13 Benefits of facing your inner shadows

The inner shadow can be viewed as aspects of our true self we come to reject.  We resist these parts of our personality and do not allow ourselves to see them. When we, as children, internalize messages in our subconscious, they can take shape in adult life as emotional triggers. We may tell ourselves we do not know why we react as we do. Yet, a hidden part does know. We often make choices out of fear.

For instance, if one of your shadows formed around speaking your truth, when people around you speak openly and honestly, this may evoke restlessness, resentment, even terror. You may feel threatened but unclear as to why, and disregard the emotions and discomfort.

Upon deeper self-reflection, hiding your feelings may be an unconscious strategy to avoid suffering. It may point to a fear of safety or survival. This may cause you to stop speaking up, to decide your feelings are unimportant, that you are unlovable, invisible or flawed. Such misperceptions arise from denying shadows.

Consider 13 Benefits of facing your shadows:

1. Grow aware of your triggers

Noticing triggers is a step to joining the dots between your thoughts, feelings. They offer clues to where a sense of  wholeness is fractured. They remind us that it is our thoughts about the way things should be that make our lives difficult or uncomfortable.  People we encounter will continue to press our buttons until we realize what it is we do not wish to know about ourselves, yet.  They guide us to our source of freedom.  Any situation that evokes discomfort is what we seek, an entrance into a lost or unseen part of ourselves.

2. Re-activate your feeling centres

Many people have lost touch with their inner truth. They forget what it feels like. You may be conditioned to doubt or second guess true feelings. When taught to favor the left brain hemisphere, we favor the logical, rational role modelling or social beliefs and behaviours we have been given. We may downplay or devalue our right brain and creative capacities or "other ways of seeing" outside the conditioned comfort zone. This may relate to society's ideas of which life decisions "are best for us." Left-brain ideas are ego-based. Focusing on external advice or ignoring signs and signals of our bodies loses touch with the feeling truth or inner harmony unrelated to ego.

3. Stop being overly optimistic

Being overly optimistic suggests we are missing part of the bigger picture. When we only see the good, we reject aspects of self. Sometimes we are taught to be overly positive and avoid the negative.  Avoidance is a defense mechanism and reveals something is missed. As you notice a tendency to favor the positive, shadow-work is useful.  Ignoring things increases their density. Look at recurrent nightmares. What we resist, persists to invite us to make the unconscious, conscious.  Manifestations of what you reject grow stronger. If you resist your dark side, it grow more solid, takes shape in ways you cannot ignore.

4. Realize you could be right, or could be free

As you explore deeper reasons for anger and fear, this can trigger moments of awakening that lead to greater authenticity, creativity, and emotional freedom. Finding pleasure in the way things are, rather than the way you think they should be, inspires others to act in ways that surprise us. being open to deeper insight into yourself accelerates self- growth.

5. Let go of desires for love, approval & appreciation

As we disconnect from feeling centres and subtle senses, this is like overriding our inner knowing.  As we face the sense of conflict that arises, we begin to recognize that any desires we hold are unnecessary.  That is, we are what we are seeeking. This is the beginning of letting go of desire for love, approval and appreciation because it dawns we are never missing anything.

6. Recognize spiritual bypassing

In the case that we justify going against our feelings by saying "this is an exercise in uncondicional love & forgiveness," this may turn out to be a case of spiritual bypassing (SB).  SB is  is like any other form of avoidance that rewards us with a false feeling of security and happiness, while undermining our deeper path of self-growth and transformation. John Welwood coined the term, 'spiritual bypassing' to mean: "the tendency to use spiritual ideas and practices to sidestep or avoid facing unresolved emotional issues, psychological wounds, and unfinished developmental tasks." Making the unconscious conscious is part of spiritual integration.

7. Integrate heart and soul

Bringing uncomfortable issues to the surface is helping to realize that emotions only have a hold over us when we allow it. Timeless practices such as meditation, mantras, sacred geometry, journalling, automatic writing, dream journalling and immersing in nature help us to integrate the deepest desires of the heart and soul. This draws our attention to any illusions of separaton we perpetuate in thought, word and deed.

8.  Rebuild inner trust

Imagine the case where you befriend someone and they seem like one type of person and then later reveal they behave in ways that make you feel uncomfortable. If you trust your feelings, and are true to yourself, that friendship may diminish or disappear from your life. Whereas if you go against your inner compass, you are eroding the trust you have in yourself.  

9. Strengthen listening 

In life, there may be occasions where you feel unheard or ignored by people at work, in family or even in passing.  Being aware of feeling ignored is tuning into deeper  reasons and buried feelings of resentment and sadness about being devalued.  As you live more based on feelings, your being feels more heard and the external world reflects this back.

10. Sharpen intuition

Intuition is the language of the soul, your essence.  Living fully requires tuning in and living soely based on intuition without over-riding our inner knowing.

11. Jumpstart self-rediscovery 

Until deep self-reflection happens, you may spend a great deal of time researching, creating or changing a sense of purpose and not really feel a sense of lasting clarity or direction. Purpose may simply be related to  skills or experience you seem to have and overlook internal cues. Self-discovery only happens when you are tuned into your feelings. 

12. Unleash inner genius

To become the best version of you, and truly free of what holds this back from realizing inner genius, the path involves uncovering and integrating your inner shadow aspects. They undermine your transformation into into the physical. Call if your soul's destiny or whatever you like.  The most authentic version of you already exists but it is up to you to take steps to experience transfiguration. Every being has a unique path.

13. Accept yourself fully

Accepting who you are at the core involves living in alignment. Every journey to complete self-love is unique. Some paths can involve soul retrieval.  The key is to walk the Path and know situations that present only change from the moment we have learned and integrated what those energies or lessons have to teach us. Accepting yourself fully allows you to turn inward and experience the peace that already exists within.  That peace is immovable, unmoving, ever-present.

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