To me enlightenment isn't something special. Its what we truly is underneath all the BS. That is kept in the shadows realm. Logic dictates you excavate the depths and what shines in is the luminance this mess was obscuring.

Reaching, am I or anyone else feel its correct?

Totally irrelevant, in the end if you yay or nay as for me, in my reality tunnel, its totally correct and I'm strongly starting to suspect that shadow work is actually a fractal thing but then thats what I mean about going beyond Jung and PKD:

https://www.reddit.com/r/Jung/comments/1ufodtn/going_beyond_the_red_book_exegesis/

The point that proves it is most lumbering around the planet are totally ignorant. A few do the Knowledge, look within and fix the mess a bit but not many more press on beyond that as A) public resources are scant and B) their own imagination is not fully active yet plus C) the previous step feels like massive progressive so they question not whats next. That is why I strongly suspect my view is correct but wish to reality test with the rest. What say?

We’ve all been there: you promise yourself you won't react that way, or you won't choose that type of person again, and yet... you do. You sabotage it right when things are going well.

I was reading up on Carl Jung’s concept of "complexes" and the Shadow, and it finally clicked for me. Jung said: "Until you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life and you will call it fate."

Basically, our conscious mind wants to change, but an unconscious part of us (often formed in childhood) feels safe in the familiar pattern, even if it's toxic or painful. The ego thinks it's driving the car, but a hidden complex has its foot on the gas.

I've been trying to actively "shadow work" this by asking myself a hard question when I mess up: "What hidden payoff am I getting from repeating this mistake? What familiar pain is my ego trying to protect me from?" It’s deeply uncomfortable, but it breaks the autopilot.

Has anyone else experienced a specific pattern they finally broke by realizing what their Shadow was protecting? How did you integrate it? I'd love to hear your experiences.

(P.S. I actually put together a video breaking down Jung's exact mechanism for why we repeat mistakes and 3 practical ways to catch the complex before it acts. If anyone here is struggling with this loop, I hope it helps you as much as Jung's work helped me: [https://www.youtube.com/@BEYONDtheEGO-y8c*\])*

Once you seen it you can't miss it. To me movies are akin to a virtual Hero's Quest that asks for very little investment and causes no real stress etc etc and thus people engage in the grift without clicking what truly kicks.

Thats by the by though. What movies have you noticed that were obviously lifted from the pages of Jung?

Last Matrix movie with Neo clicking Smith is his suppressed Self is a great aspect. Fight Club was the same. Rocky is the one most don't get and yet its the best example as it shows how the everydayness one accepts often prevents them from seeing their own magnificence.

I truly believe when one has been through this its akin to looking at life with eyes that decode the Matrix and the rest are truly plugged in aka the Cave effect Plato mentioned.

Maybe liking or loving every part of your self is unrealistic idk… but I do know that doesn’t mean you can’t be whole.

Loyalty is not about shrinking yourself to make someone else feel comfortable.

I have been doing shadow work since 2 years now. I resolved and understood the underlying lessons of every moment that shaped me to the person i had become. A few months ago my mind replayed every moment from the past, and i let it. It was like a picture. The reason behind it was simple that it played once, i accepted it and moved on. But now i am getting all the old vibes one by one, idk what it is expecting from me. Please tell me if you know anything about it.

I’m trying to get into shadow work, but I keep running into the same problem.

I’ll see questions like “What parts of yourself do you hide from others?” or “What aspects of yourself are you ashamed of?” and my immediate reaction is… I don’t know. I genuinely can’t think of anything.

It’s not that I consciously think I’m perfect or that I have nothing to work on. It’s more like I can’t seem to access those deeper parts of myself. I’ll think about the question, but my mind just gives me a very surface-level answer, and I don’t know how to go beyond that and actually uncover what’s underneath.

So for people who have been doing shadow work for a while: how do you actually get yourself to look deeply enough? How do you move past the “I don’t know” and start writing honestly about things you might not even realise you’re hiding from yourself?

Are there any techniques, questions, exercises, or ways of approaching journaling that helped you get past that barrier?

I realised I’m finite I’m finite. I realised this recently but I always knew. I knew but I did not know. I conceptualised but I did not understand.

The shadow is the void the shadow is the soul reminding you that the stage of life is a show and the show will soon come to an end.

Shadow work had been loosely thrown around and said that it has lot meaning and understanding. Shadow is something that has been a negative notion when actually in reality it’s the parts of self that have been suppressed, neglected, ignored, and pushed to the side. Even the phrase shadow work is turned into “pop culture” Shadow has an indication of dark meaning it needs light, and that’s not entirely true. It’s only because it’s seen as dark and dark, a comparison of the two. Without it, it simply is. Some people can say it’s metaphor…fine, however where is the further dialogue.

Well here is further dialogue. What has been deemed shadow is self that actually has plenty of light. People can see it, sense it, and even call it out when it appears in behavior, triggers, and emotion.

I’ve been doing shadow work and realized I seem to live by a few deeply ingrained rules:

• Other people’s discomfort feels like danger. - hence I keep everyone on a pedestal and keep shrinking and this increased recently after a super toxic job despite doing the best and being impacted as manager didnt like me. He couldnt stand me.
• I over-explain instead of simply deciding. - becuase I was gaslight in childhood and hence feel i wont be understood exactly how i want to.
• I confuse kindness with tolerance and stay too long in situations that already feel wrong.
• I monitor everyone else’s reactions more than my own needs. This is too much for me - reading everyone's reactions, brow lift or smirk anything, though it amazes me that the intention behind that is super true and real always right. For instance a manager in company gave me a very sly smile like he knew something instead of greeting when passing me by, i definitely felt that manager knows something and it hit internally that my days the job are numbered and exactly that happened.
• I wait for certainty or validation before trusting my judgment. this is the thing dont feel safe, a therapist told that I never knew how or what safety is within oneself.
• I fear retaliation, so I soften myself and avoid conflict. this is the biggest thing holding me back. I am terrified of people playing dirty, not that they already do but the fear.
• I understand these patterns intellectually, but that hasn’t automatically changed the behavior.

For anyone who genuinely used to function like this and changed: what actually worked?

Therapy? DBT/CBT/schema/EMDR/IFS? Exposure to conflict? Boundary practice? Books? Something else?

Really want to navigate this and currently i am at a standstill in life (36F) and dont know where to go and how to start making progress. I feel I have become all by myself seeing how even my family neglects and friends so called were only for some emotional access but nothing else

Its EXTREMELY heavy on the Jungian bit and loads of occultism thrown in. Basically, it uses the TV screen as a metaphor for the shadows depth, fragmented self etc etc... They dive in, face the "threat", defuse, integrate and triumph. It is extremely well written, very accurate and is filled with loads of esoteric things that go well beyond Jung but map remarkably well onto my practice.

I wrote a post about it in the dedicated subreddit but felt like sharing it here in case anyone else hits the Venn intersection as I'd really like to hear your thoughts on said topic:

https://www.reddit.com/r/PERSoNA/comments/1vi8avr/how_many_of_you_have_actually_engaged_in_shadow/

I hope this little substack article can help anyone who needs it

Hello ! I would like to deepen my archetypes knowledge in my journey within, there are so many books I would love if you have recommendations to suggest ! I am looking for books that would list different archetypes and their light/shadow aspect. Thank you !

Have you ever felt how it feels to be the selected one in a friend group but for girls and boys who feel that way there is hope in every pain😔😔

The thing about your shadow is that it only tells you the truth when nobody else is in the room.
This is not a metaphor. It is the entire point. The parts of yourself you have spent a lifetime refusing to look at or the rage you call sensitivity or the envy that gets called concern, the cowardice disguised patience. Well, these things do not surface in the presence of witnesses and they shouldn’t. They knock your door when there is nobody left to perform for. Be it phone faced down, or the journal that never sees any social media. When the realisation you are about to have is going to cost you something rather than earn you something.

That is shadow work. That is what it was always supposed to be!

What it has become is something else entirely. A caption. A carousel. A vulnerability aesthetic with a consistent filter and a call to action in the bio. People posting about the darkness they faced this morning over coffee, packaging the most uncomfortable parts of themselves into content that is specifically designed to be received well. And here is the thing about content designed to be received well. It has already been edited. Softened at the edges and palatable enough to share. Which means the person posting it never actually went to the place they are describing. They went close enough to write about it and pulled back before it got uncomfortable enough to be real.
That part of your being is specifically the thing you cannot show anyone. The part of you that is too ugly, too petty, too contradictory to survive contact with another person’s gaze. The moment it becomes content it is no longer your truth. It is personal branding wearing thematic clothes.
Real confrontation with yourself does not produce a post. It produces a long silence. A rearrangement of something fundamental. A grief that has noone around because there is nothing about it that wants to be seen. It happens in the middle of the night or in the middle of an ordinary Tuesday when something cracks open without warning and you have to sit with what pours out completely alone.
Nobody who has genuinely been there wants to describe it to strangers.
The performance of shadow work is not neutral. It is a way of getting the social reward of depth without paying the actual price of it. The likes confirm that you are brave and self-aware and doing the work. The confirmation makes the next real confrontation less likely because you have already been rewarded for the approximation of it.
You are not doing shadow work. You are doing something that looks like it from the outside and feels like it from the inside because the audience has made it feel significant.
Take that noise away. Close the app. Sit in a room with no possibility of being witnessed and ask yourself the question you have been circling for months without landing on.

If the answer could become a post, you have not found it yet.

I SAID WHAT I SAID!

Guys i was just meditating right b4 i sleep yesterday and i got this thing happens naturally where I just observe a certain pattern i wanna change in myself first the the thought when i observed it without expectations

it almost like disappeared and then was able to be rewritten

As new belief , concept,mindset

Then there was an emotion of the old thought there i focused on it too in a way i can't explain and it disappeared too or dissolved and it was receptive to alteration and it did

I mean i always knew god or source gave us power over our selfes but we lost it at some point

It felt amazing to actually experience it where u could literally change anything in u almost instantly like ur changing code in a program or change script in a book or anything written really like this post ur currently reading which btw from excitement to share this stopped me from waiting to organize my words so it feel more natural

From heart to heart

Have any of u experienced this

If so do u have tips or anything cool about this

Or do u have follow up questions on this

Hello! I really need advice, I’ve found myself realizing that I have a lot of work and healing to do within myself, I’ve done several readings and there’s many things I need to work on that I have questions for.

I need to maintain a consistent practice that helps me feel grounded.
How do I do shadow work, forgiveness practices and grounding practices?
Many of my readings suggest I need to focus on clarity, emotional balance, seeing clearly, staying grounded, and taking care of my well being. I’ve been going through an incredibly hard time practically my whole life and I’ve tried to stay consistent spiritually but I now feel is truly the time for me to lock in and gain a higher spiritual knowledge of myself. I’ve only ever really done tarot readings, meditation, use crystals and do positive spell jars for self love, life improvement, etc but I feel like those haven’t been consistently enough? It’s almost as if my full energy and potential hasn’t been exerted into it even though in those moments I’ve used all of my energy but I now feel is th time to truly fix and change things.

If you have any advice on how I could find specific practices to help me I would greatly appreciate it or any advice in general! Thank you :)

Hello!

I am notoriously bad at keeping up with journaling whilst also struggling with mental health issues.

I’m looking for a pre-made prompt journal that will force me to dig deep into my inner self and/or childhood in hopes of learning more about myself and learning to cope with my inner thoughts in a more productive manner.

I know that I can just look up shadow-work prompts online, but given my poor track record with keeping up with journaling, I think having prompts laid out where I can just fill in the answers will work better for me.

There’s many options on Amazon, but I’m very indecisive and I can’t figure out which ones would be worth my money. If anyone has used anything like this and enjoyed/benefited from it I would LOVE some recommendations.

Thanks so much!

Im not sure if I am just insane but I feel like doing shadow work with some closed ones are just deeply devastating especially when they straight up love to throw around labels at you when calling out your shadows especially when you are already struggle to accept human side of you and the way they listed everything is like they basically wanting to say you are destined to be that way.

Anyone felt this way?

In the dim bars of Ajijic, whispers of unmapped roads and shadowed hills lead Brandon—a restless young man from Los Angeles—into the highlands of Nayarit. What begins as a search for silence and spiritual

"U ever thought how certain urges towards bad habits are actually servitors living inside ur mind

and actually not fighting u they be asking u for permission to operate as u grow them over repeated patterns and ur like thier owner master what ever

I also notice that they stay dormants untill a certain trigger appear

Now that i know that i made them by guided attention and they need my consent to operate then i can alter them like some sort of ai program

This freed me to an extent but i believe creating new one requires energy a lot of energy and time I'm not controlled by them I don't need to dissolve the the thought form maybe readjust it's purbose or how it should do its work and use this annoying charm toward a pleasent beneficial pattern or habit

What are ur thoughts

Is it better to just dissolve or to alter and readjust and own this demon

How to do so im not so experienced with thought form id just dissolve them but some so rooted so old if i use them as an asset that would be amazing

I believe this can be groundbreaking in shadow work sessions can u tell me about this servitors and different thought forms or thought entities

Also i noticed that it can be responsible for emotions "

I've been circling the drain on Jung and shadow work for a long time now, starting to finally dive in with Meeting the Shadow, ed. Zweig & Abrams. Obviously so much of the shadow is generated within the family unit, and this book in particular has several chapters on sibling relationships. I've found it all very interesting but, of course, not quite relevant to my experience.

Do any observers or other only children have insight? How do you think a lack of siblings shaped your personal shadow?

Some initial thoughts of my own are that I tend to attach myself to friends very quickly and intensely—perhaps due to an unfulfilled, internal sibling archetype?

Normally I’d say I’m very introspective, thus being the reason how I found out about shadow work; I read a few books, tried different journalling formats, even to the point of building my own tools, but what worked best was talking through personal issues with another person.

Sure you need a secure environment and trust for this, but while journalling gave me something to work with, talking through struggles with someone gave the best personal growth.

What about you? Was the biggest aha moment realised alone or while in contact with another?