We are both light and dark. It is natural for us to want to dwell in the light. It feels comfortable and pleasurable. Expansion through the light is effortless and easy because we want to be there. But if we only want to stay in the light, we can never really truly know who we are because that is only half the picture. The problem has been that we have been taught to label our dark side as evil. This could not be further from the truth. It is only our dark side because it is that which we cannot see about ourselves. We are simply blind to it and that’s it. Whether it comes from a place of lack of awareness or flat-out denial, it is this other side of ourselves which we cannot see that holds the keys to a large part of our expansion and growth as human beings. As you incorporate the unknown aspects of self into your conscious awareness you begin to hold a greater capacity for love and compassion for yourself and those who are suffering. This is part of the mechanism behind your conscious expansion. Let’s take a look at the mechanism of how to transform the darkness within into the light with respect to adult relationships.
The first step in transmuting this shadow part of yourself is to first acknowledge that it is there. You can never transform this aspect of yourself into higher energies if you refuse to even see it. That means it is imperative that you stay humble through this entire process. It is very humbling to admit that you feel unloved, shameful, guilty, not worthy, like an outsider, that you deserve to be treated poorly and so on. There’s a full spectrum of emotions that are very uncomfortable to feel and therefore very easy to stuff down back into the unconscious. You must put your ego to the side and be willing to acknowledge and recognize these unwanted parts of yourself. So how do you do that? How do you start to recognize when you are acting from the shadow aspect of yourself? There are three tools that you can use to help bring the light of awareness to these parts of you.
- The first tool that you can use here is your own judgments. Judgments about yourself or other people are a very easy key to open the door to your unconscious mind. All judgments come from a place of fear and negativity. The process goes much easier if you can accept this right off the bat. When you find yourself in criticism of self or others, pause, take a step back and start to question why you are doing this and where it is coming from. Many of the ideas that we all have in our heads have been implanted from society, parents, school, religions and corporate institutions. These imprinted ideas all become a part of our unconscious programming and help form our sense of self at a young age. This is where a lot of our unconscious judgments come from. When we encounter a situation that does not meet the idea of how we have told things should be, we automatically build up resistance on an unconscious level and start to judge and criticize. This is done to protect the identity we have adopted from society about ourselves. If you can recognize where in your environment the unconscious imprint has come from, you can then empower yourself to choose not to be like that anymore. On a deeper level, whenever you judge someone else in a negative fashion that is just a projection of how you truly think about yourself inside. This is a very potent concept to grasp and requires a very deep level of humility to be able to accept. If you can accept that judgment of others is also the judgment of self then you have opened a window into a very deep aspect of the unconscious that needs to be integrated into the whole. The way to diffuse the judgement is to come up with a way of perceiving the situation that is in direct opposition to the judgement, and word it in a way that your mind will accept. Every time you repeat this it diffuses the negative thought until it no longer becomes your autopilot response to the situation.
- The second tool you can use to recognize the shadow aspect of self is to observe where there is disharmony in your life. The effect of fear is to create separated and fractured aspects of the mind that work in opposition to each other. This will then eventually manifest in a more disharmonious experience of life. Love brings wholeness and unity within the mind and then that will eventually manifest by you experiencing more peace and harmony in your life. Whenever there is disharmony in your life, the dark side of self is in control and this results in anger jealousy, frustration, hatred etc…These negative emotions will all have the physical effect of driving distance between yourself and the object of your negativity. No matter how far you distance yourself from that situation that unconscious fractured aspect of the mind will continue to be with you. And as soon as you are in close proximity to that situation again the shadow self will rear its ugly head once again continuing to drive a further wedge of separation and pain between the people involved. As long as you continue to believe that is the other person’s fault and you have not contributed to the situation in any way then you are telling yourself a story that is preventing you from acknowledging and identifying the shadow aspect within that is causing your pain and suffering in that relationship. To get through this and build harmony in your life there is a very penetrating question that you have to ask yourself “What is it that I can’t admit about myself, in the way that I am behaving that prevents me from being bringing healing to this situation?” If you can truly be loving enough to yourself and humble enough to admit such a failing, then you have gone pass the hardest part of transmuting the darkness within.
- The third way you can identify your shadow self is of course by asking those closest to you. People closest to you often know you or see you in a way that you do not see yourself and if you can once again be humble enough to open yourself to their perception without taking it personally then that is another way of identifying the dark side of the self. This is probably the hardest way to see the truth as the people you will need to ask are often the ones that you are not in a harmonious relationship with.
After you have been able to identify and recognize where you are acting out of fear and negativity then the next step is to disarm your triggers. First, be very clear about who and what situations cause these triggers to arise. By knowing what situations push your buttons you can then go into these situations with a different point of view. You begin to understand that these situations are now here to bring to your conscious awareness to something that is disharmonious within yourself. It’s no longer just another argument. When you go into situations that trigger you with the understanding that you are trying to transform yourself into a better person, it no longer becomes about the story you have been telling yourself for all of these years. You cease to become at the mercy your negative beliefs and judgments. The situation is now about not letting this unknown aspect of self continue to control you and create disharmony in your life. When you approach it from that perspective you are coming from a higher place and have automatically diffused some of the energy of the pain body that is driving your behavior. This process does take time. It must be done repetitively and you must take care to not deliberately put yourself in situations where you know the trigger is going to be too great for you because that will further empower your dark side to control you even more. For this stage you must have some tools in your pocket to be able to express negative emotions in a healthy way. You never express your negative emotions at a person. You can express it out into the universe or at Mother Earth (don’t worry she can take it). It is okay to express to the other person what you are feeling inside. Talk about what you are feeling in a healthy way but as soon as you vomit your hatred and anger onto someone else then it will just be reflected and magnified back at you causing a further downward spiral of your experience. Through practice and perseverance, you can then start to enter the situations that would trigger you and the trigger no longer has control of you.
It is very difficult to empathize with someone as long as your trigger has control of you. Once you master your trigger, the next step in transmuting the shadow self into light is to open up your empathy. This will help in a way that brings the light of new information to you. When we are operating from the unconscious shadow, we are seeing through the veil of fear and pain. This veil provides a very distorted view of what is actually happening and prevents us from seeing the reasons why the person is behaving that way. Seeing through this vale of fear totally prevents your empathy from helping you to understand how the other person is also in pain and fear. Try to open up your empathy and understand how the other person’s shadow aspect has taken control of them. Feel what they are feeling. This does require you to be vulnerable. Vulnerability is not weakness. It takes tremendous strength to be so open. If you can actually feel what that individual is feeling, it will diffuse even more of your trigger and you may actually start to feel sorry for this other person. If you are not sure if your empathy is open, then do your best to put yourself in that person’s shoes. See the world from their perspective and try and feel what it might be like to be that person. When your own trigger is disarmed and you can truly bring empathy to the situation, this will then bring the light of new information into your mind. A piece of the puzzle that you are trying to solve will usually come your way. This new piece of the puzzle usually gives you an understanding of why the person was behaving the way they were. Previously, you were not aware of the total picture because your own shadow was preventing you from seeing it. When you find this missing piece of the puzzle is when you have your moment of realization about how mistaken you have been. This is a big moment!
When you have a greater awareness of what is happening and empathy then you may feel it necessary to actually help the person. You are now coming from a true place of compassion and giving for the other person’s benefit instead of wanting them to always make it right for you or meet your needs. When this happens, it has the effect of diffusing their triggers. This is a huge shift! When they have their triggers diffused, they are more open to receiving and seeing the situation in a different light and will start to naturally change their behavior towards you. You cannot change someone else’s behavior; you can only change your behavior in relation to them and give them freedom of choice to respond in the same or different way towards you. That’s all you can do.
The final step in transmuting the dark side of self is forgiveness. If you can reach the stage where you can truly let go of any blame or judgement then that is the final step in incorporating and transmuting the shadow within to light. Some people may find it harder to forgive themselves if they are stuck in a place of self-blame. If this is the case, then ask for forgiveness from who ever else was involved. They may be able to give you something that you can’t give yourself. Some people may find it harder to forgive others if they truly believe that someone has wronged them. In this case there is still more work to be done as the unconscious shadow is still in control. If someone is asking you for forgiveness, then do not make your forgiveness dependent on that person meeting your conditions. Forgiveness is unconditional. It is a truly freeing and empowering place to be. When you are finally able to forgive, you become open to the lesson that that experience was there to teach you. You finally understand why things played out the way they did. This is incredibly liberating and completes the transmutation and incorporation of the negative energy within.
Your dark side is not evil. It is that which you are not aware of or don’t want to acknowledge. Recognize it though your own judgments and where there is disharmony in your life. Recognize it and be aware of when it is taking control, then diffuse the your triggers to the point where you can open up your heart for empathy and forgiveness and to learn what you did not know. That is how you transmute dark side of self into light. Through this process you expand into a conscious and realized being with the capacity to hold more love. As you increase your capacity to hold greater amounts of light within you, this creates an even larger shadow that you then have to embrace and transmute to take you to an even greater level of love and compassion. This process is never-ending because the true nature of yourself is eternal and infinite. This is how you grow out of duality into unity consciousness. This is how you expand into your true self. Much love in your awakening process!