.
Dark Night of the soul and shadow work come hand in hand. When your soul hits the dark night, you cannot run away from shadow work anymore. It makes you question everything, everything that social conditioning taught you. The journey is painful, but after going through it, you can experience ultimate fulfilment.
Self-acceptance is a must for self-love. And when you accept your shadow also as your own SELF, you become an empowered individual.
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So I just took a personality test and came to know I am an INFJ-A. I started talking about that on my Instagram and ended up talking about my shadow work. I just want to share all of that into a single post on WordPress.
My personality basically is a super empath, according to me. Super Empaths are in touch with their emotions but strong individuals. Always learning, often spiritual, looked up as old souls. They learn to fight the darkness within themselves, accept all parts of themselves and have true self-love.
But you should never mess with an Empath, since they master their light and dark both sides, they can very well understand what a toxic person is capable of doing and INFJs can fight back ten-fold if they want, but they choose not to. They do stand up to abusers because bringing justice is as spiritual as you can be. They win but outgrowing their abusers. When one masters darkness within themselves, they become a Lightworker.
Now I thought people who haven’t done any shadow work for themselves, would be looking at it in a negative way. So I went down explaining more and more. To me, it’s not righteous to compare your light side to someone’s shadow side and be like oh this is a bad person. I don’t think a person who has done shadow work on themselves, is ever going to compare it with someone else’s shadow and be like “mine is better”. Shadow work always humbles you, because now you know what bad could exist within you, why would you look down on anyone else.
Empaths have a weakness to think as if the world is as good as them. They are pure-hearted and have strong moral values. Their dark side is all about having boundaries, walking away from wrong people, detaching from their abusers, standing up for themselves, seeing through people’s intentions and taking their power back. All these things are suppressed in an empath, especially rebels, Lightworkers, INFJs. They are taught by society to suppress their strong personalities.
Because of abuse, boundary violations and gaslighting, all of these start coming to surface. Suddenly they also want to fight back, need justice, the dark emotions of wanting to fight for themselves start coming to the surface. (The emotion is dark only from the victim’s perspective because of their conditioning, it’s not actually dark. Courage is a good thing.) This is when the shadow work kicks in. In some rare cases, it pushes them to a state termed “Supernova”, and that’s when they can play one step ahead of the Narcissists. But the core of an empath is purity, so very fast, their soul starts suffering the consequences. You cannot change who you are on the inside, so then they need to go for therapy, to recover from the guilt/regret/remorse. If an empath learns to fight their urges of battling the abuser, to see it as lessons, work on themselves, stop getting involved in the drama, taking their power back and outgrow their environments to overcome abuse. That’s how an empath becomes a super empath.
The Empath’s dark side is not about doing bad to anyone, but to accept that world is not all good. (Now again, I know my haters would be going like, see Empaths aren’t as pure). Before anyone blames Empaths for anything, remember that they absorb other people’s emotions, the Narcissist’s emotions too. Narcissists abuse their victims in a way, to provoke the victims to step outside of their integrity. That’s why those who overcome Narcissistic abuse, are strong people, spiritual warriors. A super empath is an empowered individual. Those who are still not able to justify, I would ask them to do their own shadow work, before raising a finger.
The shadow is about what parts of yourself you have rejected when you were told by someone else, your environment and your society that it’s not good to be different, to be strong or opinionated. It’s just about your rejected characteristics, that you decided to keep in a box inside you and to never use them. And possibly, all characteristics out of those were not as bad as someone told you just to keep you suppressed and in control. When you integrate your shadow-self back within you, after that there’s no shadow anymore, it all becomes you. You can love all parts of yourself and not be afraid of society’s approval. You just need to accept yourself, let everyone else do there bid. You love yourself completely regardless.
Empath’s shadow self has power as well as dark emotions, that’s why you think that it’s something bad. But their shadow side still has lesser dark emotions. Unlike other people (mostly in toxic people and Narcissists) who have have Empathy itself in their shadow side, which makes it worse.
It’s easier to think that the Empath, a victim of abuse is a bad person, by looking at their shadow. To me, the shadow side is about negative internal emotions, abuse puts you through that turmoil, but it doesn’t mean they take action based on those negative emotions externally. This is why this world needs more Empathy. Empathy is not the same as sympathy, it makes you able to put yourself in someone else’s shoes. That is the same reason why Empaths can’t do bad to anyone or hurt anyone, even after integrating their shadow side. Because no matter what their shadow says, Empathy is still the highest emotion of them all.
Without exploring your own dark side, you can not see the dark side of others’. Empaths tend to think everyone is an angel until they get in touch with their own dark side. The shadow work is also related to “the dark night of the soul” phase when going through a spiritual awakening.
I wanted to share an example, that shadow is not all bad. So I shared something about myself. I didn’t have the emotion of jealousy ( competition jealousy for which people try to put someone down for their own good), even in my shadow side. That’s why it was so traumatizing for me to see people getting jealous, back in 2018. It took me a lot to accept that – yes, people do get jealous and you can’t do much about it. This is why, exploring your own shadow side is important, because, without it, I was able to see some things, but not able to accept them.
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When someone is in depression, the first thing they need to do is get their physical health in good condition. Physical and mental health are related to each other. Here I want to talk about some common things, adding negative effects of alcohol and the importance of going for the therapy.
You need to leave any type of alcohol, drugs or addictions.
Have a healthy sleep pattern, listen to calming music.
Start exercising, meditating, meditation can also help you with grief.
Avoid unhealthy eating habits like too much sugar, too much oil. Hormones which affect feelings of happiness and sadness, go into balance because of depression, and when you don’t eat right it further increases the problem. You can start having an issue like diabetes, thyroid, which further causes hormonal imbalances and that’s how depression becomes a difficult ailment to deal with.
Make a gratitude list every day, this helps you stop feeling as if life’s no good.
Have daily positive affirmations about yourself.
Talk to a friend, share your issues with your family. I know some people are actually insensitive enough to not understand your condition and that’s what scares you. But it doesn’t mean there are no people who know what listening to shame means. Learn to talk to the right people about your problems.
Journaling, write down your thoughts every day. Once it’s out on paper, it’s out of your mind too. You don’t have to think the same thing over and over again.
Get fresh air, travel, take a vacation for yourself, sometimes watch refreshing movies, relax.
Have some hobbies to keep yourself busy and relaxed, or do something you love to make yourself happy.
Focus on self-care and self-love.
When you are in depression, you can lose a sense of boundaries, some people become exploitative and some become suppressed. So have a clear mind about what behaviours you want to have and what behaviours you don’t.
Get a regular health check if possible, sometimes multivitamins can help. When I started changing my eating habits, my body was resisting so having multivitamins only for 20 days helped me a lot. I could feel the difference in my health.
Don’t try to escape your problems, with too much work, too much alcohol, too much gaming, too much dating, too many movies, too many desserts, toxic positivity etc.
Last but not least, get a therapist. Therapy really helps you identify your issues and work through them. A listening counsellor can actually help you with your shadow work. You do not need to worry about how they will treat you, it’s a therapist’s job to make you feel comfortable to talk about your problems. They do it gradually over sessions, slowly trying to help you see your problems, just like peeling layers of an Onion, one by one.
In psychology, there is a term “transference”. When you talk to a therapist, even surround yourself with wise people. You learn emotionally healthy behaviours, setting boundaries and decision making through how they deal with their problems. That’s why getting therapy always works. You learn a lot of rational thinking behaviours from your therapist too. Choose a good therapist, you can easily search online and find a therapist with good ratings. A right therapist will try their best to not put you on unnecessary medicines.
Some people are unaware but depressed for their whole life, because they were never taught – how to regulate their emotions and thoughts. May be these facts will help you understand the importance of having good emotional intelligence.
P.S. I was dealing with depression myself, till a few months back. And I tried to share everything that I learnt with my depression. Please give it a read and share across. If not you, someone around you could be dealing with it. Awareness is all it takes.
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I still remember the day when everyone voted for this topic on Instagram. And since I always pick up energies, I could feel the underlying energy around it. Which was a feeling of “there has to be some big secret to work on your fears”. I kept thinking, trying to figure out that one thing and never found anything. Then I was facing one more fear of mine which made me think again.
The truth is there’s no secret key to it. It’s simple. You just need to face your fears, head-on.
Now how do we learn to face our fears?
First, you need to become more conscious of yourself. When you raise your self-awareness and self-reflection, you are able to navigate all your emotions in a better way. If there is a subconscious fear that is making you act a certain way, now you will be able to notice it. Whereas earlier you won’t even realise why you have certain behavioural patterns.
Sometimes it can be a drastic situation or abuse, which brings those issues up to surface anyways, even when you don’t want it. But once you are able to acknowledge a fear you will be able to work on it.
When you know what type of fear you are facing, you need to be your own friend pat yourself on the back and encourage yourself that you can do it. The first time you are going to do feeling scared. The second time you would know that you can conquer it. Next time you will see the fear will be gone.
Whatever it is, that you are scared of, do it, do it anyway. For everything, what will happen if you fail, what people would say. Just do what you want to do. Life is all about living right!!
It takes a selfless person to do all the healing work. So if you are doing it, appreciation from the universe for you.
It takes a lot of dedication to work on all the wounds, some of which are not your own, they come from society, your environment, your ancestors.
Self-love involves healing, because when you heal you create such good karma for yourself and all the generations that are going to come after you. When you heal yourself, you present authenticity to your connections, you give them true unconditional love.
The abuser is always a person who does not even know how to regulate his/her own emotions. They can not end the cycle of abuse, never. It always takes the victim to make a decision, once the victim decides, he/she can end the cycle. How?
If with a Narcissist, do not give them what they want. Don’t give them drama. If already past that stage, start showing them the mirror, the Narcissists, they fear coming face to face with their own reality.
(Showing a mirror to Narcissist or walking away, both are a form of compassion for them. Just do not engage in the drama and give them a chance of self-reflection. I know it never works, they never are able to self reflect so much, but maybe they start seeing the truth one by one, victim by victim for their whole life. And probably when they get old, they can recall what they did.)
If it’s not a Narcissist, only a toxic person, don’t engage. Don’t engage with them. They are people who are in so much pain inside, that they want to create the same reality outside. They become self-destructive.
If it’s a person who has some kind of power over you, legally. Walk away (Yes, it sounds like an escape, but read it till the end). Now you would say but then I want to prove myself, my worth, I want to take back everything that they have damaged, my image, recognition everything. But no, you do not engage. You trying to prove your worth keeps you in a cycle, that’s what they want. Instead, you acknowledge your worth on your own and leave. Move on to next phase of your life, prove yourself there and these people will get their lessons on their own.
Walking away is a power, it’s such a big power in itself. When you walk away, you show them the difference between you and them. That you are not willing to waste time on these stupid games. Always remember, walking away is power. It will save you from a lot of misery.
Take back your power, do not put your worth in their hands, do not define your worth by how they treat you. Do not wait for them to accept your worth and treat you right. You are worthy, on your own. You are an amazing fantabulous person, just as you are. Never forget your own worth.
And you never know, if you are strong enough to take this decision, maybe God will smile and give you a chance to prove yourself, just before you are about to leave. I got that chance & I love my decisions now.
Healing means to clear all your past wounds and start fresh. Wounds of trauma, probably abuse, violence, shame etc.
It’s important because only after healing yourself you can reach your full potential, find true bliss and enjoy life everyday. You might say that you don’t have any trauma, you don’t have a bad past, but there can be many subconscious wounds that you are not aware of.
If you find yourself doing 5 minute rule for texting, pretending that you are busy, living for people’s approval, feeling over burdened by life, lashing out someone’s anger on someone else, using silent treatments, getting triggered by any online posts, triggered by interacting with people, there is something that requires healing. If you are conflict avoidant, having commitment issues, anger issues, all of it can be healed.
There are so many subconscious fears and societal programming in everyone’s mind that come to surface whenever anything drastic happens in their life. So do you want to wait till that moment when everything comes to surface altogether and bursts into anxiety or you want to go inwards and work on yourself now so that you are always ready to take a difficult situation and transform it into calmer waters.
Those who know that they faced some trauma, they know how it is to feel broken. And only healing can help you bring yourself together again. When you heal yourself, you won’t have to feel broken. I tried healing myself and it happened one day, one day I stopped feeling broken. It can happen for you too. If I can do it, you can do it too. I won’t ask you to have hope, but I can assure you that it works.
Healing can take you towards enlightenment, it introduces you to a high vibrational way of living.
If you liked this post, follow me for regular posts about healing. We will look at the spiritual perspective of healing, how it works and step to heal yourself.
And one day you will be whole and feel in complete in yourself.
This one is so close to my heart, nobody actually knows how much I have been through, a series of unlimited problems, that broke me to the core. But I never gave up and finally I am starting to feel whole again with myself. I am falling in love with myself again.
No matter how hard I try, I can not express this into words. I felt as if the whole world was against me and I questioned why nobody tried to help me, and they I broke into tears realising how many forces were with me trying to help me all this long, something brought so many breakthroughs for me. I cannot be grateful enough.
Remember, what you are going through today, will make you tough like a diamond tomorrow and you will shine. Never give up, never leave hope. Time will change, it may take years, but it will.
The Pretty Smart Techie 