Reddit reviews Owning Your Own Shadow: Understanding the Dark Side of the Psyche

Consider the situation that you don't go to the therapist. Where will you be in 1 year? In the exact same spot! Perhaps even worse off. There are other ways to live a life than in crippling fear.

I recently read the book Owning Your Own Shadow: Understanding the Dark Side of the Psyche and it was interesting to see how much energy that is robbed from us and by the things deep down in our psyche that we don't want to, or dare to face.

You need to face that shit with a professional, preferably someone specializing in sexual trauma. You can get out those feelings that robs you of so much right now.

The shadow is what Carl Jung called all the repressed things in your psyche that the ego doesn't want to associate with. But it's still there and influences your subconscious. They may be things that you're afraid of, ashamed of, or simply don't fit in your lifestyle.

This was an interesting read (and totally unrelated to psychedelics) https://www.amazon.com/Owning-Your-Own-Shadow-Understanding/dp/0062507540

Over the holidays I had a difficult trip/ego death, followed by an exceptionally liberating, uplifting trip/ego death. Things were going great, but I also realized a lot of ways I was hurting myself by thought patterns I developed from mental abuse as a child. A month later out of the blue I started getting anxiety and dp/dr from weed which was unusual for me, so I quit cold turkey and then experienced a severe dark night of the soul. I took a week off work because I could barely eat, everything lost its meaning and didn't make sense or feel real anymore, and I started having panic attacks throughout the nights (I never had panic attacks in my life, or really anxiety that severe at all - it was all very new to me).

It was whiplash from the ego & the rapid surfacing of things I had long repressed my whole life, including tons of grief from loss of loved ones, status, homes, possessions, etc I'd experienced the last 3 years, among other crazy stressors involving my relationship with my parents and my husband. I cried about things I never gave proper attention to, like the death of my best friend and the grief of my deteriorating relationship with my dad, but even stuff about how difficult it was to experience so many stressful events in my life in spite of how hard I work, how hard I try to be kind to others, etc. Cried and cried. Bawled my eyes out, snot pouring down my face, for days and days and days.

I started learning about shadow work & going to hypnotherapy. I also figured out the real point to no-self philosophy/the illusion of ego and finally figured out how to stop identifying with my thoughts. I have released...so much baggage I did not even know I was holding onto, and I have finally gotten to a place where I feel mostly peaceful - it's a gradual transition. I say mostly peaceful, because I still get anxiety and a bit of fear/resistance from my mind about metaphysics and psychedelics, but at the same time this is the most centered I've ever felt in my life - and I know that my mind just has to get used to not being the center of my world and those fears will gradually resolve. I am not possessed by my anxiety anymore, and I can just let it exist and then it melts away on its own without being a dreadful experience. In general I have a lot more inner awareness and sensitivity, especially in regards to my body, than I had before my experiences over the winter.

Before I got to this point I unsubscribed from everything and anything related to psychedelics, occult, mysticism, whatever, and just focused on real basic shit. Cats and puppies, harmless video games, comedy tv, treated myself like a baby that needed a soft blanket and a binky etc lol. I felt like a raw nerve for about 2 months. I kept having severe existential anxiety, or anxiety about metaphysics, etc. A lot of this improved as I started going to hypnotherapy and doing shadow work. Here are some books that helped me, they are short and easy to read (and inexpensive or free on kindle unlimited):

Liberation Unleashed: A Guide to Breaking Free from the Illusion of a Separate Self https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01CFGRFCW/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_i_dMQTCbRX4XBNC

Owning Your Own Shadow: Understanding the Dark Side of the Psyche https://www.amazon.com/dp/0062507540/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_i_tpbDCbE4M46Q5

An Introduction To Shadow Work: How to Accept Every Aspect of Yourself. Learn the Immensely Powerful Technique for Empowering Yourself, Loving Yourself and Building Permanent Self-Esteem. https://www.amazon.com/dp/B017WPC9YU/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_i_IILJCb6RYTZ9B

Uh, plus a ton of other books (I read quite a bit). You can dm me if you are interested in more. I've also made it a point to establish a meditation practice to help with this transition to a new kind of headspace. I learned there is a push and pull to psychedelics, and when you trip you are going deep inside yourself and there may be things there you were not aware of, or even necessarily prepared to deal with. A lot of that stuff gets expressed as generalised anxiety when it isn't acknowledged and processed in a satisfactory way.

Hope this helps. I used to worry that I was never going to feel normal again either, or happy or any of that, and now I honestly feel better than before. I don't feel like I need to chase extremes anymore, or force things to be as good and fun as humanly possible by getting super stoned and whatever, going super extra. Things just flow now, and I am able to feel levels of pleasure and happiness I thought I could only get by going all out extra/manic. I'm more in tune with my body as well, instead of constantly living from the neck up.

You should read this book about "owning your shadow." Your shadow is you. Embrace it. Shadow lives in the parts of yourself that are hidden, so the antidote to shadow is to be as conscious as possible.

PS- You cannot destroy your shadow. You will destroy yourself in the process.

Owning Your Shadow recommended by Ann Shulgin

Ok, then I'll not refer you to a book on spiritual formation, what I think you probably need most, seeing as how it probably wouldn't be received by you well. So we'll stick with purely psychological approach. I'd say remember that there's two psychic shadows, your personal shadow and the collective uncounscious shadow. The personal shadow will appear in dreams as the same sex as the individual and is the first aspect of the psyche to be integrated in the process of individuation.

Intergrating the shadow doesn't mean finding a crative outlet for every dark impulse that it represents, its more a matter of being present with those thoughts, feelings and desires, recognizing them within yourself so you don't project their content onto others and condemn them for what you're unwilling to accept as a part of yourself.

There's a nugget of gold in the muck of the shadow that's a key to self-realization and actualization, but most of the shadow isn't that gold, something important to keep in mind. Also, the shadow of the collective unconscious is essentially the absolute evil of the Devil, the face of evil itself. Considering what you've said about your shadow it seems as though either you have a particularly dark personal shadow, or that your personal constitution is heavily influenced by archetypal patterns, in this case, the collective shadow.

I'd recommend Owning Your Own Shadow.

Read this, and, if possible, ask that she reads it too.

https://www.amazon.com/Owning-Your-Own-Shadow-Understanding/dp/0062507540