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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I know it’s going to be hard if you just started your self-love journey. It was, for me too.
Let’s start from the point where I had to start, I had completely rejected and forgotten all parts of me, all my past that I did not like. And then I had to finally face everything.
I haven’t been posting anything about my relationships here, because you know, Indians !! But I can share what is required badly now. Anyways most of the people who know me, they know all of this stuff.
I was in a relationship with a guy, quite toxic. When the relationship started to fall off, in just a few months, I tried to fix everything. He just tried to block me everywhere and I kept trying to fix his life for him. I went on telling him to work on his self-esteem, his friendships, his conflict-avoidant nature. I ended up with no results because you can not change a person unless they want to, this has been a lesson that life kept throwing at me repeatedly for three years, even in friendships and at work, until I started using it into my life.
Whatever I tried to fix for him, in a few months I started observing the same problems in my life. First my own self-esteem, my own habit of people-pleasing, next to my toxic friendships, my boundaries, my priorities and then all patterns that I acquired while growing up.
I was just thrown off into deep shadow work, just like that. My life was falling apart and with that, all my wounds were coming to surface. I started writing all my emotions into a diary, I kept writing each fear of mine into that list. I also wrote each memory from my past that haunted me. Meanwhile, new people, new abusers, new problems, kept coming into my life at the same time. It was very difficult, but I just made it through somehow, all I knew was to not give up.
When I was over the phase of writing everything down, as much as I could m I started working on it one by one. I still have flashbacks of things that I rejected about myself, but now it’s easy because I have practised enough. Every time I remember a bitter memory, I know what wound it caused and what behaviours I learnt, what shame it put me into.
A lot of motivational speakers show self-love as if it’s going to be all good. But it’s a difficult process to learn, it’s not all easy, with self-reflection, you are entering into the journey of facing your Shadows, all the shame that anyone has ever caused in life and made you feel less worthy, it’s all going to come to the surface.
Healing is a journey, there is never going to be an end to it, but after a point, you will reach saturation, and that point is our goal.
Self-acceptance is so important, it means self-reflection, self-love, shadow work, all are being done. Learn to accept all parts of yourself and that a lot of stuff has been put by this world onto you. Start being your own friend, you will start getting rid of the shame, your environment caused you. Self-acceptance made me accept my own mistakes and also whatever wrong was done to me.
If you find your own mistakes, it’s okay to take time to feel the regret, give yourself time to grieve. But after a point, you have to stop grieving and forgive yourself. Some people might have done something, that isn’t forgivable morally. But all you can do is free yourself from resentment. You do not have to carry someone else’s pain anymore. Free yourself. People get their Karma eventually. Your focus should not be about them getting their Karma back, but about taking your power back, giving yourself a chance to live your true authentic self.
Share is not an easy thing to come out of, but you are strong and you can do it. You do not need to share your bad experiences with everyone, but if you will look around, there will be 2-3 people in your life, who will be ready to accept all parts of you. I found that in my family, I never expected it to turn out that way, but they have been through everything with me.
Look around, share it with someone who knows what listening to shame means, who loves you unconditionally, who has a compassionate heart and makes you feel safe. If that is not possible, be your own friend, share things with yourself, learn to console yourself. All you need to do is, be true to yourself. Whatever you show to the world, at least don’t hide the truth from yourself. If you that, your soul suffers with it, I have experienced it personally.
You can always go for therapy, it’s a therapists job to make you feel comfortable and safe to share all your emotions with them. Please do not suffer in silence (adding this part after watching the new today).
Shadow is the part of yourself that you have rejected, out of your own insecurities, because of trauma, the moments of shame and feeling worthless. All those are acknowledged as a shadow. Most of the times, what you hate about others, is also a part of your shadow. Once you have done shadow work, you will know the difference, you will experience self-fulfilment.
So I just shared something personal, yes I have been in love. Every time I thought now I have found the one, I was disappointed, I have a pretty normal life, just like everyone. I thought trying to fix everything on my own in a relationship is unconditional love, then I started noticing this unconditional love is not bringing me happiness as it should have, I learnt to let people go.
Be yourself. Your truest authentic self. That is what makes you live more.
If you want to experience life to it’s best you need to stop trying to fit in and be you. You have your own light and you cannot keep dimming it for people. I mean who asked a unicorn to act like a horse. You are pink-purple, blue, shiny, glittery, furry, but you are damn better than those black, brown & white horses.
It takes a lot of hard work, struggles and pain to find yourself. And once you know who you are, never turn back.
No matter what the world tells you. You are born to stand out and not fit in. Stop doing what you are not meant to. You do you and the rest will follow. . . . If you liked this post, please like, follow and share with your friends.
P.S. I know this quote is everywhere already but I am not sure who wrote it.
I am not asking you to stop self-reflection, we all make mistakes and have our lessons to learn. But the part that I am trying to bring light on is-
We have become so robotic, running this life’s race, that we have forgotten what real connections mean. What feeling heard, feeling loved and feeling enough means.
We need to read Instagram posts and watch motivational videos on YouTube, just to remind ourselves that “I am lovable, I can do it, I do deserve it”. We have lost touch with ourselves, so much that in real life there’s no one who tells you this.
That’s how we all live a life feeling not enough, not heard, not lovable, not deserving and then every day looks like a struggle. Everyone goes around facing problems, complaining, being sad, unmotivated, feeling miserable and some even end up creating troubles for others. Only because no one feels good about themselves.
We have created this never-ending loop, maybe it’s time we start appreciating each other, and more than that, start appreciating ourselves, loving ourselves.
I realised this when I am finally over all the negative stuff and I realise, “wow there’s nothing wrong with me, there was nothing wrong with me ever”. But why did I feel like that, because there was no one to say these words to me, and even if some people did, all those problems, all that fog leaves an impression on subconscious that there must be something wrong, otherwise why so many problems. Logically I knew it’s not my fault, but some things still enter your subconscious. Including people who were trying to make me feel like there’s is something wrong with me, all this time. I get to think that this is a problem, probably one that everyone deals with.
Just because your life is full of problems, it does not mean you are not enough, it’s just a part of destiny. So do not entangle what happens on the outside, with what happens on the inside. When you feel good inside, every day is a blessing. Love yourself.
What we talked about here is a deep inner child wound and needs healing.
Do you feel that people will not allow you to be your best version? It’s just a self limiting belief, a mental block and a subtle example of victim consciousness.
I have been through this too, I was scared if people will be able to accept me being my best version or not. Now I realise I was actually scared of myself, because I had never been the great person that I had the potential to become.
If you think people will not let you live your best life, probably you have too many toxic people in your life & you might need to start removing them from your life. Because they might want you to be stuck with them in misery when they see you growing. Learn to give yourself priority and set boundaries straight with them.
For the bigger picture, the whole world, everywhere on this planet earth, everything operates on two things – control & fear. If you are going to wait for people to give you permission to become free, fearless and authentic. That’s never going to happen for real, so it’s only you who can give yourself permission to be your best, no one else can. Learn to give yourself permission. Don’t wait for people to validate you, just do it.
People who love you truly, will appreciate the change. Most likely everyone is going to love you more than you expected. Toxic people will start seeing what God has ordained on your life & leave you alone. You will also get a chance to let go of what doesn’t serve you anymore, by looking at people who don’t like the change in you.
When you become your authentic self, every aspect of your life, all your relationships will transform for good.
There’s this thing called self-deception, which means self-betrayal.
Some people are going to betray you, sometimes life is going to betray you. But when you start betraying yourself, you also betray people who truly care for you. This brings hell lot of betrayal, so always be careful to not betray yourself.
To betray yourself means to not listen to your own intuition, to self-sabotage and to not let yourself move towards happiness, to give yourself excuses to stay in toxic situations with wrong people. Basically, you remove yourself from moving towards your own true happiness.
Always be true to yourself, that makes your soul happy. It’s your choice if you want to sacrifice or not, but always know the right reason why you are doing it. Because it may not take long until you realise your mistake.
When you love yourself completely, you are always ready to take a leap of faith towards your own happiness. This is a part of self-love to be truly authentic and true to yourself.
Thank you for reading it till the end. If you have any queries, let me know in the comment section.
Everytime you think you found someone who you can love more than yourself, they will prove you wrong.
Self-love
Noone in this world deserves your love more than you do. It’s only you who is going to stick up with yourselves for the whole life.
People will come and go, they will change, change their priorities, all that will remain is your relationship with yourself.
Always be true to yourself, never hide what you feel, because it’s worth it. You are worthy to feel how you want to, to live how you want to, to be how you want to.
Thank you for reading it till the end. If you have any queries, let me know in the comment section.
No matter how much you love a person and don’t want to see them in pain, your love cannot save them for their own self.
When I started gaining insight on life, spirituality and psychology as well, I was still not in a calm state of mind, I told a lot of people a lot of truths about themselves. Sometimes unaware when I was explaining them of another person or situation, they used to take it as a criticism on themself and then I learnt about the shadow aspect of mind. I have finally stopped telling people about themselves, I see, I observe but do not offer help without asking, this also makes my life easier.
Some people who were abusive to me, I loved them like anything, tried to encourage them to improve themselves, tried to help them love themselves, but they hated me more and more and went into a lower state. Because if they were ready in the first place to self-reflect and work on themselves, they won’t be roaming around bullying or picking up at good people.
I first learnt to tell people only what they were ready to hear and as I progressed on my journey I learnt to accept them as they are. Always remember when you try to fix others, its because you are trying to derive your sense of self-worth from it, which is never going to work.
Now I don’t expect people around me to change anymore, this brings happiness and interdependence into relationships. Everyone always wants someone who can accept themselves as they are.
The only and biggest lesson I learnt in 3 years is this one. You cannot save others, no matter what. You can only provide support to those who are willing to work on themselves. You can try to encourage them without any expectation because the choice is always going to be theirs.
Yup, some people really hate me hard. As I cannot control my mouth from saying the truth sometimes, only because I care. I would rather be the big sister who shows you the mirror and let you hate me for that , than letting you create more mess in your life.
Thank you for reading it till the end. If you have any queries, let me know in the comment section.
The Pretty Smart Techie 