Online Life Coaching – Healing the Shadow
The shadow projects onto other what we deny in ourselves. When you blame, condemn, criticize, and belittle others, you’ll be projecting your shadow. When you finish other people’s sentences, you’ll be projecting your shadow. When you judge people whom you don’t know, you’ll also be projecting your shadow. And when you point your finger at someone else, you’ll always have three fingers pointed at you.
Judgment, blame, condemnation, criticizing, complaining, and intolerance are behavioral examples of the shadow in action. People who secretly or openly express their disgust toward others will at the same time be denying those same exact feelings in themselves. The people who go around scorning and demeaning others will always have a similar view of themselves that they are hiding from the world. This hidden self is the shadow.
The shadow emerges as a cover up process to hide what we are ashamed of. Its origins stem from early childhood when someone close to us hurts our ego and initiates the development of our shadow. As we grow older, we work hard to keep these repressed fears out of sight from others. Some people become abusive bullies because of their own inadequacies and insecurities. They feel as if they can make others feel less worthy to exist — it will somehow boost their ego and therefore their self confidence.
The truth is, shadow projections does boost the ego of the bully. But this boost is only temporary and comes with a heavy price. The pain that these people inflict on others just to give themselves a little boost creates a karmic debt that is destined to return. The law of karma dictates that what you give out will always come back to you. It is the law of reaping what you sow or “what goes around, comes around.” It’s always a matter of time before the bullies get back (in one form or another) what they have sent forth unto others.
Shadow projections can also result in secrets. Some who may seem like completely normal people may have secret fantasies or addictions that they keep well hidden from the world. We can observe the shadow in the public arena in the dozens of U.S. Congressman in the past few years who have been publicly humiliated because of extra-marital affairs, exposed closet homosexuality, and most recently with the case of Congressman Weiner; exhibiting nude photos over the internet.
Healing the shadow requires a good deal of time and a lot of attention. You have to shine a light on it. The first step is to admit you have a shadow (everyone does), and the second step is to write down what you hide from the world and what you despise in others. By writing these shadow projections down, you’ll be more able to identify them and therefore recognize them whenever you blame, condemn, and criticize others for the very same things you abhor in yourself.
Jason Lincoln Jeffers is an Online Life Coach and the founder of The Art of Transformation, a company dedicated to teaching Spiritual Enlightenment to the world. His Online Life Coaching program uniquely synthesizes mystical wisdom with ego transcendence, holistic wellness, life path astro-analysis, shadow & pain-body work, heart-brain intention, the power of presence, and the law of attraction.