Mental Fitness Now™

The shadow self, for the purposes of this article is any aspect of self that we have repressed or are fearful of, and that takes away energy from our conscious mind in order to pursue its own agenda.

One of the reasons why we often find ourself exhausted and short of energy is not just because contemporary life is demanding. It is also becasue we have all sorts of fear based shadow sub-personalities in our mind that are continually draining our energy .

A really key way to find more energy in your life is therefore to learn to tackle your own shadow on a daily basis!

Dialoguing

One of the best ways to tackle negative feelings and sub-personalities of the shadow self within us is to learn how to dialogue with them. There are many different ways to do this, but here I am going to present a simple way of working that I often use.

The point of dialoguing is to:

-          Befriend the aspect of the shadow self that we are noticing is in conflict, is putting us in a state of confusion, or sapping our energy in any way.

-          Through befriending the shadow self we create a mutual understanding with it creating an interface between it and our conscious mind. This interface enables the energy of the shadow self to rejoin our conscious mind, becoming healed as it does so. Thus the shadow self gradually ceases to be a shadow, and heals.

-          The final point of a dialogue is to come up with a battle plan regarding how to deal with the problems that the shadow self has been presenting us with. 

Who is the dialogue between?

For most of my own shadow self dialoguing I keep it simple. The dialogue happens between three characters:

-          The conscious mind, or conscious self (CS). The conscious self facilitates the dialogue

-          The higher self (HS) or soul self. This a deeper aspect of self that most of the time is simply a presence, but it can be called upon at any time for feedback or an opinion whenever the conscious self feels confused and wants a second perspective.

-          The shadow self. This is the part of the shadow self that you wish to connect to and dialogue with. Often I will name the shadow self differently according to the particular aspect that I want to look at. For example in the dialogue below I am looking at the feeling of being overwhelmed, and so I call the shadow self simply “the overwhelmed self”.

The best way to show how to do a dialogue is simply through example. Here is one such example looking at the shadow self in the guise of feeling overwhelmed:

Sample shadow dialogue with the feeling of being overwhelmed:

Starting the dialogue by bringing forth the characters:

I now call upon my Conscious self (CS), Higher Self(HS) and shadow self in the aspect of the overwhelmed self (OS) to come forward for this dialogue.

Conscious self speaks: The purpose of today’s dialogue is to look at the problems that we have been having recently arising from the feeling of being overwhelmed. I have noticed that we have been feeling stress, engaging in avoidance of our work, feeling fearful and other symptoms that seem to come from just not knowing where to start with all the stuff we have to do. So, I want to ask you overwhelmed self, why have you been causing us so much stress?

Overwhelmed self speaks: We have so many things to do on so many different levels that I don’t even know where to start!  I think about all the stuff that we have to do and I feel like running away, it is like there is just a big wall of confusion and I am looking at it and feeling panic!

CS: Yep, daily life is tough with so many things to cope with, but we aren’t solving the challenge by getting confused by it all are we. When I feel you dragging at the back of my mind it is making thing worse not better. Why are you nagging at me so much?

OS: You are not ordering our life effectively; I feel anxiety because there does not seem to be any structure to what we are doing. I don’t feel confident that you know what you are doing.

CS: Ok, so what would help you feel more confident about what we are doing?

OS: I want you to have the presence of mind to sit down and do one thing at a time, so that we can just peacefully focus on one thing, and not feel as if our energies are trying to go in three or four directions at the same time, this is so stressful!

CS: OK good, so more time each day when we are solely focused on one task. I can commit to three hours a day where we are going to be solely focused on one task at a time, as there are times in the day when we do have to multi-task, there is just no other way around this at this point in our life ok?

OS: Ok, that sounds like a good start.

CS: In return I want you to please bear with me when we are having to be busy and don’t create unnecessary drag in our mind ok?

OS: Ok, I’ll try, I don’t want to sabotage you really, it is just that I get scared by all the information and don’t want to have to deal with it.

CS: I know, it is not easy, what else would you like to see from us that would help you deal with feeling overwhelmed?

OS: I like physical activity, physical fitness and Qi gong training help me feel more confident.

CS: Ok, so making more time for these would be good. However I also know that we need to manage our energy levels quite carefully, so let’s think about this a bit more.

OS: You also have been neglecting to get us to sleep in good time at night, of course I feel stressed with all we have to do if we are feeling tired due to not enough sleep!

CS: Yes, good point, we need to re-prioritize sleep, and getting to bed by 11.30 PM AT LEAST EVERY OTHER NIGHT!

OS: Thankyou, I am sure this will be a great help!

CS: You are welcome, remember that we are on the same side really; we need to work together, not against each other!

OS: I know, and I feel much better for having talked about it!

CS: Great, me too! So, here is our final battle plan:

1. Spend at least three hours of our working day where we are focusing on only one activity.
2. Be patient and mindful when we are having to multi-task.
3. Keep up the regular exercise routine, maybe look at expanding it a little if possible
4. Get to sleep by 11.30pm at least every other night. 

Final concluding thoughts:

• It may seem like extra work dialoguing with the shadow self when we have so many other activities that we need to do in our daily life, but any time you can set aside for it is more that worthwhile. It repays itself amply in terms of the psychological energy it frees up.
• Often the issues of the shadow self are not complicated, sometimes they seem childish. However, we need to realize that a part of our mind is still locked up in these areas, and we need to release it through inner communication with ourself. Dialoguing with the shadow self represents one very effective technique for doing this.
• Follow up on the commitments that you have made in the “battle plan” section of your dialogue, talking won’t help if you don’t act on the insights that you have gained! 

© Toby Ouvry 2010, you are welcome to use this article, but you must seek Toby’s permission first! Contact info@mentalfitnessnow.com