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Human Shadow, Shadow Work, Shadow Self, Shadow Projection, Healing The Shadow

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What Is The Human Shadow?

Who You Think You Are

Every human being has an idea of what sort of person they are.  The human shadow is everything that does not exist within your accepted self-image.

Who You Think You Are Not

In reality a human being seems to be a potential to be anything at any time rather than one fixed way.  Therefore your self-image keeps you trapped in one way of being.  You feel stuck.  Anything that comes into your awareness that doesn’t fit with your accepted self-image makes you feel bad.

When you feel bad your mind continues to focus on all the parts of your life that seem to not be working.  Then you feel even worse.

This all continues until you wake up to the fact that your self-image is just a mental idea.  It is just a concept; a creation of the mind.  It is not actually you but rather it is how you think you are.

Who Are You Really?

I nor anyone can’t tell you who you are because we would just be exchanging information.  You can’t use the mind and its functions such as intelligence and reasoning to discover the truth of your existence.

The task is to release attachment to being one particular way and instead be willing to experience and be everything.  This is closer to who you are in reality, rather than your self-image.  Even if this way you think you are was full of neat sounding traits like intelligent, sexy, funny, lively, loving you still have the potential as a human being to experience all the opposites.  If you do experience one of these opposite traits one day you would feel terrible because you were attached to being the positive trait.

It is all the opposites that lie outside of your accepted self-image that we call the human shadow.

When you accept that you can and do experience EVERY potential human trait you transform your experience of life.  Life begins to flow effortlessly.

How Do You Discover Your Shadow?

You discover your shadow self not through your mind but via awareness.  Just by watching and observing each moment and what you feel and believe to be true about yourself and the world.

The quickest way is to watch and observe your shadow projection onto other people.  This is when you have some negative feeling towards another person because you judge them to be a certain way.  It is extremely subtle and is why so many people go around feeling annoyed and irritated with others.  Anything that does not fit within your accepted self-image gets projected by your mind onto someone else in your life.

If you are sure you are never rude then rude people will show up in your awareness.  If you believe that you are stupid but don’t accept that about yourself as a potential human experience then you will dislike someone else because you think they are stupid.  Whatever is in your shadow shows up in the outside world.

What Can You Do About This?

Healing the shadow is about reclaiming these traits that you project onto others.  A human is potential not fixed.  You are not one way so work to not care about being a certain way.  If you were to get in with a bad crowd who did drugs and crime and joined a gang you would change.

What you need to do is what they call shadow work.  Healing the shadow means finding all the traits that are outside of your accepted self-image and welcoming them back like long lost children.  The human shadow has within it huge potential for growth and getting your life back on track.

How To Find Your Passion

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How To Find Your Passion Finally

Is It Important To Find My Passion?

If you are wondering how to find your passion and whether it is important, you will get along just fine without it, well maybe not fine, you will dread every day of your boring existence.  There are no rules about what you should do with your life, apart from the rules society and peer pressure apply.

You have free will and that means you have free will do follow what your heart tells you in each moment, or you can follow the thoughts inside your head that stem from society’s programming or your parent’s wishes or your best friends idea of what is right.

How Do I Know What My Passion Is?

It is easy, have a look at your life right now and answer to yourself

  • where do I spend my free time?
  • or if you don’t get much free time, take some moments
    to feel what you would do.
  • where do you get a little buzz of excitement just
    before you do something?
  • what do you surround yourself with (what type of
    books, music etc)

People think that their passion has to be something massive and obvious and like some big revelation.  It is not like that.  It will be in your environment already.

If it doesn’t seem a big deal to you, remember not everyone has a passion that takes them out into the world.  You must fill the space you are in now before anything else will show up.  That means don’t deny what is obvious right now in favour of waiting and hoping for something else.

What Is Passion Anyway?

You can think of passion as simply enthusiasm.  What are you enthusiastic about?  If your mind immediately says ‘nothing’ then take a moment, slow down, centre yourself and make a decision to watch yourself and your thinking over the next 48 hours.  What gives you a little kick of energy and emotion?  Where do you get a little buzz?

  • It might be when you think about putting together a
    menu and going shopping for food for a dinner party for friends.
  • It might be separating yourself from others and
    spending a couple of hours on your own making crafts.
  • It might be just before you are going to look after
    children you get a little excited.
  • It might be when you first sit at your computer and
    click on the internet button you feel freedom and power.
  • It might be being alone with something mechanical
    like cars.

Keep looking no matter how small or insignificant it used to seem, this is how to find your passion.  You passion is in your life now.

Remember that what you find exciting now might not be the same in two years time.  Maybe at a certain age you will be ready to discover your talent and excitement for snooker or dancing or a musical instrument.

That is why I say you must fill the space you are in now.  Follow what is true for you now.  You cannot manufacture passion for something so don’t go looking for what your passion might be.  How to find your passion? Look for what happens already within.

How To Be Humble

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How To Be Humble

Asking how to be humble is a good question.  However the answer is in the question.  In order to be humble, just be humble.

What Is Humble?

Perhaps a more relevant question is what is humbleness or what is the definition of humble.  Humble is acknowledging that anything you have or are is not really down to ‘you’.

Take away all that has come before to lay the path for you, and take away all those who helped you, and take away the fact that you did not create yourself but rather you just find yourself as you are and you can see you have very little, in fact nothing to boast about.

How To Be Humble?

So by recognising that you as the conscious individual really have little to boast about you can be humble to that which has you here and that which has provided you with what you have, including skills and talents.

If you are a fast runner, did you make yourself a fast runner?  No.  Sure you can train and improve but you did not design and create all that you are which makes you run fast.  Similarly with intelligence and business skills and whatever you may observe about yourself, you don’t have anything that you are completely responsible for achieving or creating.

Why Be Humble?

It is my opinion and experience that when you are not humble, when you believe that your success and achievements are down to ‘you’, your ego, your self-image, then that attitude is polarising.  By that I mean that the equal and opposite experience will be waiting for you also.

You will get to experience the equal and opposite experience which is the negative.  Pride comes before a fall, the well known saying goes.  The universe will arrange to take away from you the boasting or the inflated pride in yourself, so that it restores balance.

If however you achieve greatness and have the attitude of appreciating all that helped you then you will stay balanced and will not be polarising.  Recognise you actually did not achieve this thing but have been blessed to achieve it, you have been allowed to achieve it.

What Can I Do To Be Humble?

Say thank you, a lot, and mean it.  Even say it after you make a nice meal or achieve some task, like after I finish writing this page for example.  You don’t even have to be cognizant of who you are thanking, just a general thank you to everything that allowed you that experience.  Thank you is not just about gratitude but a recognition and humbleness also.

Help Low Self Esteem, Overcoming Low Self Esteem, Enhancing Self Esteem, Raise Your Self Esteem, Boosting Self Esteem

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How You Can Help Low Self Esteem

What Is Low Self Esteem?

I don’t know if people think that a definition will help low self-esteem but there are numerous different attempts at defining self-esteem.

beautiful woman doing yoga exercises in a tranquil location help low self esteem

These usually end up being quite wordy and abstract, just a bunch ofwords that have nothing to do with what causes a lack of it or a feeling of having it or how to help low self-esteem.

The experience of low self esteem is what we need to talk about.  As with anything it is making the words fit the experience that provides value.  An experience of low self-esteem is based upon the belief of being not good enough, not worthy, defective, missing something, not complete.

So What Should I Do?

I didn’t have particularly low self esteem and wasn’t looking at how to help low self-esteem but in 2007 after a couple of years of spiritual and personal growth I discovered something simple yet profound.  I realised that it was the ideas of my mind that thought there was something missing or something wrong.  It then became a process of helping my mind ‘see’ the truth and when this is done the mind relaxes into peace.

Because the mind doesn’t know any better and because we give it so much importance in our western culture the mind can only lead you to believe there is something wrong.  It seems there is something missing because from its point of view there is.  Your mind knows it is not you but you believe that it is you.  Talk about pressure!

Imagine if you were assumed to be a rockstar or a great politician and everyone believed it and expected you to be that.  After a while you might think you are this rockstar or politician as well but deep down you would know you are not.  So also the mind has this pressure from you on it and it doesn’t like it!

Because you think you are where you experience your mind to be, i.e. in your head, you think that is you.  As I say though, the mind is not you, it is something you have to use, just like your body is for you to use and so here we have this terrible misplaced sense of identity.

How Do I De-Identify From My Mind?

Drop into your body.  Feel from your body, your heart, your navel, anywhere and everywhere that you feel aliveness.  When you are ‘in’ your body, meaning when your attention and awareness is on the feeling of being alive in this moment you are much, much closer to who you really are.

From this present feeling awareness the mind disengages from all its endless chatter.  You can notice that at times the mind will take your attention away from your body and play out a scenario such as

  • mentally rehearsing a conversation or scenario
  • replaying a proud moment from your past
  • making up a conversation that you wished happened
  • replaying a tragic memory

or some other content.

When it does, return to being conscious of your body now and notice the thoughts and internal chatter stops.

Do this as a way of life.  It can be difficult as it feels good to engage in a whole lot of mind activity.  We get to feel powerful, justified, proud, respected, loved, pitied, in control and so the list goes on.  Ultimately though you need to be curious and explore the realisation that your mind is not you.

You are here now, experiencing what is real right now.  I am not saying you are your body but I am saying attention on your body is a way to deeper understanding and peace.

So How Does All This Help Low Self-Esteem?

Wen you realise you are not your mind, you can be vigilant at not believing what you think is true about you.  Your mind will communicate to you via your negative emotions what it believes is true or acceptable for you.

When you feel shame or guilt or any other emotion, stop drop into your body and be curious what your mind believes to be true that caused you to feel that way.

Man crouching on beach help low self-esteem

You might find you are ashamed to be a man or a certain race or feel that you are not smart enough.  Your job is to accept yourself however your mind chooses to interpret events.  If your mind tells you that you are not clever just drop into the body and say something like ‘I hear you, so what’  Likewise with ugly, fat, boring, dirty etc.

Accept every distinction your mind makes as being OK and you will be playing the mind at its own game and it will give up.  This is one powerful way to help low self-esteem.

Helen Steiner Rice Poems, Dealing With Grief, Helen Steiner Rice Poetry

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Helen
Steiner Rice Poems

Helen Steiner Rice poems touched countless people. Here are a selection of the most healing poems relevant to this website.

I have selected works to reproduce here that speak of the joy and inner peace we experience when we cultivate a relationship with the divine.

I believe there is even a poem that speaks about the closer to the divine within the better we feel.

Helen Steiner Rice poems often speak of this phenomena.  Some of her spiritual poems are below.

Due to not wishing to violate copyright restrictions I have removed the poems originally reproduced here.  Below I have listed her most popular poems along with the first line.  You can hunt down a book at the local library or buy one for yourself or as a gift.

This Too Shall Pass

If I can endure for this minute…

Let Not Your Heart Be Troubled

Whenever I am troubled…

Daily Prayers Dissolve Your Cares

I meet God in the morning…

Everybody Needs Someone

Everybody, everywhere…

Climb Till Your Dreams Come True

Often your tasks will be many…

Happiness

Happiness is something we create in our mind..

Mother’s Love Is a Haven
In the Storms of Life

A mother’s love is like an island

in life’s ocean vast and wide…

Meaning of True Love

It is sharing and caring…

Helen Steiner Rice poems are very well known and loved.  They have brought peace and comfort to many people.

Healing the Shadow, Shadow Work, Human Shadow, Healing The Shadow, The Shadow Effect

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Healing The Shadow

Improves Your Life

Healing the shadow is probably the quickest, easiest and most powerful way to increase self-esteem, self-acceptance and self-love.

What is the Shadow?

The shadow is a term coined by famous Swiss psychologist Carl Jung.  Jung coined the term ‘shadow-self’ to make a distinction between

1. the traits you are unhappy to identify with (shadow)

2. what traits you are happy to hold
within your self-image (ego)

In other words, as you go about your life you have an image of…

  • what you are like
  • ways in which you behave
  • what others think of you

Let us call this your self-image. It is an idea or a creation within your mind that you identify as ‘you’.

We might even go so far as to say you think this is you in reality.

Your shadow is whatever is left out of your idea of you plus anything about this idea of you that you don’t like, accept, or want to be there.

You might not readily hold your hand up and say “I am selfish”, but you might readily hold your hand up and say “I am kind” for example.  We would then say that ‘kind’ would be in your self-image but ‘selfish’ would be in your shadow-self.

Now here comes the powerful piece, which allows you to feel better and have a life that works a little bit better…

…in reality there is no one particular, absolute, undeniable, concrete, indisputable way that you are.

The way you think you are is a creation of your mind based on teachings and experiences and an absence of awareness of the truth.

This is why you feel stuck and yuck! It is OK that you are no particular way.  You are everything in reality, every possible experience and interpretation.

Healing the Shadow

To heal the shadow means to welcome back these traits you previously excluded from your self-image. Have a good, honest look at every area of your life and find two times in your past where you were selfish.

Without judgment accept that as a human being this interpretation called selfish will come up from time to time.  Accept that as the way it is, then accept ‘selfish’ as being part of your experience of living.

The power comes when you do this because for each trait you move from the shadow back to the self-image, you become a little bit more whole and content and you will notice self-acceptance and an increase in self-esteem and self-confidence.

While the shadow is full of traits it runs your life. When it is less full you run your life as a conscious being.  Each time you re-own a trait you have experienced a little more of healing the shadow.

Hades the Greek God, Archetypes And Myths, Unconscious Personality, Self-Esteem, Self-Confidence

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Hades
The Greek God

Hades the Greek God in mythology is the archetype of the personal and collective unconscious outside of awareness that stores all the memories, feelings and aspects not yet embraced. It is a powerful aspect because what ever you disown will own you.

The word archetype describes what Carl Jung identified as patterns of behaving that arise from the collective unconscious of humankind. The pattern of being is not unique to an individual; it is available to manifest in each of us because we each reflect a part of the whole.

To recognize Hades active within your life look
for…

  • reclusive and withdrawn from the world
  • introverted and value own reactions and responses to
    the outside world more than the outside world.
  • ambition, communication and social skills are generally
    lacking
  • few friends if any, preferring to be alone

Possible drawbacks to living the Hades archetype…

  • often goes unseen and unnoticed
  • lack of emotional connection with others
  • feel alienated from a society that rewards ambition and
    achievement
  • distanced from own emotions

This information has been summarized from the book Gods in Everyman by Jean Shinoda Bolen.

If you recognize your patterns of acting and being in the world from the above list and are curious about what you can do to change, then first and foremost use this information as proof that you are not different, defective or a victim of your past programming.

The above shows the commonality in the human experience when certain innate energies are active. As such begin by accepting that you do indeed own these particular traits and let it be OK that you do.

This will slightly raise your self-esteem and self-acceptance for each trait you own.  
If you would like some guidance or clarification, please contact me, I would love to help.

Greek God Hermes, Archetypes And Myths, Unconscious Personality,Self-Esteem, Self-Confidence

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Greek God Hermes

The Greek God Hermes is the archetype of change being brought into our lives. It is the energy of fluidness and openness and receptiveness of change.

The word archetype describes what Carl Jung identified as patterns of behaving that arise from the collective unconscious of humankind. The pattern of being is not unique to an individual; it is available to manifest in each of us because we each reflect a part of the whole.

To recognize Hermes active within your life look for…

  • quick, agile mind
  • always on the move
  • likes to find own way to succeed
  • broad range of interests and ideas
  • doesn’t like to be tied down

    • Possible drawbacks to living the Hermes archetype…

  • oblivious to what might be unacceptable
  • never settles or settles very late
  • learns many skills but masters none

  • unwilling to commit because of lure of next
    possibility

    • This information has been summarized from the book Gods in Everyman by Jean Shinoda Bolen.

    If you recognize your patterns of acting and being in the world from the above list and are curious about what you can do to change, then first and foremost use this information as proof that you are not different, defective or a victim of your past programming.

    The above shows the commonality in the human experience when certain innate energies are active. As such begin by accepting that you do indeed own these particular traits and let it be OK that you do.

    This will slightly raise your self-esteem and self-acceptance for each trait
    you own.

    If you would like some guidance or clarification, please contact me, I would love to help.

    Greek God Hephaestus, Archetypes And Myths, Unconscious Personality

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    Greek
    God Hephaestus

    The Greek god Hephaestus is the archetype within human beings that urges the creation of beautiful and functional objects.

    The word archetype describes what Carl Jung identified as patterns of behaving that arise from the collective unconscious of humankind. The pattern of being is not unique to an individual; it is available to manifest in each of us because we each reflect a part of the whole.

    To recognize Hephaestus active within your life look for…

    • introverted and intense personality
    • potentially creative and totally dedicated to life’s
    • focused on life’s work to the exclusion of other areas
      of life
    • creates functional and/or beautiful things

    Possible drawbacks to living the Hephaestus
    archetype…

    • feels an outsider
    • not part of the ‘in’ crowd
    • feels rejected by society’s values
    • if doesn’t find gratifying work or is not true to
      creative abilities then will have no natural outlet for deep emotions

    This information has been summarized from the book Gods in Everyman by Jean Shinoda Bolen.

    If you recognize your patterns of acting and being in the world from the above list and are curious about what you can do to change, then first and foremost use this information as proof that you are not different, defective or a victim of your past programming.

    The above shows the commonality in the human experience when certain innate energies are active. As such begin by accepting that you do indeed own these particular traits and let it be OK that you do.

    This will slightly raise your self-esteem and self-acceptance for each trait you own.   If you would like some guidance or clarification, please contact me, I would love to help.

    Greek God Dionysus, Archetypes And Myths, Unconscious Personality, Self-Esteem, Self-Confidence

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    Greek
    God Dionysus

    The Greek God Dionysus as archetype is an unusual pattern in that it is apparent in spiritually evolved mystics as well as murderers.

    The word archetype describes what Carl Jung identified as patterns of behaving that arise from the collective unconscious of humankind. The pattern of being is not unique to an individual; it is available to manifest in each of us because we each reflect a part of the whole.

    To recognize Dionysus active within your life look
    for…

  • Sensual; likes to experience the world through all the
    senses.

  • Cries easily or at least is not able to suppress
    emotions like other people are taught.

  • Tendency to fall in love with boys and girls

  • Internal conflict that makes living in the ordinary
    world difficult.

    • Possible drawbacks to living the Dionysus
    archetype…

  • Feeling invalidated and out of step with others

  • Doesn’t fit easily into the culture of goal setting,
    working hard and long to achieve academic or material success.

  • Highs and lows, mood swings and extremes of feelings.
  • Prolonged or catastrophic mid-life crisis.

    • This information has been summarized from the book Gods in Everyman by Jean Shinoda Bolen. If you recognize your patterns of acting and being in the world from the above list and are curious about what you can do to change, then first and foremost use this information as proof that you are not different, defective or a victim of your past programming.

    The above shows the commonality in the human experience when certain innate energies are active. As such begin by accepting that you do indeed own these particular traits and let it be OK that you do.

    This will slightly raise your self-esteem and self-acceptance for each trait you own.   If you would like some guidance or clarification, please contact me, I would love to help.