Perhaps the least understood and most powerful concept in all of self-help

In the world of self-help, where so-called experts are a dime a dozen, and uninformed consumers eagerly lap up cliched and useless advice … there is a concept that does not receive a lot of attention that is perhaps the most powerful idea in all of self-help. It is called your Shadow Self. And I’ve got news for you: either you own your Shadow, or it owns you. There is no middle ground here. You will need to make a choice about whether you are going to pretend your Shadow Self does not exist and let it control you. Or whether you are going to embrace your Shadow Self everywhere and own it.

Before we get started with today’s article, it is important to preface it with an introduction similar to the one I included with my Monogamy article (click here to read that one). If you do not yet understand that the world is an illusion, a projection created by our minds, then this article is going to make little sense. The Universe is a hologram, a mirror of our thoughts. Until you get this, life is going to seem to “happen to you” as opposed to you being in the driver’s seat.

So what is the the Shadow Self?

The Shadow Self is the unconscious part of you that you project onto other people. It can be a “good” or “bad” shadow. For example, back when I sincerely believed that I was ugly, I projected beauty onto others but could not see it in myself. That’s an example of a “good” shadow. A “bad” shadow is what we saw today with the school massacre in Connecticut. Just about everyone on Facebook was “outraged” by the violence, yet claimed to be “unable to comprehend it.” That means they are out of touch with their inner murderer. We all contain every shade of “good” and “bad.” And when we disown the full range of humanity that exists within ourselves, we will project it outside of ourselves. When we project it outside of ourselves, we appear to “lose control” over it.

You do not have a “psycho” ex-girlfriend – you have an integrity problem

The situation I’ve been having with my ex Mark PostMasculine is a classic Shadow Self scenario. He is my Shadow Self, and I am his Shadow Self. I do not think he is consciously aware of this, however. In Mark’s perspective, he would like to characterize me as psycho, manipulative, and a large variety of other judgments that he has projected onto me over the past few years. All of this denies the fact that I am part of him and that he “made up” his image of me. The judgments cover up for an underlying integrity problem that he does not want to face. He was WAY out of integrity in his relationship with me and his then-girlfriend. If this were faced honestly, it would be resolved quickly. But Mark PostMasculine cannot face the part of himself that did what he did. The “bad” person who did it does not match up with his “good” image of himself. It creates too much cognitive dissonance for him. So he runs and avoids instead, and that makes his Shadow Self grow bigger. Even when he communicated with me, he passed all of this off as “joking around” for six months and other totally implausible interpretations. He just cannot face himself and what he did. He has not forgiven himself because he has not faced it.

PostFeminine.com IS your Shadow Self, Mark PostMasculine. I am the part of you that you refuse to face. This website is the part of you that you refuse to face. That is why it exists, to remind you that you cannot run away from yourself.

Similarly, Mark PostMasculine is an intimacy shadow for me. I already had a lot of mistrust of sex and special relationships before I got involved with him. He intentionally went out of his way to get me to be vulnerable under false pretenses. So how is that my Shadow Self? Well, I created more evidence to support my already dismal view of intimacy. If I want that healed, I need to look at why I don’t trust in intimate relationships. So I spent the past few years healing a whole bunch of baggage about intimate relationships. And then I realized I needed to go even further than that to get this healed. Recently, this has led me to reject the entire mainstream paradigm. Now that I cleared my personal baggage, I can see that without fundamental paradigm change, the entire paradigm IS untrustworthy. We must let go of the special relationship. By developing a new relationship paradigm, I am making creative use of the Shadow Self. The Shadow Self is actually giving me valuable information that I can use to solve the problem at a higher level of consciousness. As Einstein said, you never solve a problem at the level at which it was created.

The good news is that the Shadow Self is ultimately a path of healing. So in a sense, Mark PostMasculine “hired” me to be the person who would finally hold him accountable for his own bullshit. And I hired him to BLOW UP my whole paradigm of relationships. Because after the experience I had with him, there was no reviving that pitiful paradigm. And no matter how much my ego wants to protest about it, that is a GOOD thing.

You do not have a “murderer in Connecticut” problem – you have a “murderer within” problem

The Connecticut school massacre today is another great example of the Shadow Self. When we pretend that we “cannot comprehend” how this happened, we are in DENIAL of our own Shadow Self. How many people today decried this violence yet are still eating meat and fish? Do you sincerely not understand that the meat and fish at the grocery store got to you the same way that this school massacre occurred? Those animals were all MURDERED to be put on your plate. Do you enjoy eating lamb and veal? Those are children. You are just pretending they are not sentient beings to try to make yourself feel better. You cannot eat violence day in and day out and not expect it to show up in your world. That’s just plain DENIAL. And we all have this violence within us. Every time we judge and get angry and pretend we are separate from other people, a murderer arises within us. And just because you think you don’t act it out, doesn’t mean your consciousness is not affecting people all over the globe. We are all responsible for our Shadow Self in every form it takes, no matter how far away from us it appears to be physically. The entire Universe is our projection.

Actively avoid EFT tapping? Then you are avoiding your Shadow Self

Here’s another example of the Shadow Self. Both my ex Mark PostMasculine and another colleague Rob Judge have publicly attacked EFT tapping. They do this even though they have no solid experience with EFT tapping and no basis for rejecting it. Why? Because EFT tapping would require them to feel their feelings, which they do not want to do. Feeling our feelings gets us in touch with our Shadow Self. Many people do not want to face how much rage, grief, resentment, and hopelessness they have inside them. So instead they pretend that EFT tapping is a “scam” because it’s easier to judge it and push it away than face their feelings.

EFT tapping would also require them to question everything they thought they knew about the world. Because when you see that you can get results without leaving the comfort of your own home (such as money “just showing up out of nowhere”), it becomes obvious the world is not physical. For many people, this idea still feels very uncomfortable. So they avoid and run instead of facing.

People who are stuck in “left brain” uncreative thinking avoid EFT tapping and criticize it without experiencing it. As our culture now is going to trend more and more “right brain” and Divine Feminine now, however, this resistance is going to be seen soon as maladaptive. To use a horrible “left brain” concept lol (maladaptive).

Have Money problems? Then you have a Money Shadow

A variation on this is the money shadow that is so prevalent in our society. Raised to believe that “wealthy people are bad,” many people have a money shadow. A few years ago, I had a huge unconscious money shadow in the form of the belief that “spiritual people should not charge for their services.” I had to do a LOT of tapping on that core issue to be able to have a successful business. But you see, many people do not realize this is just a “shadow.” They think it is the “truth.” And so they won’t allow themselves to have financial abundance and instead they take their anger out on other people, accusing them of being “charlatans” and other such unflattering labels.

I had one client who had horrible money problems until we resolved his money shadow. He just seemed to punish himself in every direction when it came to money. When we realized that he had this image of himself as “becoming a bad person” when he had money, we were able to integrate his money shadow with the rest of his Self. After we did that, his entire financial picture turned around in a couple of months. First he got a raise. Then he met his soulmate. Then he got a home loan that he thought was “impossible” for him to get. And instead of declaring bankruptcy, he was able to negotiate with his creditors and stay afloat financially. His girlfriend moved in with him and started sharing bills with him. And now they are happy with two children. All because he faced his money shadow and integrated it, instead of continuing to be dominated by a money shadow that told him having money made him a “bad person.”

These are just a few examples. I could write a book about the Shadow Self. Bottom line is that any coach who does not understand the Shadow Self is going to be very limited in their ability to get you results.

Love,

Erika Awakening, High Priestess of Miracles here at TAPsmarter