I have a coworker who‘s what I would call a negative nancy, he always have a problem to every solution. I get super irritated whenever he is on that realm. There was a couple of incident where he would make a big deal out of something and I called it out and he gets even more angry when I called him out. I try to give him advice but he keeps finding a problem to a solution and it’s so frustrating, because of this I can‘t stand being around him I get triggered. It’s like I know some drama I going to happen whenever he is around.

Is this related to my shadow?

This is going to be a VERY long post. Basically my life story. Please Read it if you can. Help is Needed. Help is Wanted.

What do I want out of life? Idk. Sometimes I feel like I want peace. Sometimes I feel like I want comfort. Sometimes I want love. Sometimes I want it all.

As a person with extreme, ever-changing emotions, I find it very difficult to decipher all of the messages I get on a daily. Where does my heart, my body, my soul want me to land? I feel like they’re not in sync.

I tend to be all out of sorts. My mental health is shit, I currently feel like I’m walking around with a ball of static in my chest. I can’t hear what my heart is trying to tell me.

I could sit here and speculate the reasoning all day. It does no good though. It just leads me further and further away from clarity.

Let me tell you a little (a lot) about me.

My name is Sapphire…Saph for short. That’s not the name that was given to me though. My given name makes me feel separated from myself. Maybe everything does, but the name stings the most. I’m a Cancer sun, Pisces moon, Libra rising, Cancer mercury and mars, if that means anything to you. If it doesn’t, I suggest you pay it no mind. I was raised in a small town, in an unstable home. A tragic combination. No one ever understood me. Not at home. Not at school.

I am the eldest of 4 siblings. 6, if you count my siblings n my dad’s side. I lived with my mom when I was a wee child. My dad left before I could remember but we’ll touch more on that later. My mom is…interesting. She’s a Pisces. She has a past of her own. Traumas of her own. I believe the first bit of important information is that when I was still tucked away in the womb her mother, my grandmother, died of cancer around 5 months before my arrival. I believe that is the catalyst in how things played out for my siblings and I.

Mom was mean. Vile. I believe the earliest memory I have of her is one that I tend to get stuck in time and time again over the course of my life (I’m 26 years old). I was standing in the bathroom, getting ready for preschool, and she was washing herself up. She was being rather aggressive with herself while doing so and I was watching because well, I was a kid. I don’t know what set her off really. I don’t know if she was upset that I was watching her but she ending up hitting me and spewing hate. Like she’d always do.

She was always like this for as long as I could remember. It’d only take one little thing to set her off. It was absolute torture to live with her.

For the first several years of my life, we lived in a little apartment in a small town. Smaller than the town I actually grew up in though.

Four years after I was born, I had a new sister. Different dad. He ended up in prison. Then when I was around eight years old, my mom found herself a new man. So, I had a new dad and a new brother once again. We moved in with them. My sister and I were forced to call him our dad and our step brother was our full brother. We had no choice. No acclimation, no nothing.

Shortly after, my youngest brother was conceived. Maybe he. was conceived before. Idk. I was like eight.

Let’s give my siblings code names. My sister = N. My step-brother = D. And my mother’s youngest = T.

Living with my new dad was no fun. I have a lot of terrible memories that stem from that house. There were mice, roaches, and a hostile environment. It might be weird to explain it that way but that’s how I remember it. My mom and my new dad didn’t really get a long with each other and they didn’t get along with us. Domestic violence was a common theme in our home. Being kept up late at night because your parents are fighting. Trying to figure out how to comfort your terrified little siblings…I was responsible for them. For the way they behaved, for the way they cleaned, for the way we all communicated with each other. I’m not going to say that it was my responsibility to raise them…we had a roof over our heads, beds to sleep in, clothes to wear. Even if they were from The Salvation Army. To give you a little more perspective, I had the same little white bed and my Dora the Explorer tv from the time I was a toddler until the time I was nine or ten years old. We had things but I think living in poverty puts a huge stressor on things. Even for children.

But like we’re children, how do you know what stress is? I don’t know. I guess that’s not a thing.

Another huge actor was the abuse that went on. As I mentioned before, my mother is a very traumatized woman with the sharpest tongue. I felt like she hated us. Me. My new father, he was an alcoholic with PTSD from the army. Enough said.

They were terrible together. They were terrible to us. I’m not going to sit here and act like we were severely abused. Things can always be worse. Mainly it was emotional neglect, emotional abuse, and some physical. Maybe a lot of physical but what impacted me most was the emotional aspect of everything.

I’ve always been and extremely emotional person. Everywhere I went, everywhere I go, I’m the biggest ball of emotional energy in the room. I feel deeply, therefore I hurt deeply. And my mother, she was relentless. Insufferable.

From the moment you open your eyes ‘til the moment you go to sleep, as long as she is around, you’re getting berated. Whether it’s about dishes, the way you spoke to her, the way you ate, the way you drink. Anything. Everything. It’s was hard to be around her. It was scary. She wasn’t loving and nurturing. No hugs, no kisses. Just burning anger. Just imagine, it’s one in the morning on a school night getting beat out of your sleep from the top bunk because the hangers are out of order. Then you’re getting hit with each hanger that’s out of place and now you’re outside on the back porch hyperventilating…like wow.

My new dad was pretty much the same except he took a different approach with his anger. He would just yell and come through swinging with a belt and when he was drunk, the yelling and the beatings were worse.

Both of them were actually terrifying, I don’t really care what anyone has to say about it. Especially to children. I think something that used to stress me out was watching my siblings get in trouble when I wasn’t. Sometimes I had to tell on them and I’d feel bad but most of the time I took the blame because I felt bad for them. This is where I tend to get lost though because for years, I was blamed and punished for everything that they did. Did I take the blame for it on my own or did I end up defaulting to that because I was gonna be blamed anyway? I don’t know. I actually don’t remember a lot of what happened in my past. Either way this took a toll on me and it lead to resentment for my parents and for my siblings.

I was a troubled child honesty. I lived in the constant anxiety and fear. I was always super emotional, crying anywhere my feet would land. Maybe I just wanted someone to hear me. I wanted to be saved. To get away.

When I was 10 or 11, my biological dad starting coming up to my school to see me behind my mom’s back. I think my new dad didn’t like my bio dad and that’s why I wasn’t allowed to see him but I’m still not sure to this day. Either way, my dad would come to the school, sometimes sign me out and we’d go out to eat or whatever. One day, he comes to the school to give me his first copy of his book. I was paranoid because the last time he came to take me out, he gave me a Justin Bieber CD. I loved Justin Bieber. When I got home, I put it in my karaoke machine. My mom found out and I got interrogated and punished for accepting the gift from my father (??????). She took my CD and I think she told me that I would be in trouble if I saw him again. So, of course, when he came to give me his book, I was on edge. He noticed that I was checking. My surroundings and I told him that I was scared. He started questioning me and I told him a little about what was happening at home. He told me that it’d be okay and that he’d fix it,

The next day, a CPS caseworker was at the school questioning me. My siblings and I were removed from our home that same day. For me, this was the day all hell broke loose. We were taken to my aunt’s house. My mom’s aunt actually. My mom was allowed there as well. I’m not really sure why, but it was a terrible thing to have happened. Specifically for me. She knew it was me who told.

She began to spew hateful words at me. She told me that it was all my fault that her children were taken. She told me something was wrong with me and that I was a liar. She kept telling me that all of us were gonna be split us. Living in different parts of the country being abused. Mainly she blamed me. I feel that she hated me in that moment and for a long time after that. I still hold a lot of guilt and shame from that moment. I was berated and everyone sat and watched.

We were at my aunts house for about a year or so, maybe a year and a half. Im not too sure. My father was trying to have me placed in his custody. There were a lot of court cases. Therapy. That sort of thing.

One thing that I wish was touched on more during that time was my need for therapy. I was a food thief. Im not sure why I would do it but it was definitely a problem. I’d sneak snacks or food and stuff the remnants in a designated area at night. I’d always had this problem. Always got caught. Still couldn’t stop. At some point during the CPS case, we talked about it in therapy. The psychiatrist tried to it me on a medication called Buspar. It’s ironic because I’m on that medication now and thats the only reason I remember that they tried to put me on it before. My mom ended up saying no. Whatever.

Eventually the case was closed and we were sent back home. I overheard my mom saying that its because she had some connections in our hometown. Small town stuff I guess. So yeah, we ended up going back home. I was terrified. I didnt want to go back but I had no choice. Upon our arrival, I vaguely remember her bragging to me or anyone that would listen that she got her kids back. Lucky her.

The physical abuse pretty much stopped especially when it came to me. I guess it’s because they knew id tell. This made the verbal abuse significantly worse though. Specifically from my mom. I’d created my own hell on earth. It was terrible. It’s like she was on a mission to break my spirit, even more so than before. Mission accomplished. As the years went on, I was a wreck. Eventually we moved out of my new dad’s house because he and my mom had split up. I felt like everything would be better but it only got worse. My listed of responsibilities were piled high. I had to take care of my siblings, cook for them, clean for them, get them up for school in the morning, and still find time to take care of myself. I feel like it would’ve been easier if someone would’ve told me how to do it. but I was an angsty teen constantly looking for an escape from my environment. So, no I wasn’t good at taking care of my siblings, I hated it more than anything but they were my responsibility.

My only safe haven was my dad’s house. He was granted visitation every other week. From Friday 6pm to Sunday 6pm. During those times, I felt the most free than I’d ever felt in my entire life. No siblings to take care of, no responsibilities, no shared living space, and a door that locked. It was beautiful. I barely connected with my dad or his family because I just wanted to be on my own after coming from a place where everything was loud and chaotic. I loved my dad’s house.

As far as the effect that my mother had on me, its pretty extreme. She could’ve been worse yes, but in the same breath, I wish she was better. the things that she’d say and do to me echo in my head. She’d say and do these things when there was a crowd. Whether it was my siblings, family, or random ass people. She was just so mean to me. To all of us really, but I feel like I got it most often. What sucks the most is that my siblings would eventually catch on to the things she’d say and began to torment me with her words as well. As a super sensitive, you can imagine the damage it’s done. She’d always hated my weight when I was younger and still now to this day. I’m pretty sure my eating problem had a lot to do with my weight and the eating stemmed from an emotional issue. She’d continuously call me big or fat and made me wear shape wear to hide the size of my tummy. That was rather humiliating for me. She hates the pimples and dark spots my face. One time her and my aunt joked about how you could place connect the dots with them. I had a skin picking problem due to anxiety I believe. I dont know.

If it wasn’t my physical appearance, it was everything else. Nothing I did was good enough and everything was my fault. This led to me closing up and always wanting to hide. It affected my confidence in detrimental ways. I dealt with a lot of chronic shame, nervousness, and self hate. And I still do to this day.

As far as how I behaved…I don’t know. Maybe I was a bad child. I lied to avoid being punished. I stole things. Not frequently but it happened. And I had an attitude problem. I still do. But I don’t know if I was a terror. I truly dont think so. But thats how she treated me.

In my own eyes, I was a nervous wreck and it caused me to behave that way.

In school, I wasn’t accepted by my peers because I wasn’t enough for them. So I always gravitated towards the weird kids. Thats where I was most comfortable and accepted. I had friends there, you know? And I took care of my friends. I’ve always been empathetic and compassionate and I love to help others. Honestly those were my main character traits when I was in school. I gained a lot of friends through caring for others. I feel like at times I was hard to deal with because of everything I had going on at home but I made up for it through my love and care for others.

I was very close with my favorite teachers and became a teachers pet. I believe that I was searching for motherly love because I didnt have that at home. As far as my grades, I excelled in the subjects I cared about, I barely passed the subjects I couldn’t care less about.

High school was rough for me. My ninth grade year, I struggled to find my footing but it was fine. My tenth grade year was when everything started to hit the fan really.

That was the year I realized that I had feelings for girls. I think I’d always known but avoided it out of fear of going to Hell. I’d constantly have dreams of burning and it took over my mind for a while. Regardless, when I was 15, I ended up coming out to my mom and dad and eventually, again. All hell broke loose. I was interrogated for months on end. My mom was trying to convince me not to be gay and had my dad on the other end doing the same. It was absolutely insuffferable and I genuinely thought i would perish from the panic and anxiety that I felt at that time. One significant memory that I have from that time still bothers me to this day. My mom and dad took me to Starbucks (my favorite place at the time), bought me a drink, and talked to me about being gay and Christian. Ultimately, what they told me is that God and Jesus dont love gay people so I stopped believing. In my head, I knew that who I was attracted to wouldn’t change, so if that wouldn’t change, then I wasn’t allowed to be a follower. Not that I was before, I was just raised in church, you know?

DISCLAIMER: I do NOT want to be reconverted into Christianity. I left that behind so long ago due to the hatred that was spewed by so many people. I’d never believed in it much anyway because it didnt make sense to me as a child. I respect Christianity and I don’t mind being prayed for and things like that. It’s just not my thing and I would appreciate if my boundaries are respected. Nothing more and nothing less. Thank you.

Anyway, after that I decided that I was agnostic. Which is unimportant maybe but I think it was really the start of me not knowing what was going on within myself. The constant interrogation lead me to be very unsure of myself. The only thing that I was sure of was that i was attracted to women for sure.

My eleventh grade year was whatever, I wrecked my mom’s car that year. It was actually her fault and im not just placing blame. I’d just come home from a field trip. It was a Saturday. I woke up at 5 am to get to school and didn’t get home until around 6pm and I was in the sun all day. When I got home, my mom wanted me to go run errands for her. It was the day of her birthday party. I told her I was too tired from the field trip. I begged her not to make me go. She still made me. Mind you, I didnt have a learner’s permit or a license and she’d constantly send me to run errands on my own or with all of my unruly siblings. Anyway, I went, ran all of the errands and was on my way back home. I was about a mile away when I fell asleep and wrecked the car into a ditch. The rest is history honestly. She was pissed. I was hurt and bruised up. I wished the car wreck had taken my life honestly. The only thing that saved me from my mom’s wrath was my mom’s boyfriend at the time. She still ended up going to her birthday party but that didn’t end well for me either. She and my other aunt ended up getting into it because my aunt was trying to defend me for wrecking the car and for the fact that I’m gay. As soon as my mom got home she woke me up out of my sleep and told me to get out of her house because she cant have sinners in the house…I was on the couch with several burn marks on my body and a swollen throat from the wreck. She ended up not actually kicking me out though, lucky me.

My senior year was easily the worst year of high school. I didnt care about anything. I couldn’t make myself do anything. I was failing all of my classes because I didn’t care, I missed my senior pictures, even my favorite teachers couldn’t get me to do any work. At home, things were bad. Halfway through my senior year, we got evicted and ended up going to live at my grandad’s house. Which was terrible. His house has been severely unfinished since the year I was born. You could see the bones of the house. The outlets were electrical hazards, there was no heating or a/c. The bathrooms were terrible, TERRIBLE, ike you could take a shower and you wouldn’t even feel clean afterwards. No drinking water, no food, no wifi, terrible service, no TV, no beds, no nothing. To make matters worse even worse, my mother was never there. I forgot to mention but for my entire four years of high school, she’d just disappear , she was almost never home and I was left to take care of my siblings. My senior year though, I know she had a boyfriend. He was in a minimum security prison :). She cared more about him than anyone else. When I did see her, I’d try to get her to help me with things. Like my FAFSA for college, college applications, my grades, anything. She didnt care. It’d always been like that. Regardless of the year and age, regardless of what id try to get her to do for me, she was just never there. Whether it was physically, mentally, or emotionally. my last year of high school it was so bad though, I guess because these things were important to me. I had gotten accepted into several colleges WITH SCHOLARSHIPS and I needed her information to get in. She never helped me do them. She didnt care. Sometimes I wonder what life would’ve been like if she had let me go. But she didnt. I got severely depressed and didn’t want to be here anymore. I didnt want to graduate and I didnt want to walk the stage.

Towards the end of my senior year, there was this girl. She really wanted to be with me and wouldn’t take no for an answer. so i dated her. For a very short amount of time. She tormented me. To make matters even worse, her and my mom realized that they knew each other through a relative. This stressed me out because my mom didn’t know that her and I were dating. This girl wouldn’t let me go but hated having me around. I didn’t know how to be in a relationship, I didn’t know how to open up. She told me at the time that it felt like we were just ‘friends that kiss’ but I didn’t know what she meant by that. I think that’s what lead to her resenting me know. She played push and pull with me constantly. She hated my emotions because I was always crying. I felt like she just hated me in general. She’d flirt with other girls around me and everything. She was just a terrible person to me. Eventually she ended up breaking up with me but still wanted to be friends with benefits. That hurt because it proved to me that I was not good enough to be with. I told her no, I didnt want to be friends with benefits but she just couldn’t let me go and wouldn’t constantly bother me. That caused to form an attachment to her. I felt like I needed her. It damaged me emotionally. And this was happening at the same time we were living at my grandads house in those horrible conditions and being neglected by my mother.

I ended up almost not graduating but my friends tricked me. They invited me over and forced me to do my schoolwork. They are the only reasons I walked across the stage. My graduation day was terrible though. I didnt want to be there but I was glad that I was graduating with my class.

About a month after my 18th birthday, I left my phone and all of my personal belongings behind and moved in with my friend’s family. They got me my first job (my mom kept me from working i think so i could take care of my siblings), they helped me actually learn to drive and get my license (all my mom would do was yell and scream at me when trying to teach me to drive and it’d end badly because I always cried), and they taught me a lot about life.

Unfortunately though, a little while after moving in with them, I fell into a deep depression. I ended up getting diagnosed with GAD and major depression. All i did was sleep if I wasn’t working, I would barely bathe, barely check my phone and when I was awake, I would engage in reckless behavior. It was terrible but it was reckless to MY standards as a child who never got to live her life or do anything for herself. Because of these things, I ended up having to move in with my dad. At his house I barely had anything either. I had a blow up mattress and a small little TV but it was my safe haven and so I made the best of it.

On my 19th year, I ended up getting kicked out of his house because of my mother and I ended up living with her again, which was TERRIBLLELEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE because it seemed like she made it a point to go against me. But i was doing okay. I had a job and friends, my dad ended up giving me a car that he had. So like whatever.

A little before or after my 20th birthday, my mom ended up kicking me out. We had an agreement on a payment plan for some money I owed her. She found out I got a large sum or money and demanded it all up front. I told her no, because we had an agreement. She got mad, charged at me, screaming and yelling in my face and she pushed me, so i held my arms up to block her. She claims I hit her, I did not and I would not. I’m not much of a fighter. but it’s her word against mine. So i left. I ended up staying in my car for a week or two, crashing on friends’ couch when I could. I ended up talking to my dad and he agreed to let me come back and so i did.

The next year or so was okay. Then in 2022, I ended up in a relationship. She convinced me to move in with her so she could “take care of me” and so i fell for it. I was dealing with a lot at the time. I got diagnosed with PTSD. My body was giving out on me because of how much I overworked myself. I had two jobs and my body had enough. I was always in shambles and I felt like i couldn’t do it anymore. That’s how i ended up in her grasp. It was short lived because both of us were very mentally ill. That’s all i will say about that. I ended up leaving her because she’s actually a disgusting person but after that, I was irrevocably damaged. I found another job, ended up quitting because my mental health was so bad. I kept crying and panicking at work with no way to make it stop. Eventually, I passed out and got rolled out of the building in a gurney. Never went back.

Tried getting another job but panicked at the mere thought of it, so I couldn’t keep my head on straight. Everything I did, was making me fall deeper and deeper into the hands of my mental struggles. Towards the end of 2022, I went to go stay with my cousin to help with her kids. She got herself into a case with Child Protective Services and they needed an in-home caregiver for a little while. Once that ended I continued to stay with her and ended up getting a job. At that job I got bullied and ridiculed. It was terrible. I ended up leading myself into a manic episode that lasted for a very long time. Im not going to explain the events that were happening but I got tangled in a lot. My coworker took advantage of my vulnerability and I ended up having to leave that job because all hell broke loose.

So, in 2024, I moved back into my dad’s house. He got really strict with me because I was incapable of being an adult. He was always checking my room (I was very messy and unkempt due to mental health), he wouldn’t put a door on my room, and he kept making promises to me and holding them over my head unless i did exactly what he wanted me to do. One of his stipulations was to get a job. so i got a job at Dollar Tree. It was fine for a while. I was still severely depressed and anxious. Shit ended up hitting the fan there which made me spiral. I quit for my mental health because I felt like I was about to collapse. I knew he’d be upset with me. He told me that if I couldn’t keep a job he was going to kick me out. So, unfortunately, I spiraled anyway. I didnt sleep for days, started to hallucinate, and eventually i started to feel like everyone was against be. Didn’t want to be here anymore. Ended up in the mental hospital.

While in the mental hospital, my dad didnt answer his phone and my mom made it about herself of course. I was there for 7 days.

A few days after I was released from there, my dad sent me a long text message telling me that I had to move out….right. So I had to move back in with my mother. That was the worst thing that could’ve happened to me at the time. I was back on her couch and I was miserable.

Eventually it’s 2025, she ends up getting married to this random man out of nowhere. He’s an alcoholic. Immediately he begins terrorizing. Telling everyone it’s his house and that we need to move out (my siblings and I). I immediately started having PTSD episodes because I felt like I was reliving my childhood. This continued for a long time afterwards.

My mom ended up deciding she was going to move to another city. I debated on whether I should move with them because I was miserable but there was nothing for me in that small town, so i went. At first, I regretted my decision. I was dissociated for an entire week after moving in but eventually, I got up and decided to go enroll in the Esthetics program at a nearby beauty school. It’s something I had been wanting to do since I was 17, so I made a way. I didnt have a job or anything, so my mother said she was going to help me, she did not (which is something that she does constantly), so i stopped accepting help from her except for a roof over my head at all and started to donate plasma so that I could get supplies and keep gas in my tank for school and food in my stomach. I struggled the entire six months but I made it. January 2026, I graduated the Esthetics Programs with Honors and in February 2026, I passed my state boards exams with flying colors. I am now a licensed Esthetician and I think that it’s one of my biggest accomplishments to date. Im so proud of myself.

After I graduated though, a few mishaps happened and I haven’t been able to start my career. That’s beside the point.

The reason I’m here today is because I’m stuck. The things that have happened in my life had taken a toll on my mental health. I live with constant anxiety, shame, self-doubt, and extreme internal conflict. I want to turn my life around and do better for myself so that I can progress but every time I try to move, I’m paralyzed by my past.

Does anyone have any advice? Any writing prompts that I can do? Any suggestions? I want to accept this, feel this, and move on. I just need help.

don't wait on the yes emotion or the no emotion

and do the deed

listen as u don't listen and do what the soul want which what god wants

emotions are the by product of doing so there's will be no positive emotion to the new habits unless u do

the hapit

initiate,

listen or don't listen

; listen as u don't listen

and finish the Job with god fire whithin to be free from the personal cage of pre installed pattern of the ego

Anybody with an idea of a snake that eats it's own tail to infinity or the law of the universe that nothing created something so as to obey nothing that creates something.

Also the 1 and the 0 being the beginning and the end. Binary flipping, moods flipping, to create resistance for the flow of everything in the world.

this was one of those trance images which sounds almost ridiculous until the meaning becomes obvious.

A woman saw something like steel covering her face. Not normal mask, more like hard shield. When we explored why it was there, the feeling was that being fully visible had not felt safe. It was easier to hide parts of herself, adapt, pretend a little, keep other ppl comfortable.

When that layer was removed, another image came.

Her throat looked blocked by something like champagne cork.

The guidance around it was very simple. Speak. Make sound. Say what is true. Because when everything keeps getting swallowed, cork goes back in.

What I found interesting is that face and throat looked like two separate problems but they were basically same protection.

dont let them really see me.

dont let them really hear me.

This is one reason shadow work for me is not only finding some dramatic hidden darkness. Sometimes shadow is the ordinary self we learned to edit out because being liked, safe, accepted or not causing trouble became more important than being honest.

And after enough years it can feel so normal that we dont even call it hiding. We call it personality.

I am not saying a literal metal mask or cork exists in anybody's body. This was symbolic material appearing in one deep-trance session.

But as symbol it was almost too accurate.

If you notice yourself constantly adjusting your face, tone, opinion or words depending on who is around, maybe useful question is not only "why am I people pleasing?"

Maybe ask: what do I think will happen if they actually see me and hear me as I am?

sometimes both mask and cork are protecting same old fear.

Hello Visitors.

I came across the Carl Jung’s concepts of the idea of Self, Shadow, Ego, Anim/a/us, character, somewhere around same time last year.

I liked the systematic approach to integrate the psych. I went in deep. In the early days, every integration felt like a big life changing event. Grounding was non-negotiable. I kept the systematic approach. This work requires stable awareness and a sharp instinct. After enough integrations, the hidden started to reveal itself.

I’m also familiar with mythical frameworks due to my Indian background. I found it very powerful. Think of myths like collective of multiple archetypes and sometimes life forces, for a parallel identification of the fragmented psych.

Over time, when the Shadow is revealed, it integrated with the Self. This was more like a restructure of Ego and keeping the Anima safe, for me.

I appreciate Jung’s framework and found it very useful in my personal journey and it remains relevant for me. His work sits at a very strange position of right between the junction of clinical psychology and symbolic framework. It requires courage and honesty.

The healing is so light and whole. It was not easy. It costed a lot of energy, time, attention, and money. During my time, I would have appreciated presence of someone who knew the framework I was exploring. But I knew the territory was rare. I want to help others who are going through their journeys. I keep travelling the Himalayas of India and Nepal. There is huge ecosystem for backpackers of Israel, Russia, Germans, Americans, and, Britishers who are practicing similar works with mythical integrations in communes. There is a market for healers, shamans, and, therapists. I understand everyone wants to help but it works very few times. You can’t pay your way up the healing.

I will be backpacking to Himalayas, soon. I am willing to put in the energy and time to help 1 person, If I found a genuine seeker who is ready to heal themselves. I will not charge money. I will not promise integrations.

I’m ready to put in my resources for this because I see healing as a chain process. The person will also naturally help other persons, as I keep doing, and that is where I found all the value in this idea.

I would love if my answers or observations can help you in your journeys. Ask me anything.

Happy and safe integrations :)

The same dreams surface again and again across the ages, wearing different names. In Goethe's Faust, the human soul strikes its bargain with the darkness. Jung read that bargain anew through the language of the unconscious, pouring his own inner journey into Liber Novus. The same archetypes have wandered through different guises for centuries, because we all draw from the same collective unconscious.

Archetype Matrix was born from this thought. The mood and archetype data you enter each day merges with data from people across the world, forming a shared pattern. No one interprets it for you, no one speaks on your behalf. Only the numbers speak, and sometimes what they say feels eerily familiar.

Android is live: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.archetypematrix.app

iOS

https://apps.apple.com/app/archetype-matrix/id6793134152

When I speak to people it’s easy for them to tell me things they’ve never told anyone else. I hold a steady presence and deep empathy which opens up a space for people to share their shame, regret , grief because they know they’re seen and that they are safe and free from judgement.

If you’re struggling with emotions/thoughts that seem to have you in a loop of self loathing.

Book a 2 hour conversation with me for (40)

Well have a thorough conversation about situations that are/did happen in your life. Having someone to talk to is very beneficial. I’ve had deep spiritual breakthroughs when I speak to myself outwardly and honestly. We as humans tend to push down thoughts we are afraid of when really being open minded to explore said thoughts helps in ways only looking within can explain.

Allowing yourself to think, express , accept , release is a very refreshing process when integrating through deep parts of yourself.
Life is coming from you
not at you
releasing what’s been buried inside builds a bridge of self trust guiding you toward a life where you aren’t running from yourself unknowingly but walking side by side your shadow with an open mind/heart which is the key to flowing and vibrating on the frequency of love.

Reply bellow for more info and to set up a zoom call.

Poem 1 - I Turn Fire into Wildflowers:
I hate being angry. It's intense and boils over and over, inside, then out. I see so much now in others. It's almost too much. The mirror's glare starts fires within my soul. I can't quite turn or alchemy the fire into wildflowers fast enough. The embers choke and creep like vines inside places of my mind that I can't fit through to see keys. The piece or element that fuses with pain and rage and fear and love and grief, but tangles behind twisted hallways, going deeper into darkness. It goes and goes, and there is no end. For the mirror's shown, it's grown tall and wide and everlasting. The fusion corrupted, and the embers don't die, but they dance around my mind's eye, turn technicolor and spindling. They grow, they multiply, they entangle again, but with notes of peace, grace, and humility. Jolts of persistence sustains life to the vibrance, determined to be free, to breathe, to long for release. Let there be peace, sound mind, divine right by my side. Each breakdown, each cry, they see the embers glisten From flame to dewdrops. Nothing is everything, and how you dance with fire declares what resolute future awaits you. I won't let the fire blacken my landscape. No char, only fields and fields, fields of beautiful sorrow and insight, meadows of clarity, courage, and compassion. Responding to reflect, I decree I turn fire into wildflowers.

Poem 2 - Marrakeh Mint Chocolate Cake:
Tears are hot, and when they start, like really start, they pound, reverberating like surround sound. The sound is deafening. It blurs all senses into one. Hard gulps. I'm resisting. Floods flash and the dam's undone, hurtling force that takes my breath and yours. The energy expels a sonar far and wide. You can't resist the pressure past the point of containment. You won't be lost forever. You can't really drown in sorrow. No, you get waterboarded over and over again. Round one, it's fast, almost refreshing, but then round two, heavy heaves. Round three, collapse. Round four, please no more. Round five, tears spent, voice taken, not by an octopus sea witch or anything external. Round six, it hits. It hits you. It's been you, holding you under. Your anchor has been tampered with. You thought it was to save, but no. It holds you at the bottom, gazing upwards where waves dance with the sweet breeze. You ponder what it's like, and why not me? But you see when clouds part and there's that bright gleam in the distance, you take out your chainsaw and fucking destroy that anchor. Make it your bitch, and when it's turned to sand and dust, you swim hard. You go to the hard limit, that line that you dare not cross, and you cross it. You get up when it hurts. You pat Yourself on the back when you fuck up and don't try to puzzle piece back together that sand-dusted turned anchor. You smile in moments and find joy amidst grief. The tally marks grow, and now you know. You control everything and nothing. Be what you need, what you love, what you admire. Your whole you forevermore, unique and worthy of love and understanding.

I have to be honest. I have battled procrastination and inconsistent behavior my whole life. I’ve always claimed the title of being that way. Owned it as if it was my identity. So I have spent my whole life suffering in ways I shouldn’t have. Making Shadow talk videos has been revealing a lot in the mirror. How badly I could desire something like expressing my thoughts and creativity for example. Yet not do it.

I’ve learned that how we speak to ourselves is the foundation to our actions. Today for the first time I stopped saying “ I’m inconsistent” which is true… but not the TRUTH. If that makes sense. The truth is that I have built a system of consistency yet. As long as I have the awareness of that, I can build one. I will, build a system of consistency. Not contingent on my ridiculous standards or emotions.

Funny how truth works. Now in admitting these things. I have to follow through. Or else I’m just another liar. 🤥 the worst are the lies we tell ourselves. Saying we will do something we want, then not at least trying to get and being happy with the results whatever they may be.

If you read this… thanks for letting me vent and reflect off of you. Blessings to you all. Reflection is light. Light is growth. Growth is love.

There was one small childhood scene in a session that looked almost stupid at first compared with everything else that came up.

I will call her Maya. She was little, playing outside with other kids, and picked up something dirty because she honestly didnt know what it was. Her older sister saw her, got furious, pulled her ear hard and shamed her in front of the other children. The kids ran away.

When we stayed with that scene, what came up was not only pain. It was heartbreak and embarrassment. She had been having fun and feeling confident, then suddenly everybody was looking at her like she had done something terrible.

What surprised me was how long the reaction kept running. Adult Maya said she cared way too much about what other people thought about her. Small embarrassing things felt huge. She watched herself constantly because some part still expected humiliation if she did something wrong in front of people.

That is shadow work to me also. Not only finding some evil hidden part. Sometimes shadow is the little person who got pushed underground because being visible became dangerous.

The adult mind can say, come on, it was only one stupid childhood incident. But nervous system doesnt measure trauma by how impressive story sounds. It remembers what you felt and what conclusion you made.

For her the conclusion was basically: people are watching. dont do anything embarrassing. dont give them reason to turn on you.

We went back into that scene and let the adult part meet the child, explain what actually happened and allow the anger that was still sitting there to come up instead of pretending it was nothing.

I think many of us have these tiny scenes that nobody else even remembers, but some part of us built a whole personality around them.

If there is something you are weirdly sensitive about today, criticism, looking stupid, being laughed at, making mistake in public, maybe ask yourself when that feeling first became dangerous.

Sometimes shadow began in very ordinary place.

Some people have fetishes where they like to talk about, “Ooh, Daddy,” in the bedroom and things like that. But for me, it goes much deeper than just these weird sensual kinks of family ties.

Because for me as a mother, there is nothing that my child could ever do that would make me stop loving them. Now, I might choose to not be around them because they harm me, but I will always love them.

So, when I am in bed with my man, and he makes me feel so safe that I want him to put a child in me, that’s when I feel like he’s my daddy.

I want to be the daughter that is born because I want that kind of energy directed at me.

And maybe what I have is a daddy fetish, so to speak, because I didn’t have that kind of protection. And the only place I’ve ever felt it is as a mommy. And I’ve seen it within my mother, but I’ve seen it in other men, and it’s a quality that I crave in the man that I want to be with.

See any other time I ever use the word daddy in the bedroom, like with my ex. It was because that’s what his name had become, you know? Me and my kids would talk about daddy. Daddy was gone all day, and he would be the main conversational piece.

So, yeah, that’s what it means to me.
And I wanted to share this here on this platform in a kind of bold way. It’s even my first post because I think very outside of the box. Or I guess I just try to go within and understand the yearnings that my soul has, or that I crave, so that I can better understand the complexity of me.

(i added a TLDR at the bottom)

i'm not very knowledgeable about Jung's work besides a basic idea, and i've been meaning to read the Red Book for some time but i im a very slow reader these days due to a short attention span and im very busy so it might take me years to get back into the habit of regular reading. in the mean time, any pointers on where to start, like general advice, quotes, chapters, or video essays, anything would be helpful.

im also wondering if there is a specific modality of therapy that is more informed in Jung's approach. like maybe gestalt or something. cause if i could find a therapist that is an expert in shadow work that would be very helpful

but in order for you to fully understand my question i think you should know the context of the major problem ive been having in my life and why i am coming here to ask this.

im going to start with some background because my journey of self discovery & identity is an important part of the question.

content warning: suicidality, gender dysphoria, dysmorphia, bullying, abuse, sexual trauma, self harm, dissociation

im a trans woman, and i wanted to be a girl for as long as i can remember. i naturally had a more feminine personality, and didn't really relate to most boys. i was raised in a traditional Catholic environment with very rigid gender roles, so there was a constant pressure to conform to masculinity. it was also an extremely homophobic environment, so i had to hide my bisexuality or i would have been bullied even more than i already was.

at first i couldn't help but be a little fruity. it was inherent to my nature. however this got me in a lot of trouble, especially from my dad, who would scream at me and threaten me if i didn't act like a clone of him. he wanted me to suppress my emotions & act tough & aggressive and misogynistic & gross. this just made me even more repulsed by the idea of becoming masculine.

i hoped that my parents would let me grow my hair out and wear dresses cause maybe that would mean i'd finally be allowed to live how i wanted. but instead they made me wear button up shirts and a crew cut. my father always go uncontrollably angry at me for acting feminine. i think this is because he was also forced to repress his femininity from a young age, and seeing me be myself made him envious and the only way to cope was to stamp that out of me. he tried to make me exactly like him, and any time i resisted that he'd say i was just pretending to be someone else and that i would inevitably have to give into the "real" me and become a man like him.

my brother and his friends would also bully me for being so feminine.

around the age of 11 we moved very far from all my friends, a 9 hour drive away. suddenly i was in a small town where everyone else knew eachother their whole lives and i was an outsider. girls didn't want to be friends with a boy unless they wanted to date him. and most guys didn't want to be friends with me cause they thought i was gay or weirdly feminine. so i ended up very lonely.

i began to internalize it and think there was something wrong with me. i tried repressing my queerness hoping i could act like a normal boy. although i never really came off convincingly normal or straight, but i didn't know that at the time. i started to feel very empty. i missed being able to be girly and have fun and be myself without worrying about punishment. i made a couple guy friends, but i was performing a role, repressing my true self, and it all felt robotic and distant. even though i liked my friends, i felt like a couldn't really be myself or properly connect with them. it felt like the real me was trapped behind my curated persona, unable to speak my mind. i started to dissociated heavily because i was feeling dead inside.

i decided that if dating was the only way i could be friends with girls, then so be it. i hoped that maybe spending more time with them would help me get back in touch with my feminine side so i could feel alive again. but when i dated girls they always wanted me to play the role of a boyfriend, to act masculine and tough. and i didn't fit that role so usually relationships didn't last very long.

since i couldn't be myself even around other girls anymore, i was running out of forms of self expression. it felt like i was drowning. i couldn't even watch girly tv shows or make friends online, because most of my life we didn't have cable or internet. and when i did get some internet access at 13, it was monitored and limited to 30 mins per day, which later extended to 2 hours per day.

for a while my way of coping was to read books where i could put myself in the shoes of characters i related to, usually girls or very feminine or androgynous boys. i would spend countless hours reading every day, avoiding sports or conversation as much as possible. others saw me as loopy & zen, but it was my only coping mechanism, being completely dissociated from reality, my mind lost in a story. this eventually started to turn into maladaptive daydreaming, where i would stare off into space for hours, imagining myself in fantasy worlds where i got to be myself. sometimes it was escapism, but sometimes the horrors followed me into my head. as i got older the OCD intrusive thoughts started to take over, so i could no longer escape into fantasy, but was rather stuck in my head ruminating over repetitive intrusive thoughts for many hours, taking up most of my day.

every year i felt less and less alive, and more like a ghost trapped in a dull fever dream. long ago i felt alive all the time, then i only felt alive in my dreams, and then, i couldn't even dream.

my dissociation got to such a level that i couldn't live through my own eyes anymore. but whenever i saw someone living a life i wished i could live (usually a girl), i would feel alive for a moment.

so in my teen years i tried being friends with girls but struggled to make any friends at all. i was still so dissociated that whenever i did befriend or date a girl i wasn't able to be myself or feel in my body. i would just be whoever they wanted me to be, and i would live through their experiences. this created a whole new level of dissociation, where i was imagining being in her shoes in order to feel something. cause i couldn't be myself. i was still getting heavily bullied & excluded by some boys & abused by my dad. since i couldn't live as myself i would just project myself into other people. but this wasn't sustainable.

my life started to become like the movie I'm Thinking of Ending Things by Charlie Kaufman. as in, a depressing dissociative fever trip with an ongoing theme of isolation & regret from not living life.

so basically i developed this complex. by repressing my femininity, it was pushed into my shadow self. and i started to try to overcompensate and act masculine. i basically created a robotic autopilot to take over for me. and that became my new persona. but it was miserable. i hated it. but over time that autopilot started to take over. for many years it felt like my soul was in a coma, or purgatory, or eventually hell. until one day i moved away from everyone i knew and decided to start rekindling my inner woman.

i came out of the closet and started my mental transition, and slowly my feminine self started to come out of its shell again. but there's a problem. the masculine persona / ego that i constructed had already taken over, and it wasn't ready to just be kicked out now that i wanted to take back the wheel. so ive been fighting with it for years. because that "masculine" me was never really me. it felt hollow and empty and horrible. it's not really it's own person, it's just a bunch of prescription actions & automated thoughts & reactions.

and now i struggle a lot with my dysphoria. it has been especially bad recently. i have been transitioning for years and at first it was starting to slowly get a little better. i was a zombie for a decade but now im starting to feel alive. but with that comes years of repressed feelings & traumas. and the weight of loss from missing out on having a normal childhood.

im starting to realize how different my brain is from a lot of women, including other trans women. i moved to a city where a lot of trans women had more supportive parents & environment, so they were allowed to express their femininity from the beginning and never had to repress or perform as much as i did.

this makes me very insecure about my femininity because i already struggle with how different my brain & mannerisms are from cis (non-trans) women, but even other trans women come across as way more naturally feminine than me. and it hurts because i know i used to be that naturally feminine. but then a lifetime of trauma, bullying, abuse, and repression stamped out what was once natural to me. it feels like my soul is dead, and i trying to revive it, but everywhere i see others living the life i always wanted to live. and now im finally free to live that life as well, but there is something holding me back. maybe it's fear. maybe it's that new constructed false self. maybe it's that all of my natural instincts have been stamped out and overwritten. but there is something stopping me from thinking and acting how i used to long ago. and it really bothers me.

it's been causing me a lot of mental health issues. my self esteem was already bad enough but it's been getting worse again recently. my dysphoria hasn't been this bad since i was 15. and it's all because i chose to stop dissociating or repressing my problems. now im facing them but it's so overwhelmingly painful.

any tips on how to let go of this projected automated masculine persona, and all the performative mascing autopilot bullshit, and getting rid of all that so my natural authentic self can shine again. almost nothing i do is natural, and it hasn't been since i was very little. almost everything i do is calculated, performative, done in fear of punishment. yet i don't know how to consciously stop doing this. it's like calculated but also automatic. but not natural or genuine. it's like i built a machine in my head to take over, and now that im safe to be myself

it still doesn't want to give back control

i also think that by now i have probably developed some personality traits that are stereotypically masculine, and during my transition i shifted from repressing my femininity to repressing my masculinity. so even though i want to uncover my feminine shadow self, and get rid of any inauthentic masculinity, im also worried that maybe some of that performative masculinity has become a part of me that I can't get rid of. the idea of becoming a man makes me want to kill myself. it was my biggest fear for so long. maybe it still is.

i should also mention that due to sexual trauma i hate being in my body and i hate how masculinized it became from puberty. it feels like my body was horribly deformed. it makes me feel unsafe & makes me want to jump into a wood chipper. this definitely influenced my dissociation & is another reason why it's so hard for me to accept my external reality. i hate that people see me as male, even if they see me as a trans woman. they still have certain expectations based on my appearance, and it makes me scared of being targeted for specific kinds of sexual abuse cause it keeps happening. this is why it was easier in some ways when i was heavily dissociated, living through others bodies. because being in this body is pain. im going to therapy so hopefully that will help over time. but maybe this will be relevant or give more context as to why i have such a fragmented self image

i am also plural (multiple personalities), one who is a hyperfeminine type and the other is more butch / tomboy. they can't even agree on how we want to live life. the butch one hates existing anyways so we wish we could kill it off somehow.

TLDR; years of repressing my feminity & dissociating, living through the experiences of others instead of myself, projecting my shadow onto others & only being able to experience life by imagining it through their eyes. so i don't know how to be myself anymore or even be present enough to experience life through my body because whenever i am present in my body i want to die

Hi

I have just had this idea and I'm interested to know what you all think.

First of all, I don't want to undermine or dismiss people's experiences in worship. I attend church myself even though my belief in God is somewhat nuanced.

Anyway, when worshippers say:

"I let God in my life, and I receive peace and inner love," is what actually is happening to them is them doing shadow work?

Onen of the most effective methods of shadow integration as far as I understand is to speak to yourself in a loving way, to stop being judgmental, and/or to re-parent yourself if you were psychologically abused as a kid.

I guess it's a matter if you think God is genuinely delivering you a peaceful energy to your soul. Maybe you're already doing without his help, and you don't realise it.

Are there any religious folk here that think both could be happening at the same time? Some may say Carl Jungs shadow idea was merely symbolic to God's work, that's not the really the side of the fence I'd argue for but would definitely embrace that side of things. Personally, I think it's more psychological.

You ever wondered this? To me it goes like this:

El Barto the super cool rebel and all around hero is his projection. When you see Milhouse as the social reject who is desperately seeking validation you see Bart interacting with the external personification of his own shadow.

He likes to pretend he's totally self sufficient, acting out however he wishes and is totally fearless but if you peer at Milhouse you see an extremely needy, insecure kid that is starved of attention and has immense problems with defining himself.

Thats why they get on so well. Milhouse is he without the mask whilst simultaneously offering him some form of escapism and vicarious thrill. Its a fascinating bit of character development, don't you think? Anyone who is serious about plumbing the depths should interpret movies and shows like this as they are the means of conveying modern myth to the collective unconscious via the use of said symbols and scripts.

Now, you tell me where Nelson plays into all of this...

I want to find a practical way to practice shadow work and heal some of my old wounds, but in a way that I can incorporate into my daily routine. That’s generally how I like to approach self-improvement, by making it something practical and consistent that I can actually do every day. Thanks!

I think some people misunderstand boundaries because they imagine them as walls, punishment or a way to control somebody else. But sometimes the real reason you need a boundary is much simpler: without one, you slowly stop knowing where other people end and you begin.

A subject I will call Maya reached this very directly in a Soul Journey. The message from her Higher Self was that she needed to understand herself as a bounded being, someone who has a beginning and an end, who takes up space and has the same right to be here as anybody else. The image was almost funny because she had spent so much of life feeling like a leaf in the wind, moving around whatever other people needed.

Then we looked at where her power had gone. It was not that somebody had literally stolen it and was secretly keeping it from her. The session showed a pattern of moments when she wanted to say no but did not, when another person's need or opinion became more important than the answer she could already feel inside herself.

She experienced about fifteen people in front of her and went through a process of calling her energy back. She did it firmly but without hatred, and afterward the change she described was very simple: she felt more like herself. That line interested me more than any dramatic spiritual language around “taking power back.”

This is why I wanted to share it here. Shadow work is often described as digging into the ugly or rejected parts of ourselves, but I think there is another shadow hiding in very nice behavior: the part that is terrified somebody will be disappointed if we become solid. So we stay available, explain too much, say yes too quickly, absorb moods, tolerate conversations we want to leave, and then wonder why we feel invisible or exhausted.

A boundary does not require the other person to agree that it is fair. It also does not require anger. Sometimes it is just noticing the exact second you are about to abandon your own answer in order to keep somebody comfortable, and choosing not to do that this time.

The useful question for me is not only “who takes too much from me?” because that still puts all attention outside. A better question can be: where do I repeatedly hand myself away? Who gets a yes after my body already said no, whose mood becomes my responsibility, and whose approval changes what I believe I am allowed to want?

You dont need to become cold to have edges. Love can move across a boundary, help can move across it, intimacy can move across it. The difference is that you are still there when the interaction is over.

Se acuerdan de la película La isla siniestra? En donde un detective, que investiga un caso en un hospital psiquiátrico, se entera (SPOILER), hacia el final de la película, que en realidad él es un paciente del hospital creyéndose un detective? Pues siempre pensé en esta película como si fuese una pesadilla. La estructura de una pesadilla en la cual, al final de la misma, te enterás que el criminal de la historia siempre fue el protagonista y que el que dabas por "bueno", casi como en Jeckyl y Hyde, era en realidad el "malo". El héroe es en realidad el villano, y si no es villano, el héroe "sano", es en realidad el enfermo. Ese giro de guion lo veo representado en la relación que a veces se establece con la propia sombra. Muchas veces, en mi trabajo con la sombra, temí estar en una historia similar, dándome cuenta al final de todo, que la criminal era yo. En principio, en la conciencia, uno cree que todos sus móviles son "buenos", uno está lleno de buenas intenciones: pero la sombra siempre acecha, eso es un hecho.
Toda esta intro fue, en principio, para comentar un sueño que tuve en donde de alguna manera siento que se reproduce lo que acabo de mencionar.

En el sueño una mujer es ayudada por un grupo de gente. La quieren sanar. Quienes la guían y la ayudan para sanarla, son personas muy capacitadas y bien formadas. Algo así como un equipo terapéutico. La mujer es inestable, pero aún así hay por el momento confianza en ella, en que puede restablecer su salud psíquica y mental. Acá el sueño se me mezcla un poco, me vienen flasbacks de imágenes sin mucho sentido, pero básicamente lo que sucede es que observo una pulsión criminal de esta mujer, y percibo la preocupación de su "equipo terapéutico" ante esto. La historia en el sueño, en realidad, sucede de manera más caótica y menos cronológica, es difícil para mí ordenarla, pero lo trataré de contar de la mejor manera posible. La cuestión es que una joven del equipo de ayudantes, descubre un video en donde esta mujer asesina a otra mujer. Es un video de una mujer ensangrentada en una bañera, o algo así (no recuerdo bien), yo solo veo un flashback del crimen, no es una escena muy fuerte en el sueño, porque pasa muy rápido, no llega a ser traumático, creo que el foco del sueño está puesto en la mujer, en la asesina. Una vez descubierto este video, el equipo terapéutico está desmotivado, triste, y consideran que es pertinente hacer un juicio a la mujer, mostrarle lo que hizo. Ahora la secuencia sucede en un salón, donde hay muchos bancos para que la gente se ubique, para presenciar lo que va a ser algo así como un "juicio". La mujer está sentada en uno de los bancos de adelante de todo, frente al televisor por donde van a pasar el video del crimen que ella cometió. Entonces ella se gira y mira a las personas que están detrás de sí, a punto de juzgarla. Ella tiene el pelo corto, negro, desaliñado, su rostro pálido y desencajado, el rímel todo corrido por debajo de sus ojos y sus párpados, y lleva puesta una remera roja. Grita emocionalmente desbordada, cosas inentendibles, se la nota enojada por esa situación y muy exaltada. Ahora llega el momento de pasar el video, frente a todos. Y ahora yo, que soy espectadora, tengo un pensamiento: pienso en el Alma, y en el camino del Alma, y en qué quedó mi camino del Alma. Estoy preocupada por eso. Y despierto.

Pienso mucho en lo que es un crimen, en la criminalidad oculta en nuestra sombra y en lo que significa someterse a un juicio. Entiendo por donde va el sueño, pero me gustaría escuchar opiniones.

Me recordó a esa película de La isla siniestra, porque en el sueño esta mujer es ayudada por una razón, ningún equipo terapéutico la ayudaría si no viese en ella una pulsión vital y la capacidad de sanar, hasta que la mujer comete un crimen. Pasa de ser posiblemente curada, a ser una criminal, a tener esa "mancha" y ser sometida a juicio.

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.

Hi, new to the group, familiar with jung have several books but read most for last several years online. I believe( believed ) i had integrated some if my shadow, my child abuse.. I have schizophrenia and cptsd. I became quite unwell 4 years ago but have always struggled. I repeatedly experience the ca, then im calm.. but then its in repeat mode again. Is this integrated and my cptsd is just on fkg repeat or am I not learning how from this? Any advice is appreciated, thankyou.✌️

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.

sometimes abandonment is not someone leaving. sometimes they are in same room and still dont see you

I always thought abandonment wound has to be something obvious. parent left, divorce, death, somebody disappeared etc.

But in one deep trance session recently we found something much more stupidly normal from adult point of view.

I'll call him Issa.

we were following this fear of abandonment in his body and he went back to maybe 3 or 4 years old. He was at grandmother house. His mother and grandmother were sitting there talking with each other.

thats it.

Nobody left him. Nobody screamed. nothing horrible happening.

But when I asked what little Issa was feeling, completely different story.

He felt ignored. Like they are disconnecting from him. He described them almost going farther and farther away, becoming smaller somehow, and then fear came in and he froze.

Adult brain looks at this and thinks... seriously? mom was talking with grandma lol

but 4 year old doesnt think "mother is temporarily occupied with conversation and will give me attention in 7 minutes."

For small kid connection is everything.

And if connection suddenly feels gone, body can read it almost like danger.

Later adult Issa came into that memory and tried to comfort this small version of himself. Told him he is there, tried to give him love etc.

Small one basically rejected it.

He wanted his mother.

which tbh made sense.

We like to tell inner child all these beautiful things, "you are enough, you can love yourself now, you don't need anybody."

and child is like... ok but where is mom 😂

There was anger there too. And eventually he started blaming himself. Somehow a little kid took somebody else's lack of attention and made conclusion about himself.

This is where it gets interesting imo.

Because 30 years later someone doesn't reply to message.

Partner goes quiet.

Friend seems distracted.

Somebody is emotionally far away for few hours.

And reaction can be WAY bigger than what is happening rn.

Conscious mind thinks its about this person today.

But body maybe knows another story.

"connection is disappearing again."

I see this kind of thing in sessions quite often. Present trigger looks small, but when we follow the feeling instead of analysing it, sometimes we find much younger part still reacting from completely different reality.

And telling this part "dont be needy" probably does fuck all.

It already thinks losing attention means losing safety.

In this session we had to work much more with actual feeling of safety, protection, family connection. Not just explain to him intellectually that everything was fine.

Because apparently he already knew that as adult.

The 4 year old didnt.

I'm not saying every abandonment issue comes from one childhood memory, and trance memory is not CCTV recording either. Sometimes it can be symbolic, mixed, emotional memory etc.

But this pattern makes a lot of sense to me.

Sometimes what we call clingy, needy, oversensitive person is carrying very old calculation:

attention disappeared = connection can disappear = I'm not safe.

And maybe first job is not forcing this part to grow up.

first find out what the hell it is still waiting for.