Notes on Debbie Ford’s, The Shadow Effect.

This is a very powerful movie.  I recommended it to everyone, especially those interested in transforming their lives.
What are you hiding?
When will you face the truth?
What will be possible when you do?
What do you want others to see about you.  You hide that part of yourself that you do not want others to see.
We repress our “shadow.”
Life has to be in alignment with the Shadow.
The Shadow is created early.
We created shame, that something is wrong with us.
We pretend to not be that which we hate.
We create a mask that attempts to show that we are ok.
We sabotage ourselves.
There is an inner life below the mask.
We feel we can not express our dark side.
Either you are going to use it or it will use you.
Every quality we see in another exists inside us.
We project the shadow onto other.  We do not own them ourselves.
What we can not be with will not let us be.
What we judge in others is merely a disowned part of ourselves.
When you react to a projection you become that projection.
Be with what you resist.
Health and emotions are connected.
Stress is a major factor.
Think and thought are the toxins that hurt us.
Thoughts and emotions affect our bodies.
What am I getting from staying stuck in my life.  What am I avoiding by being stuck?
Create that you are still in charge.
To be authentic is to express the hidden part of yourself.
Face the darkness to find the light.
It is our light and greatness that truly frightens us.
Our treasure is hidden under the shadow.
Forgiveness is the answer to releasing the shadow.
Most people do not want to consider that they even have a shadow.
Shame can devistate our sense of self.

The conversation of being inauthentic and recovery.

One of the goals of counseling is to help a person become authentic.  One of the goals is to help others see where they are being inauthentic in their lives, in one or more domains of their life.  The work of becoming authentic helps a person to get unblocked thereby allowing them to move forward with the things that they want to create.  Being authentic requires a person to give up the pretense of life and to let that which has been hidden to be revealed to others and in some cases, to the world.

For a person in recovery the process will be the same.  Many individuals in recovery live inside a way of being that uses pretending as one of the defense mechanisms.  Putting forth the image or perspective that things and themselves are a certain way, and hiding what is true from others, is how a person in active addiction moves through life.  Create pretense and repress the truth.  The counselor’s role here is to help a person shave that which has been hidden and to take full ownership of it.  It is only from this admission that the possibility for change and transformation can take place.

Itunes Store and the Relaxation Music of Enhanced Healing

Staying present to and expressing my truth.

Staying present to and committed to expressing my truth is important.  I need to say what I believe and not hold it back, or create reasons to not say what I need to say to others.  We have a tendency to hold back, to not say what we want to say to others, creating the excuse that we do not want to hurt the other person’s feelings.  What happens is that we hold our truth back and are not honest with the other person and inauthentic with ourselves.  We end up not being fully self expressed with the other person and the relationship suffers.  While we say that we do not want to hurt the other person’s feelings it is really we do not want the other person to leave us.  If I say what I want and need to say the person may not like what I have to say and will leave me.  That is the fear.  That is truly why I do not share my truth with the other person.  In the end the relationship may not survive if I am honest but then again maybe it was not meant to be.  Holding onto something that maybe should not have been, because of my fear, my fear of being alone, is truly inauthentic and in the end, will not continue regardless of what we hold back.

Itunes Store and the Relaxation Music of Enhanced Healing