Page 19 - How to play life to your advantage -print

On the other hand if you are a very good person in your conscious awareness you think

that you can do no wrong and that you are a top class A Grade citizen of the world

around you then most likely your shadow self is quite dark twisted and maybe even

slightly evil.

In psychoanalysis or Jungian psychology there is basically a belief that in order for you

to truly reach your full potential as a human being, part of that process requires you

to embrace your shadow self. You will need to bring the shadow into the light, (ie. your

conscious awareness) and accept that it's part of your personality before you can

move towards what Jung calls individuation where you become a whole adult. So

basically, you need to be an adult, which is not what many of us do. But the purpose

of this book, to give you an introduction in how to play life to advantage, means going

on the journey of adulting. I'm sorry to tell you but that's just how it is.

So how do we find shadow when it's hidden in our unconscious mind?

That brings us back to the initial questions we asked in this chapter:

Have you ever just been really shirted off by someone close to you?

Here is the first clue to how we start to see our shadow in our own lives. Just as we

discussed in the last chapter that when we suffer. The suffering that we experience is

a signpost or an arrow towards us being able to see the things that we care about and

the things that really matter to us and what our purpose is all about. In the same way

when we get angry at someone or when something happens that really annoys us

about someone else this likewise is a signpost. It is a signpost towards our shadow self.

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