A few practical thoughts that come to mind and may or may not be helpful in your case:
1) In my experience, it's helpful to pay attention to the broader meaning of "the Shadow" as "everything you refuse to admit is a part of yourself." A lot of material on the Shadow focuses on the more glaringly obvious and accepted as "bad" things, like aggression, hatred, inappropriate sexual urges, and so forth, but the broader definition also allows for things like "compassion," if you pride yourself on being strictly fair, or "helplessness" if you think of yourself as high-agency.
2) Also from my own experience, a lot of Shadow stuff seems blindingly obvious once you get a hold of it, leaving you feeling "well, duh, of course that's a part of my psyche, why couldn't I see it?" Don't get discouraged by that, especially if you're still left with little idea practically what to "do" with your new insights. It seems to take a lot of reflection and just going about life to really fold that stuff in, rather than doing some exercise and suddenly feeling better.
3) If you're feeling enamored by some aspect of your consciousness that you don't want to just embrace "as is," like, say, finding it satisfying to become enraged by something that you know you ought not to get so worked up over (to go with an example from an earlier question), consider asking yourself what that part of yourself needs and is trying to get, and if some subset of that might be valid to your conscious mind. To keep on with the example, if you find a certain person or thing pissing you off all the time, maybe he or it is pushing on some deep hurt that needs healing - getting mad likely isn't the way to heal it, but doing something about the hurt is likely legitimate, even if it's just feeling it fully and honestly and acknowledging there's not much practical you can do about it
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branchandroot
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Date: 2024-12-23 07:05 pm (UTC)https://jpowellrussell.com/#book_thoughts_on_shadow_tech
https://jpowellrussell.com/#book_transforming_darkness
A few practical thoughts that come to mind and may or may not be helpful in your case:
1) In my experience, it's helpful to pay attention to the broader meaning of "the Shadow" as "everything you refuse to admit is a part of yourself." A lot of material on the Shadow focuses on the more glaringly obvious and accepted as "bad" things, like aggression, hatred, inappropriate sexual urges, and so forth, but the broader definition also allows for things like "compassion," if you pride yourself on being strictly fair, or "helplessness" if you think of yourself as high-agency.
2) Also from my own experience, a lot of Shadow stuff seems blindingly obvious once you get a hold of it, leaving you feeling "well, duh, of course that's a part of my psyche, why couldn't I see it?" Don't get discouraged by that, especially if you're still left with little idea practically what to "do" with your new insights. It seems to take a lot of reflection and just going about life to really fold that stuff in, rather than doing some exercise and suddenly feeling better.
3) If you're feeling enamored by some aspect of your consciousness that you don't want to just embrace "as is," like, say, finding it satisfying to become enraged by something that you know you ought not to get so worked up over (to go with an example from an earlier question), consider asking yourself what that part of yourself needs and is trying to get, and if some subset of that might be valid to your conscious mind. To keep on with the example, if you find a certain person or thing pissing you off all the time, maybe he or it is pushing on some deep hurt that needs healing - getting mad likely isn't the way to heal it, but doing something about the hurt is likely legitimate, even if it's just feeling it fully and honestly and acknowledging there's not much practical you can do about it
Anyhow, hope this helps, and good luck!
Jeff