Facing the Shadow: Good or Bad?

reply to post by DarknessFollows


So are you a full fledged Satanist yet? Or are you trying to earn your 'wings'?

I can say from personal experience, facing the Shadow is a good thing. It's not so much embracing evil or whatever, it's more accepting that you're not perfect.

When I was younger, I often had the feeling that I was an evil person. I guess it was something bordering on OCD... I obsessed over negative and sometimes mean and nasty thoughts about other people that I was having. After a long time of agonizing guilt, I finally managed to tell my best friend about those thoughts. She looked at me like I was crazy and said, "But EVERYONE has those!"

That was my first lesson not to be too hard on myself. The second big one was a Freudian group therapy I attended in the '90s, for two years. We were about ten people in the group and some of the participants were incredibly angry, hateful, and totally nasty. But in the course of the two years, when they finally unraveled their own psyche, it turned that underneath all that seething anger and fury was a lot of sadness and pain.

So that's what I learned from my own delving into my Shadow: a) to forgive myself for my imperfections and to love and accept myself; b) the underlying emotion of all anger and hatred is sadness and pain; c) how to embrace those core emotions and start from there changing the things I didn't like about me.

If you do that, you'll come out so much more "whole" on the other end. True self-knowledge without being afraid of looking at my "darker sides" has been the greatest achievement I've had in my life. The monsters under the bed are only scary in the dark; as soon as you switch on the light and look at them, they're going to go away.

reply to post by Tiger5


hi tiger friend, ya you misread my post but i dont think it is english issue

hating oneself is not right for any growth, but the point i was saying is the ignorance of truth is what make living drive chase truth while they can be the true ones

there is a huge difference between being negative to something and not being positive to
negative reality is always of negative source

that is why the point is more understood of fresh ones and not wise old ones

and sorry i dont even know wat suffis are so i have no idea from where did you get that association sense with of my expression

and sound of suffism is nothing good to me, it is all stupid and wrong

Thank you so much for all the answers. This is why I wanted to leave this wide open for you intelligent folk to decide. As I said before facing my darker side and the nature of me I am already in much better shape

-Kyo

reply to post by Moonman1111

Yes I am. But isn't that off topic?

reply to post by DarknessFollows


meh...I am not going to dignify the troll. I reported the off topic post. Though that brings up an interesting point in what you guys have already made a fine discussion; the shadow doesn't HAVE to be sin. As described by Jung it could be representative of your insecurities and shortcomings as well.

-Kyo

One doesn't have to understand the process, for the process is. So let it be and that is your answer. Allow it to lead yourself and learn exactly what it is you need to learn at that moment. Let go of the past and future, and face the shadow in the moment or you will not escape this cycle of nature of duality. To be free is to see, to be open is to feel, to be wise is to know, to understand is to have faith. The path to love to joy.

reply to post by KyoZero


Allow me to put it this way. How much respect would you have someone you know if they were too much of a coward to face the little facts about themselves that they prefer to ignore? We all have "darker" sides IMHO and it's generally those that deny they do that generally have their "darker" sides closer to the surface.

[edit on 14-3-2010 by Watcher-In-The-Shadows]

reply to post by Watcher-In-The-Shadows


Yes and its the first thing you experience on the path. To fear is to not go inside, to let go is to not get caught within it, to walk through, is to find yourself. When you reach this point you return outside, then all the mind will show you is other people and you will only feel yourself. This takes many many lives, not one, however, the potential does exist to walk through with your heart and mind open, when you do, you will be less exausted. The path through shows us who we are, when we find ourself, we loose everything we held onto during our trip and become fully embraced in the arms of so many loved ones, where you are honored, revered, respected, and loved with high regard, and that this includes all life which is sacred. The shadow still helps you mature after, because he shows you that you will never forget everything he taught you, and you take it with you everywhere you go forever~ Sometimes to realise what we are, we must first find out what we are not.

Bless

Originally posted by Kandinsky
reply to post by KyoZero

 

This Shadow concept of Jung's bugs me. It's meaningful in a bar situation...beer and idle chatter. His ideas of synchronicity and collective unconscious are way more intriguing.

If the person we detest the most is an aspect of our inner shadow...where does it leave us? Near enough everyone detests the murderers, con-men, politicians and liars of this world. IMO it's hard to accept these guys as shadows of ourselves.

It seems a slippery idea that what we hate is what we are. In a sense it invalidates and diminishes our concepts of what is wrong and what is right. If we see a person bully a victim and despise the bully...it shouldn't be taken as an indication that we ARE the bully. Our offence at the bully's actions can be honest, genuine and without the sly implication that we want to BE the bully.

I genuinely detest and resent the actions of some people because of what 'they' are...not what I am.

Truly an inspiring post, I hope people re read this. What is someones "evil side" I am reminded of the head exorcist from the Vatican who recently came out and said the devil exists and has been living in the Vatican through the pedophile priests.

A) He is just trying to keep his job
B) People cant disconnect from that which they are, and blame an action on their dark side, it is like priest saying "the devil made me do it"

reply to post by Tiger5

Yes but the one tragic thing that the genocidal nutters of the world like Stalin , Hitler and Pol Pot have taught us is that perfectly ordinary people from good homes are capable of murder, rape, and most other evils. I am not getting personal but perhaps what you recognise is your own baser instincts.

This is the sort of logic that the 'Shadow' theory attracts. That most everyone detests genocidal maniacs infers that we want to be one? I hate most chart music so I secretly like it? I hate people who eat like pigs so I secretly want to chew food with my mouth open and spit food on others? I hate people that mistreat children? Despise violent thugs?

reply to post by Kandinsky


Yes and we are fighting within ourselves these shadow beings that we see outside of us, as things we dislike or hate, but what we are really detesting is the thoughts we have within ourselves that we choose not to accept yet. Everything that exist's within yourself, exist's without. You are very brave souls. In the end, im vvery sure we will not only come to understand, but blow the fish out of the water, and start walking on legs, and take that first fresh breath again. Don't worry its safe now, very soon.

and the waters shall be healed; and it shall come to pass that every living soul that shall creep forth, whithersoever the water of the rivers shall come, shall live, and there shall be exceeding much fish, because those waters shall come thither, and they shall heal, and everything shall live whither the river cometh; and it shall come to pass that fishers shall stand upon it shall they be; their fish shall be according to its kind, as the fish of the great sea, exceeding many

Bless you.


[edit on 14-3-2010 by DarkCyrus]

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Your right, we have no one to blame but ourselves, for what we "see". Its either a blessing or a curse, and it is both. For me, I chose it to be a blessing. Its going to be a time of self responsibility for us.

"Reach your hand to me, without believing. I'd like to know if all along you knew"

Each of us have a different role to play. Along the way, be thankful for these moments of peace and clarity when you have them.


[edit on 14-3-2010 by DarkCyrus]

reply to post by Kandinsky


No that was not what I meant. We have our own capacity to do evil or what we particularly dislike about certain people.

To take one small example suppose you dislike violent thugs. OK that is a sensible thing there may be a situation whereby you come across a violent thugs that say threatens you (heaven forfend). and you somehow get the better of him. You may not get violent to him but You may endorse violence or fair to speak out when something violent happens or is likely to him. I have seen avoewd pacifists indule in a bit of "payback" with violent people who have been violen to them.

Surely we all have the capacity to be violent? Most of us do not act on it.

what Shadow theory tells me is that the shadow must be confronted and integrated in a humanitarian manner. However this integration is not a one-off event as we may experience a paradigm shift that requires a new integration. Consider the changeover a new recruit to the army must have when they first go into combat. Consider the My Lai massacre and other war crimes during the Vietnam war. We have two interpretations; the perpetrators were just psychopaths or they were people that had failed to integrate their shadows appropriately to comply with the Geneva Convention whilst remaining effective soldiers.

reply to post by KyoZero


1) Yes, I think so. Some may have integrated the shadow in their personality, other's don't.

2) Yes, contemplating the shadow is essential for one's personal integrity.

I agree with sylvie (and many others in this thread) that it's a beneficial process for anyone who wishes to attain knowledge of oneself. If one supresses the dark side long enough by denying it's existence in oneself, one will have a crash collision with it sooner or later - unless one is so lucky that physically dies before that happens.

Like sylvie said, realizing that one has negative aspects in one's personality can be a relieving experience. I'd also suspect that it (the contemplation of shadow) may reduce the amount of psychological projection towards other people.

Well, that's it for now, gotta start working

-v

reply to post by Tiger5


Yes I think you are on to something. When we go through either side where we come from, we enter the middle together, regardless of where we've been. So we each bring something new, with enough people the sides will be in balance and work together. This is the moment we are reaching very fast.

[edit on 14-3-2010 by DarkCyrus]

reply to post by Kandinsky


If you choose to take it as such. All it simply means to me is that EVERYONE has the potential to be a monster. We cannot disavow and distance ourselves from those of us that have done horrible things as we are just setting the stage for another one with our denial. These people were human, thusly the same wrongness that was within them can spring up in any of us if we allow it.

Originally posted by Watcher-In-The-Shadows
reply to post by Kandinsky

 

All it simply means to me is that EVERYONE has the potential to be a monster. [...] These people were human, thusly the same wrongness that was within them can spring up in any of us if we allow it.

Right on spot. Sometimes I think that those 'monsters' were really the best of the teachers for they have demonstrated both, the flaws of our societies and individual psychology; and they have certainly made their case and caused huge impact in society. They made us think.

However, I don't approve their actions.

-v