You vs Your Shadow

[00:00:02] This is going to lead to much, much faster manifestation. [00:00:07] This is the reason for lack of success and getting what we want is this stuff. [00:00:14] That's why it's so important to look at it and change it. [00:00:20] Welcome to your wish fulfilled. [00:00:24] This is a magical podcast to help you manifest and create the life you want with ease and grace, to feel wonderful and to experience success in whatever way that means for you. [00:00:42] Today we're diving into something very important, you versus your shadow. [00:00:52] Have you ever wondered why you're not as successful as you'd like to be? [00:00:58] Have you ever wondered why you try and do something and yet you end up not being able to do it because of various conflict, internal conflict, challenges? [00:01:10] Ever wondered why you might do certain habits that you know you shouldn't be doing and you're still doing them anyway, even though you say you won't do them, where you get upset? All these things, right? All the negative energy, all of the stuff that's like attacking us. That is all the shadow, the shadow self. [00:01:32] And in order to be successful in our life and be happy and enjoy ourselves, we have to realize that we have like two parts to ourselves. And of course, it's more complicated than this. But if you think about this as like, there's your higher self, there's your original self on one hand, which is full of joy, full of happiness and bliss and freedom, and only has good intentions and has pure energy and wants to get things done. [00:02:01] And then you've got this shadow self, which is like the dark side of the higher self. It's like the opposite self, right? The good versus evil. The reason this keeps coming up in movies and books and conversations is because it's a real thing within. Within us. [00:02:19] And so we have to come to terms with our shadow. [00:02:25] If we don't come to terms with our shadow and recognize that this is a real thing that actually exists within us, what happens? [00:02:36] We will be sabotaged by the shadow. The shadow is going to come after us even more. The biggest mistake people make is not recognizing that there is this opposite force at work. [00:02:52] The denial of the shadow is one of the most dangerous and cunning methods of the shadow itself. [00:03:03] So, for example, genuine psychopathic people, total psychopaths, they honestly don't realize they're doing anything wrong. [00:03:13] Really and truly, they have no guilty conscience about their terrible things that they're doing, because the shadow has completely absorbed them. [00:03:22] So there's no conscience, right? [00:03:25] So the biggest breakthrough we can have is if we want to get what we want in life, we want to change our life. We want to feel better. We have to acknowledge that there is a part of us that is trying to wreck our life, and we need to understand why it's happening and what to do about it. It doesn't have to be a war. It doesn't have to be like us versus them and get all angry about it. But we do have to recognize this is going on now. In different religions and different paths, they call the shadow something different, right? So in Hinduism, for example, there's this term, Ravan, or Maya, which is the illusion, the seductive illusion of things. In Buddhism, they call it Mara, right? And in Christianity, they call it Satan or the devil. And in psychology, they call it the shadow or bad habits or even the resistance, like Stephen Pressfield, the author of the War of Art, the War on Art. [00:04:27] And he has other books, like turning pro and various things about how to help creative people get their work done. He calls it the resistance. [00:04:35] The resistance. Because there's something that is stopping us from doing what we need to do. [00:04:45] So what is going on and what do we need to do about it? First thing is simply to recognize that it's there. Simply to recognize that it's there. [00:04:57] If you can honestly admit that there is this shadow self, this part of you that is causing problems through bad habits, through negative thinking, negative feeling, weird relationships, acting out in strange ways, procrastination, distraction, right? These are all the ways that the shadow acts out. Putting things off, making excuses, blaming other people, escaping from things. One of the biggest ways that the shadow gets the better of us in our modern society is distractions. [00:05:40] Because instead of doing what we need to do and doing the work that we need to do, we just pick up the phone, check something out, just ignore it, watch a movie, talk to some person, right. Distraction, I would say, is the biggest thing. And then you have addictions and various other bad habits. And there's so many different types of addictions, so many types of bad habits. Could be food, eating the wrong food. Why are we doing all this stuff? Right. If we have a mission in life and we want to feel great and we have all these opportunities, why do we do things that are bad for us? [00:06:26] Because of the shadow has its own interests. [00:06:33] So a little exercise you can do that is really helpful to figure out what's going on is to get a journal, right? I have a journal right here, just a blank journal. [00:06:46] And on one side, on the left side or whichever side you want, on the left side, you can write. [00:06:53] What do you want to do? What do you the soul, the higher self. What do you want to do with your life? [00:07:01] Right? So maybe you want to do certain practices to feel good. You might want to go on walks and take care of yourself and have good relationships and clean stuff up and organize things and whatever, right? There's a long list of things that you can do in your life that will make you feel good and improve your life and help you get success. [00:07:22] So that's. That's what you want. Normally we write lists like this. I want to do this, this, this and this and this. However, your shadow has its own list of priorities that it wants to do. [00:07:38] Right? Like, say, for example, I say to myself, today I'm just gonna finish this project, and I'm going to go on a walk and I'm going to do this thing, and I'm going to eat this food, and I'm not going to eat that food, and I'm not going to talk to this person. I'm going to talk to this person, right? And at the end of the day, I didn't do half the things I said I was going to do. I ended up doing other things that weren't good for me. How is that possible? [00:08:05] Because the shadow has its own to do list, and we don't know what it is. We haven't written it down. [00:08:18] It has its own to do list. Right? So we might have our to do list. And there's another part of us that has a totally separate to do list, which is absolutely opposing what we're trying to do. [00:08:29] Now, I don't mean to be, you know, this is a bit of a heavy topic, but we have to look at these things, don't we? If we only focus on peace and love and joy and we don't recognize there's a monster in the basement trying to wreck our life, we can't have peace and love and joy all the time because the monster's going to come out and wreck the house, and then we have to clean it up. [00:08:54] So take a moment. If you have a. If you have a chance, take a moment. Now you can pause this thing and just write your list. What do you want to do and what does your shadow want to do on two separate pieces of paper, on two different pages, if you had a chance, I'm sure you found something very interesting. [00:09:23] This is fascinating. When you actually write down what does the shadow want to be doing? [00:09:31] It has a list, it has a real list, and it's on a mission to do those things. Now, each of those things, from a psychological point of view the shadow list. [00:09:44] There's some sort of coping mechanism involved in it. It's not like the shadow is a monstrous thing, really. I'm just giving these examples, right? [00:09:53] But there's. There's some strange benefit we get from those things, otherwise we wouldn't be doing them. [00:10:05] So, for example, let's say I have a problem in my life, and instead of dealing with it directly, I blame someone else for it. [00:10:14] That's the shadow. But it also. It's happening because it takes the pressure off me and I don't want to deal with it. So there's a. There's a benefit to it. It's not really a benefit, but it's an opportunity to feel a bit better rather than having to face myself and take responsibility for my life and do hard stuff. [00:10:38] If I'm having a hard time trying to work on a project. And it's difficult, and it requires a lot of thinking and takes hours and hours, much easier just to watch a movie or distract myself or do something else, right? Because I get immediate dopamine pleasure from that. So all the shadow things, they have a benefit to them, right? [00:11:05] But it doesn't really benefit us. It's a mirage. That's why it's called Maya. Maya is a mirage. [00:11:15] It seems like there's a benefit, but then when you look back on it from a larger perspective, it's really a tall train wreck. But in the moment, it doesn't seem like it's a problem. [00:11:36] Something that I'm thinking of writing a book on at some point is this fascinating topic. Right. [00:11:44] I find this absolutely fascinating, that in the world, this is such a strange thing. In the world, almost everything that's good for us, let's imagine, like, running, walk, going on walks, doing hard work, eating well, doing yoga, exercise, meditation. All the things that are good for us are a little bit difficult and have some amount of resistance, right? No one goes like, yay, let me do more meditation. Yeah, let me go on a run. Most people, they have a little resistance to it. Oh, I'm not sure. And then you do it, and then you feel great afterwards, right? So almost everything that is really good for us has some discomfort involved in it, but then it leads to happiness and joy. [00:12:42] But on the other side, almost everything that is bad for us is easy to do and feels good immediately. [00:12:59] And if that isn't one of the most bizarre things in the universe, I don't know what is. It's almost like there's a cosmic joke being played on us because you'd think it would be the other way around, that the things that are truly beneficial would bring us so much joy, and the things that are really bad for us would cause us sorrow. But it isn't like that. [00:13:20] It's really quite comical, actually. [00:13:24] And it seems to me that, like, this is one of those major life lessons that we have to learn. [00:13:32] Like even doing visualization, manifestation practices, imagining what you want, writing down what you want, you're going to have resistance to doing it. [00:13:42] Maybe you'll get some days where you don't have resistance and you really want to do it, but there are definitely going to be times where you don't want to do it. [00:13:50] Getting up early is harder than getting up late. [00:13:54] Eating well is harder than eating badly. Right? [00:13:58] Even practically, if you go to the store, right, there's loads of options of bad food that you can get that's ready to go. But if you want to eat well, you either have to make it yourself or find certain places that make really healthy food. And there aren't as many of them as there are all the junk food. Do you know what I mean? Like almost every. If you. It's like, take all the businesses in the world, all the products in the world, absolutely everything that exists, and you were to analyze it, you'd see that most of it is quite toxic. And there's not that many, like, good people, good companies, good products, that there are still plenty, right? But they're not that many compared to the other ones. So that's the situation that we're living in. So no wonder it's easier to get the shadow what it wants and harder to do what we need to do. [00:14:58] This is a shocking realization when you tune into it. [00:15:04] But we're living in a world where doing what's bad for us is very, very easy and quickly available and cheap. [00:15:14] And doing what's good for us is much harder, hard to do, and often quite expensive, whether it costs us with our time or our energy or our money. You know, this is good news, actually, not bad news, because once you know these things, then you can assess your life realistically. [00:15:49] You can recognize you're up against something. [00:15:57] What the shadow does. The reason the shadow is so effective is the shadow makes us go unconscious, puts us in a hypnotic trance. [00:16:11] And you might think that sounds a bit far fetched, Michael, how are we going into a hypnotic trance? It happens all the time. Like, if you watch a movie, if you talk to a certain person, you'll notice that your brain, if you. If you watch yourself, you'll notice that your brain goes into a different state. [00:16:38] Just think about anything you do automatically, anything you do impulsively and automatically. [00:16:46] So, for example, some people, they comfort eat, right? What happens when comfort eating? They go into a trance state, an altered state of mind. [00:16:55] And then out comes all the comfort foods late at night often, and then in it goes into the cake hole, you know, and then the next day, they think, I shouldn't have done that. I have lots of clients with different eating disorders and everything. This is not anything wrong with anyone. But this is the shadow, right? It goes into a hypnotic trance state, and once we're in that state, then we are often powerless to do anything about it. [00:17:28] The reason I have my Internet turned off in a box most of the time is because I go. That puts me in a hypnotic trance. I'm doing one thing, and then I start feeling weird in my head, and then I end up doing something else, and then I end up doing something else, and I'm like, what happened to my time? [00:17:44] I'm aware that it puts me into a trance state, so I try and avoid it. [00:17:52] And I don't think I'm the only person in the world who goes into somewhat of a hypnotic trance. Have you ever tried to talk to someone when they're looking at their phone, right, when they're scrolling through something, and you say, hey, hey, do you want to do this thing? And they're like, yeah. They're not listening at all because they're in a trance, right? Their attention somewhere else? Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. It's fine, it's fine, it's fine. They're not there. They're in a trance. So this is what the shadow does. Shadow puts us in a trance, and then from that trance state, we act out the desires of the shadow. The to do list are from. The shadow has a long to do list, and then we don't end up doing the things that we want to do because we're doing all that other stuff. [00:18:51] So what are we supposed to do about this situation? First of all, just knowing about it, like I said, is a huge success. You might want to listen to this again a few times, because hardly anyone talks about this, and hardly anyone does anything about it. That's why the world is in such a bad way. [00:19:10] In a lot of religious teachings. [00:19:13] It's kind of the devil's out to get you, and this person's. And it's sort of personified outside and, like, given a sort of religious tint to it, which makes it a bit toxic. Right. You don't need to do any of that stuff. You can just say there is a part of me that is a coping mechanism that is trying to make me feel good, but it's actually wrecking my life. And I need to contend with this, with love and compassion for myself. [00:19:52] So the compassionate way is to say the only reason I'm acting out these weird things is because I'm suffering. [00:20:02] And this is the shadow's coping mechanism for suffering. [00:20:08] So thank you to the shadow for trying to help, but unfortunately it doesn't work. So that's why we need to pay attention and do a different method so we, we don't have to say, oh, the devil's out to get me and I'm just being, being chased around by monsters. That's not, that's not a healthy, it's not a healthy mindset. Oh my God, Satan's after me. You know, that doesn't, doesn't help. And then we're not taking responsibility. It's not some outside force, it's within us. Right? [00:20:43] If you've ever looked at politics, right, have you ever noticed that all the politicians blame everyone else for all the problems? They never say we're the problem. [00:20:54] They never say I'm a problem. And they never say our side is the, our party is the problem. They don't do that. [00:21:00] They say the other party is the problem and everyone else is the problem. [00:21:05] But what we're saying is I need to change myself. I need to look at my shadow and I need to take responsibility for my life. And I need to do the things that are going to change my state, how I'm feeling and how things go. This is going to lead to much, much faster manifestation. [00:21:29] This is the reason for lack of success in getting what we want is this stuff. [00:21:36] That's why it's so important to look at it and change it. [00:21:43] So here's what to do, right? This is a big topic and this is a huge topic, right? We can have a whole like 100 session course just on this topic quite easily. But what I want you to do is write down every day, write down your list of goals and intentions for the day and then your shadows list. [00:22:10] Because that brings it from the unconscious. The shadow lives in the basement, right? If you bring the shadow out of the basement and you say, what are you trying to do today? That you're making me unconscious and I'm going to do it anyway, when you write it down, then you know what you're dealing with, right? There's no point being in denial. Most people are just totally in denial of this stuff. They blame everyone else. They don't take any responsibility. We don't need to do that for ourselves. Let's say, all right, what do I want to do and what does my shadow want to do? [00:22:50] And then what you do is you say, okay, out of all the things my shadow wants, ultimately, what is the point of all those things? You know, you can look at them one at a time, but most of the time, in essence, in general, they are trying to change our state and take responsibility away and make us escape the reality of our life. That's basically what they're doing. [00:23:26] So there's a hidden, hidden benefit to those things. If there wasn't any benefit to them, we wouldn't do them. [00:23:39] But we then can ask ourselves, how can I change my state and get more of the benefits I'm trying to get in a weird way. How can I get those benefits on purpose, consciously, in a healthy way? [00:24:00] So, for example, let's say comfort eating, right? [00:24:08] Sometimes, you know, when I'm feeling too much going on, I might eat more than I need to. I normally don't eat that much, but I might be like, where are the cookies? Right? I mean, I've actually, once or twice I'm like, I need to go to the store and buy cookies, right? Or make cookies. Why am I doing that? [00:24:27] I don't normally have them in the house, right? Why am I like, where are the cookies? Because I'm feeling something and I'm wanting that satiation from the food, right? It's easy to eat a cookie, isn't it? Then much easier to eat cookie or drink something or take something than it is to say, okay, what am I trying to get out of this? [00:24:49] And what are my other options? What are all the healthier options? To get a similar sort of experience. [00:24:59] That's the benefit of having a coach or a guidance, some sort of guide, counselor, support, mentor. That's why I do mentoring for other people is because it's hard to figure this stuff out. You can figure it out, but sometimes it's easier if you work with somebody. [00:25:18] But you can just ask yourself, what are my options? [00:25:28] Oftentimes I find leaving the house is very helpful, or talking to someone or listening to music, dancing, moving around. Oftentimes the energy is stuck. We need to move. [00:25:44] We need to move out. Do something different. [00:25:50] If you're having an attack of negativity, the worst thing you can do is stay in the house and just try and suck it up because it's just going to get worse and worse. Best to get out of the house. Even if you just drive down the road, right, drive down the road and then drive back. You just get out, wander around, come back, just, just the movement or walk out your house, go for a walk nearby or something, get out, do something different. [00:26:16] Because when you're in that negative state, it's hard to think clearly, isn't it? [00:26:26] So we can talk more about this another time. But I just wanted to bring this to your attention. If you're not successful, as you'd like to be, it's because of the shadow self and the shadow self's to do list. And it has a list and it's going to do those things every day unless we bring it to the surface, look at it directly, with honesty, with courage, with compassion. [00:26:52] Have that hard conversation with ourselves and figure out how we can get our needs met in a healthy way. [00:27:03] Then our level of consciousness, our power increases, our skills increase, our actions improve, our vibration changes. And that's how we end up manifesting different life. [00:27:19] So hopefully this has been helpful. I hope I haven't freaked you out and thank you for your wonderful presence. Let me know if you need any help. And by the way, under this podcast there's, you can ask me questions if you need mentoring, I only have one spot typically available or zero spots available. You can join the waitlist. [00:27:41] Right recording. Now I have one place available for mentoring, but normally I don't have any actually, so, but you can join the waitlist and I'll let you know if any spots become available. [00:27:52] And there's also links to free goodies, different methods, there's all sorts of free stuff that I have that I'd like you to get and as well as our paid programs. So there's all sorts of other things I can help you with if you need more help. And wishing you every success, so much joy, so much success. [00:28:11] Doing what you love, feeling wonderful, feeling that you've attained everything. [00:28:19] Have a wonderful, wonderful day. [00:28:21] Talk to you soon, bye.