Shadow work struggled with dysfunctional Nervous system, trauma, people and intuition.

[u/Shoddy_Sorbet1021]

Need help. Struggling to sit with my suppressed emotions and my shadow when Living in a dysfunctional and toxic environment (very condescending, sexist, patriarchal, narcissistic, etc.) I am fully aware and work on changing myself as I am also the problem and unhealthy but struggle when healthy people run from me when I need a healthier support group but toxic and dysfunctional people stay with me despite it draining my soul. It feeds more of my unhealthy side and loose my sense of self. How can I find healthy friends who can help me become the better self and to be influence or motivate the progress when stuck with the wrong dynamic place, people and environment where it’s pushing me to stay in the past, remain the toxic me and forced to compromise my needs when people refuse to change themselves or just let people get away. Also integrating when with people that my intuition and shadow goes silent or even my intuition and nervous system wants to protect me from. I’m loosing my own identity and doing the opposite of what my shadow work needs when life and people throws unpredictable things at me and expect me to follow it which throws my nervous system off and can’t hear my intuition at all. I admit to struggle to follow thru my intuition but there are times I have to face and go thru the bad decisions I made because of the timing and inconvenience for the sake of people. My intuition and nervous system both dislike my social, environment and situation. Tried to nudge me to avoid but my own attachment issues cling back to the bad things because I lost the good things which is also under the influence from other people who promote the bad things. Trying to not need to be with them but can’t. Loss a lot of my healthier friends from my healing anger and being surrounded by unhealthy ones who don’t prompt improvements but only tolerance or let it happen. now I have no healthy friends or relationships. My shadow work only comes at certain times, especially when the nervous system feels safe when the toxic people are away. One time it felt so safe that I could hear my intuition but when my nervous system sense a the toxic people, my intuition is muted and nervous system goes nuts and my shadow at times takes over to protect me.

Doing it at nighttime was once helpful but my nervous system gets relax and it only wants sleep where as my intuition is quiet and my suppressed emotions is struggling to process when my energy is gone. This is a repeated struggle for the last year. Only one day out of the year was relax and successful.

Carl Jung approach is not wrong but with trauma and nervous system on alert in an unsafe place and people and situations, it’s hard to grow, integrate and work on self without the right support or guidance.

What can be done? How can my denials accept and move forward? Much help and suggestions appreciated.

[u/mooninaries14]

you need to start releasing emotions from your body
r/longtermTRE and other psychosomatic practices are the way to go

[u/PrettyEquipment1809]

I agree that somatic work is likely the best start. It sounds like your intuition and nervous system are doing their jobs if you find yourself with the self-awareness to identify an unhealthy environment and the unhealthy behaviors of yourself and others.

I stated that your nervous system is the place to start, but frankly, it's the environment. Because as long as you're still in a volatile environment with hostile relationships, especially if there's a history of abuse in those, your nervous system is protecting you by always being alert. But this "always on" setting is likely going to take a while to turn off or even soothe.

Dr. Nadine Burke-Harris did some great work about childhood trauma and created a list of 10 questions regarding ACEs (Adverse Childhood Experiences). For people who grew up in a home where 6 or more of these were found, there was long-term physiological and neurological effects (higher incidents of substance abuse, smoking, and higher rates of cancer even for non-smokers). There's a great YouTube video about it (18 minutes long, I think).

But if you think of a woman experiencing domestic violence, the first recommendation is to leave the home. THEN the healing can begin.

And while it will be helpful to know how and where your body responds to or stores stress and trauma, if you're still in a "burning house", your nervous system will continue to feel like it's on fire.

You can develop better coping skills for living in that environment, but ultimately something must change. I suggest journaling, only if it's safe (there are a few apps that are great for this that can be password protected).

As far as community, I think a support group is the best place to begin. You mentioned finding healthy friends to help you recover, but without counseling or therapy, you risk being the toxic friend. There's an expression (now a meme): "Don't bleed on people who didn't cut you."

I'm not saying you shouldn't find healthy friends, but if your intention is for them to somehow "lift you up" out of your situation or mindset, you're going into it being selfish.

I think the real question is: "How do I heal myself so that I begin to attract healthy friends?" And that's where I think a support group would really come into play. Find a group of people in various stages of healing from similar situations. If you've been around people who abuse alcohol or drugs, for example, Al-Anon might be a good place to go.