GUEST COLUMN: MICK QUINN AND DEBORA PRIETO, 2nd of 2 parts — But, before we get to the cure, let’s look at eight ways to tell if you have a shadow.

1.  Do you sometimes despise certain situations or people?

2.  Is there one person in your life who seems to bring up swells of emotion in you?

3.  Do insurmountable differences sometimes appear in your personal relationships?

4.  Do you seem to rush to immediate conclusions about people and situations?

5.  Do you get annoyed or even angry, sometimes over the slightest provocation?

6.  Are other people seemingly intolerant of your beliefs and convictions?

7.  Do you ever experience aching feelings of envy or jealousy?

8.  Do you deeply admire someone who seems to have great passion, purpose and direction?

The shadow is a part of us that harbors all the things we don’t like about ourselves. It also contains all the parts of ourselves we admire, but keep hidden away from the world, which also means we are disowning the responsibility for those potentials as well.

As we have seen, we normally try to rid ourselves of shadow. We project these deeply felt emotional reactions arising in us.

We will try to cast these feelings onto other people or situations in an attempt to be rid of them.

For example: You may perceive your spouse to be bitter and insensitive. But, what you might be seeing is a reflection of the shadow in you. Because you don’t like that about yourself, you have denied it and buried it in your shadow.

And then, trying to get rid of your shadow, you will project it onto the world and other people. So, they seem to become bitter and insensitive and not you.

Finding the shadow is easy

Evolutionary pointer: Ninety percent of all emotional responses - whether positive or negative - to another person or life situation, reflect the presence of the shadow in you.*

As for the remaining ten percent, our emotional responses are evidence that we are witnessing events that are expressing the verity of those situations. It is fine to despise certain qualities of others, but only if we are absolutely certain they are not a mirror image of our own shadow.

A simple rule of thumb to tell the difference between the ninety percent and the ten percent is: If you find that you are obsessed with positive or negative qualities in another person or situation, it is likely a snapshot of denied or repressed aspects of you – it is a snapshot of your own shadow.

Once spotted, the process of reintegrating the shadow and making the ‘I’ whole is fantastically uncomplicated, so much so that you may doubt its effectiveness. Laying claim to the symptoms of the shadow is the first key to their dissolution.

Here is what to do

Evolutionary pointer: Acknowledge the particular emotional response and then say to yourself:  “This (emotion/feeling/thought) is mine.”

That’s it!

The reason that this is straightforward is because the Freudian ‘I’ is a self-righting entity. To supply it with the correct information, such as with the statements: “This angst is mine,” or “This anger is mine,” allows the ‘I’ to harmonize and thereby begin to function normally. In essence, you stop lying to yourself!

It is by our private statement of acknowledgment and ownership that we, along with the world around us, are freed from the painful symptoms of shadow.

Therefore, the frustration we experience on a daily basis turns out not to be life giving us a hard time, but a reflection of our disowned aggression toward life - “This frustration is mine,” or the self-confidence we so admire in our business partner is a reflection of the potential that we deny in ourselves - “This potential is mine.”

Emotional brilliance begins by talking to ourselves. With diligence, we can end the undesirable rollercoaster ride of insensitive or unconscious responses and liberate the power and grace of our full potential.

Three practical steps to follow

1. Pay close attention when ‘this’, ‘that’, ‘it’ or ‘they’ stimulate emotions in you.

2. Identify the emotion or mix of emotions you are experiencing.

3. Acknowledge and own these sensations by saying: “This (emotion/feeling/thought) is mine.”

Read part one of this series: A personality test for your hidden self.

Mick Quinn is the Irish-born author of The Uncommon Path, and was the 2009 Winning Finalist - National Best Books Award – Spirituality.  Mick, along with this wife, Debora Prieto  provide individual mentoring and coaching based on the book, using Genpo Roshi’s Big Mind Process. Please visit Mickquinn.com for more information.

Read Mick’s previous Soul’s Code articles: Twirling towards freedom: The theory of spiral dynamics and Spiral dynamics:The two tiers of consciousness explained.

*Based on the work of Ken Wilber.

GUEST COLUMN: MICK QUINN AND DEBORA PRIETO, 1st of 2 parts — Picture the ecosystem of relationships that hold you in this time and place, from lovers to office politics and friends and family. Ask yourself six  questions:

1. Are the ways in which other people act emotionally disturbing to you?

2.Do you sometimes feel that other people don’t seem to care enough?

3. Do you question the insensitive ways of others?

4. Do you feel intimidated by someone else’s power, self-confidence, wisdom or success?

5. Are you of the opinion that another person’s achievements are not well deserved?

A reason you may feel triggered by that survey:

when other people, external events, and even your own thoughts, bring about deep emotional responses in you, you are most likely being shown the hidden aspects of yourself?

So when ‘this’ or ‘that’ frustrates you, when ‘they’ rub you the wrong way, or when ‘it’ seems to settle over you, you are being shown a window into yourself.

Others show you your own shadow

When there is shadow, the Freudian Ego is un-whole. Wholeness of the ego, therefore, creates the first condition for discovering our full potential.

But, before we get to the wholeness part, let’s talk about ego. This is the self-organizing principle of the psyche, also known as the Freudian ‘I’. Its primary role in each of us is the processing and organization of information, memory and defense.

Remember the old adage: ‘It takes one to know one’? It speaks of shadow. If you’ve always wondered what to do with that knowledge, and how to use it to heal your shadow, you need only to acknowledge and then take ownership of these previously hidden aspects of yourself.

This healing process is called re-integration; you are re-integrating previously disowned parts of yourself to yourself so that they no longer drive you crazy!

Making the unconscious conscious is simply a matter of talking to yourself. In this way you can fully resolve your shadow and become emotionally brilliant.

For those on a conscious path of development, the identification and healing of shadow is critical. Why?  The power of ‘now’ is only available when all of you is in the now!

April’s Story

April was newly married, she had a stable job, and lived close to her parents and her only sister. As with most of her friends at that time, April was a light drinker and occasionally smoked marijuana. She also suffered from stress, and a debilitating depression would sometimes wash over her.

When this occurred, April was often curt with her friends, becoming openly frustrated, sometimes with the simplest of things. To ease the pain, April liked to eat. As a result, she gained quite a bit of weight.

In time, tired of being overweight and apprehensive, April went to see an acupuncturist. The series of treatments were not without physical discomfort, but April endured them and she lost lots of weight.

Though the emotional and psychological symptoms eased for a time, they did not disappear entirely. With her eating habits now changed, the weight stayed off but April, still a light drinker, found herself being drawn to using more drugs to the point where she was selling cocaine to support her habit.

After an acquaintance committed suicide, April quickly dropped this addiction. But, then she began to drink, moderately at first, and then quite heavily. Whenever she had some free time she would go to her favorite bar alone where she would ponder the darkness that seemed to have permanently descended upon her. Sometimes she would get drunk at home all by herself.

The pain she was feeling was real, but its source eluded her thinking. The only way April knew how to ‘fill the hole’ was by drinking. Her marriage was getting worse, since her husband was addicted to cocaine, and her work was suffering because of her poor attitude and consistent tardiness.

If unintegrated, shadow rules

As we can see from this example, shadow causes us to act on unconscious motives, even if you think that you are consciously choosing how to act. A reaction you have to an object in your awareness, whether that object be a thought, feeling, another person or a life situation, will always be based on a motive that you are simply not aware of.

You will, however be convinced that you know the real reason why you are acting. You will think you know why you are responding in a particular way, but that’s not true. You don’t know it is shadow, therefore, you keep reacting in ways that support those painful situations.

Because of shadow, you respond unconsciously in ways that support unnecessary suffering and therefore create more of the same. Your shadow is exhausting you, making a total mess of your life’s purpose and your relationships without you knowing what’s happening. Internally you may even be screaming to yourself, “Why am I doing this?” or “Why can’t I stop?” And you won’t be able to stop until you figure out that shadow is propelling you. Your shadow not only has control over your present, but is also creating your future.

April did not notice the cycle of unconscious reactions she was in, and responded to the presence of her shadow with some form of ‘medication’ in a doomed attempt to ease her pain. Healing one symptom did not diminish her shadow. April went from over-eating, to drugs, to alcohol, from one medication after the next.

As you can see from this example, trying to get rid of negative inclinations does not work. It is a fine intention, but it is simply insufficient to heal your shadow. Even people who meditate get stuck in similar cycles since that practice does not reach, let alone heal, their shadows.

Read part two of this series: Me and my shadow.

Mick Quinn is the Irish-born author of The Uncommon Path, and was the 2009 Winning Finalist - National Best Books Award – Spirituality.  Mick, along with this wife, Debora Prieto  provide individual mentoring and coaching based on the book, using Genpo Roshi’s Big Mind Process. Please visit Mickquinn.com for more information.

Read Mick’s previous Soul’s Code articles: Twirling towards freedom: The theory of spiral dynamics and Spiral dynamics:The two tiers of consciousness explained.

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GUEST COLUMN: PHYLLIS KING — We are always eager to get on with it — to leave the past behind and to feel the “good” stuff. I understand this so well. I too have lived this pattern. This idea may be even more pronounced when we have had experiences that have drained our life-force energy.

We can’t imagine waiting even one more minute to feel better. We may say, “Haven’t I paid my dues yet?” and “Does this abundant thinking crap really work?”

I have witnessed, in my clients’ lives and my own life, how our dedication to higher consciousness can also be a mask for our pain. We believe we are living with right thinking and perspective when we are happy and when things are going well. We forget that the natural course of expansion includes contraction.

Expansion is a process

When we begin to expand, we start to allow all parts of our self to emerge. Situations begin to arise that shine a light on that which is not yet healed or evolved. If we judge our experiences as good and bad, we will question rather than trust the process. Or, better said, our ego mind will do its best to re-take control of our thought patterns.

How do we recognize when this has happened? We begin to feel powerless. We return to worry, or we get mad. Then we give up. We go unconscious. We point fingers away from the reason we don’t feel good anymore. It’s not our unhealed wounds, it’s something else. Something that’s going on in our outer life.

Bring attention, with love, to the process

We want to ignore our wounds when they show themselves. They’re not pretty. They are no fun. They are not higher consciousness. We can’t waste time dwelling on the past. We lived it, why do we have to look back at it? The reason we need to look at it is because without giving attention to past injuries and recognizing the effect they have on our lives, we single-handedly empower the past, or limited patterns, to remain a driving force in our lives.

The process of enlightenment requires that we accept and love all parts of our experiences and recognize the value they offer. All of this is so we may move toward embracing the whole of self. That means moving away from judgment about good or bad experiences. It means we have to move away from the mindset that says feeling good, and being happy are the only experiences worth having.

All experiences have value. I certainly prefer happy to sad, that is a human reality. The spiritual reality is that all experiences are equal in value. There is no good, or bad.

Expansion means embracing the whole

The process of expansion is more than just getting stuff. It’s more than having our relationships work out. It’s more than connecting with your life purpose. It’s about embracing the wholeness of who we are. It’s about allowing the awareness of wholeness into our consciousness. Ego tells us we are not whole. We are deficient. That is the opposite of who we are. We experience limitations in the physical body because it is the best way to learn where limitations exist in our consciousness.

If we are not healed, our contributions, our interactions, and even our outcomes are filtered through our wounds. Those wounds will continue to be presented to us until we resolve them. This is an act of higher consciousness meeting our needs at the deepest levels. This is the road to enlightenment.

Our “teachers” know how to push our buttons

How do we recognize our wounds? Most often we recognize them through our teachers.

Who are our teachers? Our spouses who infuriate us, or don’t meet our needs. Our boss or co-worker who demeans or controls us in various ways. Our children who do the opposite of what we would like them to do. Our friends who disappoint us. These people and situations represent the vehicle for your learning. . .your teachers.

When you find yourself feeling angry, worried, or certain you would be just fine “if only” someone or something outside of yourself would shift — that is your teacher. That is what you need to look at it inside of yourself. If we did not have a wound, we would not be reacting to the external stimulus.

Nothing outside of us will ever cause us to feel complete, or incomplete. Unless we consent, or are motivated by our wounds, nothing outside of you can shake your center. If your center is unstable, you will react from a place that says “it’s your fault” and “if only. . .”

Follow these seven suggestions to heal your wounds

1. When faced with inner conflict, start by finding your neutrality. Remember all experiences are equal in higher consciousness. Source is meeting your needs, based upon your contributions to energy. You have told Source energetically you want to heal something, and an opportunity has presented itself to you.

2. Love yourself for your vulnerability and humanness. Take time to acknowledge your injury and to source its origins. Don’t rush to move away from the uncomfortable feelings. Allow your insight about this wound to rise to your awareness. Give yourself space to feel.

3. Reach for gratitude. Find your humility, and be appreciative for the awareness that you bring into your space. Give thanks for this opportunity. Feed the powerlessness with love and acceptance, either through ritual or some other means of self support.

4. Be kind to yourself. Don’t judge yourself for being wounded. This is a process, not a race. Many of us have layers to uncover to heal the wounds in our space. We can only do as much as we can do. That is enough. There is no timeline you need to meet for anything in your life. Source will always deliver what you need to you.

5. Do not make the mistake of forgetting where your life comes from, the origin of your wealth. The origin of your health. The origin of all the love in your life. Regardless of the vehicle, i.e. job, spouse, family, your needs are being met through your relationship with Source. It is your relationship with Source that determines your abundance.

6. Acknowledge the one-ness of consciousness. There is no us, no them, only the one. Allow the feeling of connection to life to bathe over you. You are one wave in the ocean of life. We are all connected. Everything we do affects everything else. See the God consciousness in you. Recognize that as you heal yourself, you heal the whole. You are mighty and powerful just for being you.

7. Take time to take care of yourself mentally, emotionally, spiritually and physically. This is how you stay connected. It is how you cope with the awareness of your wounds when you see them. It is one big piece in how you gain awareness of your innate wholeness. Finally, ask for insight on how to stay connected to Source. Guess what — you will receive it.

Phyllis King is a psychic, author and spiritual teacher.  Her previous articles for Soul’s Code include: A 2010 detox for your psyche and Can inconvenience be a motivator?

Listen to Phyllis on L.A’s KTLK-AM 1150 every Sunday from 12:00 pm. - 1:00 pm. PST.