You need to figure out what your shadow self is because this can help you to better your life. Your shadow self is part of you that is the dark parts of who you are. This is the part of you that you have chosen to ignore and to hide from yourself and others.
You repressed theses things and hid them from your own thoughts and knowledge, but they are still inside of you. They cause you to act in a certain way or to think a certain way even if you don’t realize it.
What is Shadow Work?
Shadow work is when you become aware of who your shadow is, and you learn to face these parts of yourself. This helps you to become your true self and to become whole. This helps you to be self-aware and to accept yourself for who you are.
How to Find Your Shadow Self
Here are some ways that you can find your shadow self:
Projection
This is when you look at things in yourself by looking at how someone else acts or what someone else does. Projection is easier than assimilation and these are qualities that are on the outside of you.
When you look at these qualities, you will see that these can cause you to feel negative and they can make you angry. Sometimes people are very defensive because of their own shadows. Negative projection is what happens when there is racism and other problems.
Caring for others and admiring people is a positive projection because it helps you to admire others and to see that you aren’t worthless. You have to look at your projections and find out what your shadow self is.
Laughter and Humor
Laughter comes from the shadow self because it is part of paying attention to the things that cause you to laugh uncontrollably. This is a sign that you have a shadow self. When you don’t have a good sense of humor, you might hide your shadow.
Neuroticism
This happens when you have a mental illness, and it leads to things like substance abuse. The unconscious mind will create a person to have to do inner work. This can lead to stress and anxiety and cause you not to be who you are. This makes you play a role instead of being your real self.
People that are neurotic will blame others for how they behave and will never be responsible for what they do.
Masochism and Sadism
Masochism is when you love mix pleasure with pain and humiliation. Sadism is when you have destruction and power.
You need to notice if you find joy in hurting other people or hurting yourself. When you damage and you feel that this is normal, you will see that your shadow self-reacts to these things.
Body Language
The way that your body moves can tell you what your mind is saying. You might feel timid, and you might accidentally come across as prideful. You might smile to hide yourself from being sad.
Dreaming
Dreaming can happen when you are working on your shadow self. This can help you to know if you need to work on something that is more hidden.
Relationships
When you need to work on your shadow self, you probably don’t have healthy relationships. Your unconscious mind will put you in a situation where you keep getting into the same kinds of relationship patterns.
These can be troubled or bad relationships and you have to be aware of this and become mature to fix these issues.
Final Thoughts
Another sign of your shadow self is that you are immature. You might have strong emotions and have a hard time setting boundaries. This can mean that you are overly needy, that you are taking care of others all the time, but you are always feeling like you have been betrayed and abandoned.
These are things that you can use to blame others for how you are feeling and what you are going through. This is a common situation when people are hiding their shadow self.
The best thing that you can do is to face your shadow self and work towards finding out how to better yourself.
