How do we recognize our shadow self?.
When your mind and heart are truly open abundance will flow to you effortlessly and easily.
Question:
“Dear Deepak, they say what we don’t like about others is a disowned part of our shadow.
I really struggle trying to understand that idea.
How is it possible that the things we don’t like in others are part of ourselves?
For instance, I am currently in a relationship with a man who is very nice most of the time, but he acts very immature when he becomes upset or when there are disagreements.
He thinks only of his own needs and is even hurtful to me when I’m down so I agree with his way most of the time.
How can that be a part of me when I am so sensitive to his needs and accommodating with him?
If I am perhaps able to recognize a selfish side of me, is it possible to stop attracting these kinds of situations and people into my life?”
Response:
You may be taking too simplistic an understanding of the shadow self.
It’s not simply that everything we don’t like is from the shadow self.
However, when an event occurs that many would ordinarily react to neutrally, but we have a strong or exaggerated response to, then that usually indicates there is a sensitive, unhealed part of your psyche that has erupted to get your attention and to be healed.
This may or may not apply to this particular complaint in your relationship, but there will certainly be other areas where it will.
We all have painful, traumatized areas of our unconscious that feel judged and excluded by our overall positive self-image.
When we wall off the painful parts of our past and try to move ahead without them, that pain doesn’t just go away, it festers and darkens into our shadow self.
It seeks recognition and reintegration by erupting as self-sabotaging thoughts and behavior.
If you take a candid look at your past you will find some emotional material to work on healing, forgiving, and releasing.
This then allows you to reintegrate those lost fragments of your shadow self back into your larger self.
Love,
Deepak
