It made little sense to me when I read about the “shadow self” for the first time. It is only when I gradually discovered the massive influence that our “shadow self” have on virtually everything we do, fail to do or continue doing notwithstanding all the problems that its actions are causing us that it got my full attention. The author explained that everyone have this control system in his/her head. It is this system that puts us to sleep while it run and ruin our lives, relationships, health and careers.
This author claim that everyone of us go around with lots of stuff that we keep as a secret from the “outside” world. There are lots of things we feel guilty or ashamed about. There are stuff we did historically that very few people know about or would dream that we could have perpetrated. There are stuff stored in our heads that happened to us or that others did to us that made us feel dirty, ashamed or minimized. There are historical wounds that still fester in this place that ooze its poison into the stew of secret baggage that we hide in the deep recesses of our minds. This “shadow self” department in our heads are packed to the brim with all the stuff that we never reveal to anyone, not even close family and friends. We carry our cursed load in silence and hope that the pain and disgust that it continue to emit will magically vanish one day.
We use social masks and facades to hide the ugly stuff that we try and mask from others. We smile when we experience pain and take the abuse of others like a man because we are frightened that someone will peek over the wall of this cesspool in our heads that hide the side of us that only come out in disguise when triggered. We swear and curse, dominate or play the role of a victim in an attempt to camouflage the attic in our mental building that remains out of bounds for public view.
What we fail to grasp is that our happiness and attempt to develop meaningful relationships are contaminated by these secrets that we suppress and hide in our hearts and minds. We have an ego self program in our heads. We have been convinced since early childhood that we are our histories and that person that look back at us from the mirror. Clever operators used and abused this perception to control and influence you since early childhood. You were constantly reminded about your mistakes, sins and failures. This became a handy tool in the hands of the clergy to re-enforce the importance of the need for a savior in your life. The ego with its defective history and the stuff that you kept hidden as explained above is responsible for a large proportion of the problems you are currently experiencing and the lingering pain that seem to surface periodically.
The key to clean this clutter of pain and secrets from your life is to understand that whatever happened historically is nothing more than data stored in your sub-conscious mind. This shame and fear is kept active by your thoughts. Nothing that happened historically can be in play today without your permission. You must trigger these feelings and thoughts or they will just remain dormant in their files. You are not your history or track record. Each and every new moment is a fresh opportunity to build and evolve. Your history cannot contaminate your current moment my friend. You are re-born on a moment to moment basis. What happened yesterday or ten years ago is not who you are today. Do not allow the ghosts from your past to contaminate and spoil your relationships and attempt to life today.
You are here to learn and to grow. You are here on this plane to evolve. You are hampering your progress by seeing your dead past events as a threat or something that you must hide from sight. Clean out that messy room in your head by forgiving yourself for whatever transpired. Forgive yourself the small mistakes or the big mistakes you made that almost threw earth out of orbit. Forgive those that harmed and belittled you historically. Let go of the past and start living in the moment. You may ask, “What will happen if someone find out what I did historically that I am still ashamed of today?” I will answer that the best thing to do is to tell it like it is if absolutely necessary. Explained what happened and what mistakes you made. You may ask, but what if they reject me and think less of me when I make myself vulnerable in this manner. I will then give you the following advise that might assist you during these testing moments. Fuck those with their hypocritical social masks that might have a much bigger “shadow self” that they carefully hide like you did before you knew that is nothing more than dead data that you kept alive because of poor advise from your parents and from those that claimed that they are there to look after your spiritual health.
Today is a new day and your shadow self that have been fucking up your life since early childhood was and will remain a figment of your imagination.
Rene
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