If you perceive that you have a shadow self or shadow side and are inspired to embrace and own your shadow, then Dr Demartini’s insights might be a powerful first step in the process.
This content is for educational and personal development purposes only. It is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any psychological or medical conditions. The information and processes shared are for general educational purposes only and should not be considered a substitute for professional mental-health or medical advice. If you are experiencing acute distress or ongoing clinical concerns, please consult a licensed health-care provider.
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I think the shadow side is sometimes also
just as valuable and essential as the
Speaker:so-called light side. But the light
side has inside it the shadow.
Speaker:It's like a yin and yang.
Speaker:In all probability you've
heard of the term, your shadow,
Speaker:and I'd like to elaborate on the
concept of the shadow for a moment.
Speaker:Most people think that there's,
as Carl Jung described,
Speaker:a light side and a dark
side of your nature.
Speaker:I'm going to confront that a bit
because that's an arbitrary selection.
Speaker:Sometimes we go through life and we
think we have a trait that we've injected
Speaker:into our life, an ideal, a moral
hypocrisy about how we're supposed to be.
Speaker:For instance, your mother or grandmother
may have said to you, be nice,
Speaker:don't be mean. Be kind, don't be
cruel. Be positive, don't be negative.
Speaker:Be generous, don't be stingy.
Be peaceful, don't be wrathful,
Speaker:and this kind of thing. And so you grew
up with this kind of moral hypocrisy,
Speaker:even though five minutes later,
grandma's beating the hell outta grandpa,
Speaker:demanding from her and playing out the
exact opposite of what she just said.
Speaker:So these are called moral hypocrisies
that many people buy into.
Speaker:They originate from, you know,
Speaker:mothers and fathers and preachers and
teachers and conventions and traditions
Speaker:and mores that we've inculcated into
our life, maybe not even consciously.
Speaker:And then what we do is we
compare ourselves to those
ideals, nice never mean.
Speaker:But the fact is,
I've been teaching for 51 years
and I have people in audiences,
Speaker:and I ask people, you know, how many, if
I was to go up to you and I would say,
Speaker:you're always nice, never
mean. They go, not exactly.
Speaker:Or if I said, you're always mean, you're
never nice. They go, mm, not exactly.
Speaker:But sometimes you're nice, sometimes
you're mean. They go with that.
Speaker:Sometimes you're kind, sometimes
you're cruel. They go with that.
Speaker:Sometimes you're peaceful, sometimes
wrathful, they go with that.
Speaker:They have certainty that
they have both sides,
Speaker:but they don't have certainty of one side.
Speaker:And so what happens is we go through life
and sometimes these moral imperatives
Speaker:and moral hypocrisies that we've got
inculcated from some outside authority
Speaker:that has been handed down,
Speaker:that may never even question
the source of it themselves,
Speaker:they may just be passing it down because
they learned that from somebody and
Speaker:somebody and somebody through time. And
the question is, is that even possible?
Speaker:Is it even possible to be a one-sided
individual? The answer is no.
Speaker:No human being is one-sided. In fact,
Speaker:one of the biggest
fantasies that people have,
Speaker:an unrealistic expectation that they're
going to get rid of half of themselves
Speaker:and love only one side.
Speaker:The Buddha in the Buddhist teaching
said the desire for that which is
Speaker:unobtainable, and the desire to
avoid that which is unavoidable,
Speaker:is the source of human suffering.
Speaker:So I've been observing people and
I've never met a one-sided person.
Speaker:I've never met a nice person.
I'm not a nice person.
Speaker:I'm a nice person when
you support my values.
Speaker:I'm a mean person when you challenge it.
Speaker:I can be nice as a pussy cat or
mean as a tiger. I have both sides.
Speaker:And I need both sides. If I
look carefully in my life,
Speaker:sometimes both sides are needed.
Speaker:So trying to live in a kind of a social
idealism, a fantasy of one sidedness,
Speaker:nobody's going to do.
Speaker:But we sometimes have inculcated that
into our life and believe that's the way
Speaker:we should be. And we hear ourselves
saying, I gotta be this way,
Speaker:I have to be this way, I need to
be this way, I should be this way,
Speaker:I'm supposed to be this
way, I ought to be this way.
Speaker:And you're basically inculcating
it from outer authorities,
Speaker:and you're now trying to live by duty
and obligation of some ideal instead of
Speaker:actually who you are.
Speaker:And the magnificence of who you are is
far greater than those fantasies that you
Speaker:inject and idealized.
Speaker:So the shadow is the byproduct
of those moral hypocrisies.
Speaker:Because if you have this fantasy
that you're supposed to be nice,
Speaker:if you're nice, you're proud of
yourself. If all of a sudden you're mean,
Speaker:you're now ashamed of yourself,
and you go, oh. The pride side,
Speaker:with your amygdala, you want
to go and show that off.
Speaker:You want to show the pride side off,
but the shame side you want to hide.
Speaker:So what happens is you tend to want
to hide that part because of social
Speaker:instruction. You don't
want to have that part.
Speaker:You don't want people to see you have
that part. But the truth is you do.
Speaker:You're kind and cruel at times.
Speaker:I can be very kind at times and other
times people perceive me as cruel.
Speaker:And I try to get rid of half of myself,
Speaker:but you're not going to love yourself
trying to get rid of half of yourself.
Speaker:That whole idea of this
self-improvement of one sidedness,
Speaker:I ask people in the seminar, I said,
Speaker:do you ever get rid of the
anger in your life? No,
Speaker:I still have it here and there. Do
you ever get negative at times? Yeah.
Speaker:You ever get wrathful at times and
angry? Yeah. I said, well, okay,
Speaker:how long you been trying to get rid
of that? 60 years
Nothing's ever gotten rid of
and nothing's ever gained.
Speaker:It's in a form that you're not
honoring, maybe, not recognizing,
Speaker:but you have all the forms
of all the traits I found
Speaker:4,628 traits in human beings.
Speaker:And it's not a matter of you
gaining them or losing any of them,
Speaker:it's a matter of knowing that they're
there and you're going to use them when
Speaker:needed. And so I'm not,
Speaker:I think the shadow side is sometimes also
just as valuable and essential as the
Speaker:so-called light side. But the light
side has inside it the shadow.
Speaker:It's like a yin and yang. So if you look
very carefully, let's say you think,
Speaker:well, the good side is
nice, I should be nice.
Speaker:But I've seen people that are being
nice to people and then repressing
Speaker:themselves, trying to fit into
society's niceness and not speaking up,
Speaker:and then also doing things for them
generously and taking care of them,
Speaker:make them juveniley dependent. And
then they basically rely on them.
Speaker:They feel obligated to them.
Speaker:So that nice has inside it
something that's actually mean.
Speaker:And I've seen people mean and accountable
make people accountable and tough on
Speaker:them. And then they become entrepreneurs
and they're capable of self-sustaining,
Speaker:and they're more independent.
Speaker:And so the nice has meanness and the
mean has niceness in it. So I look at it,
Speaker:I've had people come up
to me and said, you know,
Speaker:when you really hit hard on me in the
seminar and really held me accountable,
Speaker:you were really tough on
me, but I broke through.
Speaker:So now I'm being tough
and really firm, you know,
Speaker:with somebody and then they go,
well, thank you, I broke through.
Speaker:So that so-called shadow
side is just as essential.
Speaker:So beware of the labels,
because in different countries
and different cultures,
Speaker:different things that are considered
shadow are completely different.
Speaker:In South Africa, the president had nine
wives, and so he was proud of that.
Speaker:But in America, if you have nine wives,
Speaker:you better hide it because you go to jail.
Speaker:So now that would be the shadow side
if you're having secret love affairs or
Speaker:secret this. So these shadows and
light sides are really kind of murky.
Speaker:And I'm not,
Speaker:I always say that whatever you think
you've done that you feel so terrible
Speaker:about, find out how it served and find
out how it's benefited some people.
Speaker:Otherwise, you carry around a
shame all your life for no reason.
Speaker:And the things you think are so all
powerful and you're so proud of,
Speaker:what are the downsides?
Speaker:If you don't know how to govern yourself
and bring yourself into equanimity,
Speaker:the world around you forces
you to. Your physiology,
Speaker:your psychology and your sociology
will come in to humble you.
Speaker:The second you feel proud, you
attract a criticism, challenge,
Speaker:humbling circumstance to bring you pride
before the fall, bring you back down.
Speaker:When you go down and maybe feel a
shame and people lift you up and try to
Speaker:lighten you up.
Speaker:Nature's trying to get you to own both
sides of yourself and honor the authentic
Speaker:you. So I'm not here to try have
you get rid of any part of yourself.
Speaker:I'm here to love all parts of yourself.
That's, to teach you to love all parts.
Speaker:I've been teaching the
Breakthrough Experience Program,
Speaker:the signature program I've been
doing for 35 plus years now.
Speaker:And people come in there with all kinds
of resentments and infatuations or
Speaker:guilts or shames, or they're
beating themselves up,
Speaker:or self depreciating or fantasizing,
Speaker:and I do is I show them how to dissolve
their infatuations, their resentments,
Speaker:their prides, their shames,
Speaker:and bring them back into equanimity and
equity and allow them to love themselves
Speaker:and other people.
Speaker:And then they have a sustainable fair
exchange dynamic with people that's more
Speaker:fulfilling, more inspiring, and
they're doing what they love that way,
Speaker:instead of what they feel that they've
gotta do and should according to some
Speaker:moral imperative and mortal
hypocrisy. So be aware of that.
Speaker:I'm working on a textbook right now on
morality, and it's quite interesting.
Speaker:I've been studying that for decades.
Speaker:And it's very interesting on
how vulnerable people are,
Speaker:because in different cultures at different
times there's different moralities,
Speaker:and we just assume that ours is right,
Speaker:and it's a social contract in our
group that we happen to live in,
Speaker:but not necessarily universal.
Speaker:That's why I teach people in the
Breakthrough Experience universal laws,
Speaker:things that are unviolatble,
that nobody violates,
Speaker:instead of the human laws and the
human moralities that people violate.
Speaker:In fact, you can't even completely
live by some of those ideals,
Speaker:but you can live by the universals.
Speaker:So I'm trying to teach people how to
study those universals and live according
Speaker:to what really stands the test of time
instead of things that are fluctuating
Speaker:and, you know, vicissitudes of the
emotions of the time because it changes.
Speaker:Marijuana was illegal when I was
growing up. Now it's legalized.
Speaker:So now it's used for therapeutic effects,
Speaker:but it was once you put to jail for that.
Speaker:So now that would be your shadow side
doing that on the side. Now it's okay.
Speaker:So be aware of these transient
moral hypocrisies that people get
Speaker:trapped in.
Speaker:And then label yourself light and shadow
when in fact all parts of you may be
Speaker:needed.
Speaker:You have a time when you need to be
tough and be firm and be maybe assertive.
Speaker:And other times it's time for passiveness.
Speaker:There was a song by the
Birds in: Speaker:Something like that.
About turn, turn, turn,
Speaker:there is a season for everything under
the sun, a time for sowing and reaping,
Speaker:a time for peace, a time for
war, a time for, you know,
Speaker:joining with people and time for
separating, all things under the sun.
Speaker:And I really believe that that old
biblical statement has meaning.
Speaker:It's applicable to our daily
lives. So I'm not here to say,
Speaker:get rid of half of
yourself to love yourself.
Speaker:I'm here to show you that you
can love all parts of yourself.
Speaker:That's why I have people come
to the Breakthrough Experience.
Speaker:That's why I have people also
do the Value Determination.
Speaker:When they live by their highest value
they're more objective and they're more
Speaker:neutral,
Speaker:and they're more embracive of both sides
of their own life and the two sides it
Speaker:takes to achieve. And other people.
So you're way more resilient,
Speaker:way more adaptable and more
informed and more value in life,
Speaker:more efficient in function.
Speaker:But also doing the Demartini Method in
the Breakthrough Experience allow you to
Speaker:dissolve all the baggage
that you're carrying around,
Speaker:because you're not even maybe aware that
you've injected values of other people,
Speaker:judge yourself for things that are
perfectly normal and thought yourself as
Speaker:terrible.
Speaker:And I meet people almost every week in
the Breakthrough Experience that they
Speaker:feel really down and depreciative
and beating themselves up about this,
Speaker:and then we start looking at what
are the benefits of that behavior.
Speaker:They never asked that. They just
assumed it was bad and it was a shadow,
Speaker:and they want to hide it. And then they
go find out what's the benefit of that.
Speaker:And they start to look at, wow.
Speaker:I had a gentleman that came to my
Breakthrough Experience and he was feeling
Speaker:really,
Speaker:really guilty and shame because his mother
passed away and he didn't make it to
Speaker:the mother before she died. And so he
was really beating himself up. He goes,
Speaker:I should have been there.
Speaker:I can't believe I wasn't even
there for my mother's passing.
Speaker:And he was beating himself
up, beating himself up.
Speaker:And this was going on for months,
beating himself up, in fact, for years,
Speaker:three years. And then all of a
sudden I asked him a simple question,
Speaker:so what was the benefit to your mom
that you weren't there? He said, well,
Speaker:how could that be a benefit? A son should
be there. He's supposed to be there.
Speaker:I know, but I didn't ansk
that question, I asked,
Speaker:how did it benefit your mom that
you weren't there? I don't know.
Speaker:I can't find the answer.
I said, look, again,
Speaker:how did it benefit your mom that
you weren't there? He never even,
Speaker:he just assumed because of the moral
imperatives that he had and the belief
Speaker:systems, that that was the wrong. I said,
Speaker:so what was the benefit to your
mom that you weren't there?
Speaker:Finally he paused and he got
tears in his eyes, and he goes,
Speaker:wow, I didn't think about this.
Speaker:My mom and my sister were not getting
along and they hadn't talked to each other
Speaker:and they're in the war path.
Speaker:And it was my sister who was there at my
mom at the death bed and they resolved
Speaker:their issue. If I would've been there,
they wouldn't have resolved the issue.
Speaker:He says, when I think about it, this
was part of a higher ordered system.
Speaker:So we go through and we think there's
a mistake or some sort of disorder in
Speaker:there, but maybe not.
Speaker:Maybe the quality of your life's based
on the quality of the questions you ask.
Speaker:If you ask questions to find
the hidden order on things,
Speaker:you liberate yourself from a lot
of judgment on yourself or others.
Speaker:So what I did is I made him ask a
question he's not used to asking,
Speaker:what's the benefit of that
so-called shadow side.
Speaker:Once he realized he had the benefits and
he had helped his mom pass and make up
Speaker:with his sister because she wouldn't
have been there if he'd been there. Once
Speaker:that's the case, he started to
cry and he started to release it.
Speaker:And he says there was an order, there's
nothing to fix. I said, exactly.
Speaker:We go around and we compare our lives to
fantasies and injected ideals about how
Speaker:we think we're supposed to do and
then if it doesn't match that,
Speaker:we think that's a bad side, we want
to hide that, and that's our shadow.
Speaker:But we need both sides in our life.
Speaker:You don't have to get rid of half
of yourself to love yourself,
Speaker:and the magnificence of who you are,
the total, the light and the shadow,
Speaker:which isn't even light and shadow,
because inside the shadow is light,
Speaker:and inside the light is shadow. There's
ups and downsides to every trait.
Speaker:Every trait that you ever have in
your life has ups and downsides.
Speaker:When you look carefully at that,
Speaker:you realize that you're worthy of
love no matter what you've done.
Speaker:And you deserve to be able to
look in the mirror and say,
Speaker:no matter what I've done or not
done, I'm still worthy of love.
Speaker:And that's why I just wanted to take
this moment to share that message.
Speaker:Because that guy would've beat himself
another three years if he hadn't asked
Speaker:the right question.
Speaker:That's why I have people come
to the Breakthrough Experience,
Speaker:to learn the set of questions,
Speaker:to liberate themselves from unnecessary
emotional baggage and stored up
Speaker:resentments and infatuations and
fantasies and things in their life.
Speaker:And to get grounded. Because
the magnificence of the
way their life truly is,
Speaker:and who they really are,
Speaker:is far greater than all those fantasies
and all those nightmares that they're
Speaker:distracted by. So I just
wanted to talk about,
Speaker:to help you understand a
little bit about the shadow,
Speaker:but the shadow itself has light in it.
Speaker:And the light side of
you also has the shadow.
Speaker:So beware of the labels that somebody
else has injected and honor all parts of
Speaker:yourself because you're not going
to get rid of part of yourself.
Speaker:That's the fantasy that you think
you have. But that's not the case.
Speaker:You gotta realize that the fastest way
to disempower people and to control
Speaker:people is to create an
idealism, a moral idealism,
Speaker:that nobody lives but
everybody's supposed to,
Speaker:and then they feel guilty about it
and they offload their decisions.
Speaker:And the institutions that are
formulating those ideals have control.
Speaker:So beware of letting the
outside world control your life.
Speaker:Love all parts of yourself.
Speaker:No matter what you've done or
not done you're worthy of love.
Speaker:Embrace the shadow and come to the
Breakthrough Experience Program,
Speaker:because if you're having
difficulty with that,
Speaker:I'll show you exactly what
to do each step of the way,
Speaker:and how to have yourself love,
appreciate all parts of you.