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Manage Your Shadow
Adapted from The Book of Secrets by Deepak Chopra (Three Rivers Press, 2004).
Violence can be tamed by breaking the shadow side of your personality into manageable bits.
When you have been treated unjustly or personally harmed, the natural emotion is anger. If this anger can’t get out, it festers and grows in the shadow. Lashing out when holding it back no longer works; this anger leads to a cycle of violence.
This is a kind of double bind: If you lash out and return the harm done to you, you have done something evil, but if you keep the anger inside and harbor it, you can feel just as evil.
Yet violence can be tamed by breaking it down into manageable bits. Negative emotions feed off certain aspects of the shadow that are very manageable:
The shadow is dark. Everyone has a shadow because of the natural contrast between darkness and the light.
The shadow is secret. We store impulses and feelings that we wish to keep private.
The shadow is dangerous. Repressed feelings have the power to convince us that they can kill us or make us go insane.
The shadow is shrouded in myth. For generations, people have seen it as the lair of dragons and monsters.
The shadow is irrational. Its impulses fight against reason; they are explosive and totally willful.
The shadow is primitive. It is beneath the dignity of a civilized person to explore this domain, which reeks of the smell of the prison, the lunatic asylum and a public lavatory.
Negativity assumes its overwhelming power from the fact that it feeds off all these qualities at once: A secret, dark, primitive, irrational, dangerous, mythical evil is much less convincing if you break it down into one quality at a time. But this process of bringing evil down to scale won’t be convincing until you apply it to yourself.
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24 comments
add your comment »"The shadow is primitive. It is beneath the dignity of a civilized person to explore this domain, which reeks of the smell of the prison, the lunatic asylum and a public lavatory." OK, THEN, what do we do about it, why are we examining it, and what do we need to learn from it? After that, let's move on.
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lol to DancingDove Sings.
no wonder i (sometimes) start cleaning when i'm angry! that's interesting ;]
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wow penelope, i really like what you said about channeling the energy into some chores. just yesterday i got really angry about something and i knew i had to have a physical 'release' so i threw a brand new bag of catfood across the room. the bag burst and i spent a good part of an hour picking up the tiny morsels off the floor and putting them bag in the bag. i magically felt relief after that, less from throwing the bag and more from the tedious task that required my focused concentration. i'll remember this next time i feel angry and get out some beading work or something constructive. i am convinced that for those of us who were physically abused by our parents it requires some sort of pysical release to get that energy out of our body unless there is some sort of miracle healing from grace. hugz
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of course you know...
our shadow is darkest -
when the light is brightest...
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What Karen just said is 'key', "practice these things , don't just talk about them". If one has the understanding that there is 'a knowing' inside each one of us, of 'a place' where our very existance is not fraught with so many of the 'earthbound' challenges we deal with here, then naturally we will often wonder throughout our lives, 'why do I wake up with these dark feelings'? 'why do I stuggle to overcome so many fears and insecurities that plague me'?..etc....If we have the awareness that these are things we 'asked' to learn about, it becomes easier and easier to just take a deep breath, say 'goodbye dark cloud', and simply decide, 'I am going to have yet another good day that teaches me something about myself, why I am here and I can choose how I want to feel or respond at any given time'..I find this helps to heal many of the dark feelings I have accumulated in this lifetime here because it goes directly to the source of these emotions being created in the first place and gives me the power 'to choose' the light over the dark...I'll take the light any day!!! It feels so much better...keep trying it!!
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As you say it, yes, the shadow is all of these things. And more. In my experience, I have found that one cannot "tame" or get rid of one's shadow side completely; that would be like having day, (or light only), without night, (or shadows). Where would we be without the shadows the leaves cast as they dance in the sun? What would happen if we had no night - no beautiful sky full of stars and the moon? Why, everything would die, there would be no down time, or time of reflection, rest or contemplation. That is just as destructive and insanity-producing. I am not saying we should just let our shadows rule; what I am saying, though, is that I believe the first step is to accept and embrace that side of us we don't like to talk about at parties. That part of us we find dis-tastful and embarrassing.
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My understanding of anger in reaction is that it is the emotion in front of saddness, and that evil is the absence of love.
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Energysing ourselves and managing the shadow we will get the true natural skill of catching the substance leaving the shadow instead of catching the shadow leaving the substance. In such a state one's life is a celebration, which we have to experience oursleves to believe it. Greetings of the season.
Christmas Celebrations
Christmas stars brightened the sky,
Houses got illuminated by stars,
Rare comes such days of joy,
In the universe ridden with internal darkness,
Saving the materials and material comforts,
Tearing to pieces one’s own soul and internal peace,
Making the earth a hell rather a heaven;
As a year rolls out making room for a new year to roll in,
Save the soul to learn from the babes the invaluable Truth.
Celebrate the joy of this life like a babe,
Ever ready to learn the truth of love and peace,
Living word of a living being is invaluable,
Earning aplenty the joy of living in truth,
Braving over all obstacles on the path to meet truth,
River like flawless flow of water made of drops,
Always loving and longing to join the ocean of peace,
Tiding over the prides waving waves of love,
In the same water rocking at rocks to break as drops,
Once again to join the ocean of peace and love,
Nurturing the hope to have a world of peace and love,
Saving one’s soul to travel in peace to immortality.
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An excellent beginning to a longer essay...but how, precisely, does one go about "breaking it down" into manageable components?
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Ok, have no need to write alot. Meeting the Shadow is one of the best books out there beyond just studing C. G. Jung. I disagree the shadow is dangerous. It's one of those "if you believe it is, then it Is." situations.
be well in Balance
Ray
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