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The shadow-self is a very important aspect of your experience of
yourself and life.
I am going to explain to you in basic terms the crux of the shadow-self
and hopefully you will see clearly why it is such a determining factor
of your self-esteem.
You will no doubt notice that you have a self-image. This is undeniable
and this self-image is a construction within your mind of how you are.
Because it is so obvious and so familiar and seemingly so real we live
life as if we really are that way.
Think back to childhood or even imagine yourself growing up and the
pressure to conform to particular ways of being was persistent,
sometimes explicit, sometimes subtle but always immense. You quickly
learned what was acceptable and what was to be never heard or seen in
your household and society.
The problem is that these traits which you learned were never to be
seen or heard don't actually go away. How can they? Where would they
go? They have nowhere to go and I will talk more about that in depth in
other pages.
So as they can't disappear, in order for you to have them appear to
have disappeared you shove them out of conscious awareness.
Cue the self-image and its opposite the shadow-self.
So what you end up with is a whole lot of traits and characteristics
that are acceptable to Mum, Dad, society, teachers and you in one
mental construct called the self-image and everything that is not OK is
said to be in your shadow.
Why Is This Important?
This is important for your self-esteem and experience of life because
you can try really, really hard to feel better by swapping some of the
self-image traits around, making some more prominent, working to
improve some and working to have more people see certain traits or
whatever.
However, at the end of the day the self-image is just a made up idea.
It still has no basis in absolute reality as the conscious being you
are.
You can swap and change and tinker with the self-image all you like,
and some people do for their whole miserable life.
You will never experience self-acceptance, self-love and self-esteem
until you finally turn and face all those traits you shut away in the
shadow-self, acknowledge them, embrace them, welcome them, make it OK
that they are there, see the benefit of them being there, love them and
accept them.
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