Description

Those scary, embarrassed, scared and painful parts of yourself that you’re trying so hard to suppress, rationalise, talk yourself out of, push down or “correct” – those parts are your shadow.

Shadow represents any part of us that we’ve been shamed out of, deemed unworthy or rejected. These parts of us carry huge amounts of energy that we will either act in or project out onto others.

We all think that our shadow is the worst, that other peoples’ shadows don’t even compare to what we’re trying to suppress, we develop the belief that we’re the only weirdos and we’re broken. Damaged goods.

We can’t run away or hide from our shadow. Repetition compulsion says, what we don’t heal we will either reenact on others or find people reenact on us. Such experiences create unknown knowns and cognitive dissonance. Freud observed that patients did not remember anything that they had repressed, instead they acted it out.

If we don’t become conscious of and reintegrate our shadow we will project it onto others or find new people to reenact past traumas on us.

To be able to fully accept ourselves we need to accept our shadow, integrate our shame bound feelings, needs and wants. Growing up in dysfunctional families can cause splitting and make us feel ashamed when:

• We need help
• Feel angry
• Assertive
• Sad
• Fearful,
• Sexual
• Happy
• Embarrassed
• Weak

The list is endless. We become cut off from vital parts of ourselves and these disowned parts become sub personalities, we can identify them through our projections. We need to accept these parts to become whole, no one is broken.

At some point in our childhood, something related to these rejected or projected traits severed the connection with the primary object (parent). It could be punishment, rejection, withdrawal of love, shaming, etc. Being disconnected from our parents is dangerous for a child so in order to remain connected (to receive love, milk, food, warmth, protection) children disconnect from the “dangerous traits”. To stop the inner child experiencing the feelings of fear and abandonment we will try to suppress these feelings through emotional eating or substances, many often project these traits onto others even their own kids.

Mark Stubbles, a hypnotherapist, CBT practitioner, life coach, Master NLP & Mindfulness practitioner who specialises in helping anxiety and inner child healing will discuss the shadow, splitting and projection in detail. After growing up in a dysfunctional family Mark struggled with CPTSD, anxiety, dissociation, emotional flashbacks and emotional regulation. He will take attendees through exercises to reintegrate these projected parts of themselves and hold a hypnosis session to end.

This workshop is for you if you:

• Suffer with uneasy feelings
• Suffer with negative self talk.
• Suffer with poor self esteem.
• Suffer with a poor self image.
• You would like to be a better parent.
• Your partner has accused you of being abusive.
• You suffer with anxiety.
• You use sex, drugs or food to numb your emotions.
• You have anger issues.
• You try to avoid your feelings.
• You have no confidence.
• You feel ashamed of your sexuality.
• You struggle to form relationships.
• You feel inadequate/inferior.
• You worry how other people perceive you.