‘Daddy’ Issues in Men: The Hidden Shame that Men Carry and How it Holds Them Back from Real Life

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Coaching/Life Philosophy/Psychology/Shadow Life

In this article, I want to explore something that I’ve seen so many times with men that I work with:

A deep, core wound that many of them don’t even know is affecting them but which is something that’s been DRIVING them unconsciously for most of their lives: ‘DADDY ISSUES’ that have caused them to become detached from their masculinity either because – when growing up – their father was either absent, emotionally unavailable, or just an asshole.

(I’m not trying to be insensitive calling it ‘Daddy Issues’, btw – just what it is).

The core issue in all cases is UNRESOLVED TOXIC SHAME about who they are in their realness. This is because the original ‘wound’ that their Dads inflicted upon them caused them to become disconnected from the truth about themselves at some level and to go into hiding because they started to believe that the REAL SELF was ‘wrong’ or defective in some way (when it’s always quite the opposite – the REAL self is always perfectly imperfect and beyond ‘right’ or ‘wrong’).

This shame causes them to create a false version of themselves – the Ego – to try and survive and cope with life (either leaning into being overly-masculine to compensate or not masculine enough and stagnating and failing to take any action in life) and leads to them interacting with life, other men, and women in an inauthentic and unreal way.

Often, when people come to me, they don’t know that this is the core problem (and it doesn’t always even get mentioned even though it becomes clear that this is the main thing driving them to live an unreal life instead of a real one) – what often happens is that people roll up with a list of ‘symptoms’ that they’ve been trying to work on instead.

Here are some examples of these symptoms (there are no doubt many more):

A general nagging feeling of tension and anxiety that won’t go anywhere – especially around other men but also more generally in relation to one’s purpose and way forward in life.
A constant need to ‘prove’ themselves because they’ve put other men on pedestals – because their own masculinity has gone into ‘hiding’ (for whatever reason) – and so they almost always have a feeling of being ‘not good enough’ haunting them in everything that they do.
Being unable to be present with other men because they’re constantly comparing themselves in relation to perceived achievements but also at the physical level of ‘sizing them up’ to see who’s bigger or smaller etc. (though this is more of a protective thing than anything else because most of these “Daddy Issue” guys have a fear of conflict).
Feeling a deep sense of uncertainty either because they don’t know how to set their own path (because they didn’t have a solid role model for doing so) or because they had an overbearing father who made them doubt everything they were doing (so they froze up and stopped taking action).

What’s worse for these guys is that not only do they sense uncertainty – because they’ve become disconnected from the CORE of themselves that has certainty about the CHOICES they make – but they FEAR uncertainty as well and so they ultimately end up becoming paralysed or distracted and never taking REAL ACTION (though they may take plenty of unreal action – including addiction to ‘mood enhancers’ that just exacerbate the core problem of shame and disconnection from their realness like porn, video games, and overeating crappy foods etc… they may also become addicted to comfortable DISTRACTIONS like isolation so they can create a bubble of comfort for themselves which just keeps them where they don’t wanna be).
A lot of these guys also become PERFECTIONISTS (in order to keep that ‘ego’ in place) but this also just ends up causing them to overthink, over-apologise, and to avoid taking action for fear of not doing it perfectly and reminding themselves of the dread and fear they used to feel around their dads whilst learning to function in the world as kids.
Because of the underlying shame and the fear of expressing or showing off who they really are, another symptom becomes the suppression of emotions. This ultimately leads to them bottling everything up until eventually they explode and unleash everything in an outburst .This is a consequence of not having healthy boundaries and being afraid to speak up – either because they never had this modelled or because when they did speak up it was knocked back.
The fear and dread that they sometimes had of their fathers turns into fear of other, healthy men who are expressing their masculinity in a real way.

A lot of the time (speaking from experience), a lot of men with this problem had weak fathers who feared that their kids would go through puberty and no longer be intimidated by them turned up the volume so they wouldn’t have a ‘challenger’ in the house. In other words, their fathers wanted their kids to be afraid of them – so they’d be easier to control – and they ensured that they were (through threats of violence or worse).

This pattern follows many men through life because the consequence is that they become emasculated. The good news is that their MASCULINITY IS STILL THERE – it’s just been hidden in the ‘Shadow Territory’ (as I like to call it) and is being blocked from expression by the EGO (which isn’t real anyway). This is useful for these guys to know as it means if they can get rid of their unreal identity (which they can) they can allow the real ‘stuff’ to go back where it belongs.

This fear and dread can also affect men who had absent fathers – purely because they were raised by their mothers and had their masculinity sent into the Shadow Territory because of this (not necessarily because their Mum’s did anything wrong – just because they didn’t have a healthy model of a guy in the driving seat of his own masculinity).
A lot of these ‘Daddy Issues’ guys find that they struggle with INTIMACY and CONNECTION as adults. This might be intimacy with their girlfriends and wives because they feel that they have to be closed or to show up in an overly stoic way to be a ‘man’ or because they go to the other extreme and become too clingy and co-independent (because they’ve learned to be submissive, basically).

These guys also struggle to be intimate and open around other men and so they can never share anything real or get close to them and bond. Again, they can also go the other way and may find themselves putting men who embody whatever qualities they’ve sent down into the ‘Shadow Territory’ on a pedestal and giving them the ‘hero’ treatment (as well as going the other way and ‘hating’ men who embody certain qualities because they’ve disowned them in themselves).

This blocks intimacy and connection as well because they’re not seeing the REAL man but what they’ve detached from in themselves.
A lot of the men suffering from this issue (Daddy Issues) may also spent a great deal of their lives trying to REBEL against their father or to consciously be the ‘opposite’ of how they perceived him.

This seems especially common with people who had extremely strict, ‘disciplinarian’ type fathers: when they finally leave the house and get into adulthood these men put themselves on a path of unbridled freedom – as a way of continuing to rebel – and this simply has the effect of causing their lives to become a mess because they associate any hint of discipline with their fathers and the things that made them miserable in their younger days (when the bottom-line is that to get where we need to be – no matter who we are – it’s going to take at least some discipline and hard work to get there).

Ultimately, this is all about a lack of BALANCE in relation to the skills and qualities we can end up embodying because we’re not fuelled and motivated by a healthy relationship with life itself but because of an unhealthy relationship with the past and its lingering hold over us.

Another reason that men can rebel against their fathers is because of the STORY they heard about their fathers from their (pissed off) mothers. This is a slightly different can of worms but the solution is the same: figure out who we want to BECOME and then put strategies in place to BECOME that person.
Another serious issue that many of these men can end up dealing with is issues around the perception of their own bodies:

Because they’re left with a lingering sense of powerlessness (really just SHAME), they can end up trying to compensate for this by trying to make their bodies become a protective suit of armour (metaphorically speaking), not realising that the only TRUE and REAL armour that can ‘save’ them in this case is UNCONDITIONAL SELF-ACCPETANCE which reconnects them to truth beyond the shame they picked up.

There’s nothing ‘wrong’ with going to the gym of course (I work out religiously like a nutbag) but when we turn our bodies into a MASK then we just end up confusing and losing ourselves even more because we’re adding extra levels of complexity and disconnection between the truth and our interpretations of it.
In short: many of these men end up walking through life with a lingering and niggling feeling that something is missing.

This feeling gets worse whenever they are motivated to action that is either about rebellion from their fathers or about trying to meet their father’s expectations – neither of these paths will take them anywhere REAL because they’re both about living according to somebody else’s life and way of being in the world instead of finding their own PATH and becoming their own man.

Nothing else can help them escape from these symptoms besides returning to their REALNESS, healing that core wound, and not letting their fathers – or lack of fathers and what they think it means – dictate their lives.

If you’re a man who resonates with what you’re reading here and you want to do something about it in your own life, then I really recommend booking a call with me because I’ve been there and I can help you to start living YOUR OWN REAL LIFE.

Ultimately, what’s required is a container for you to explore the TRUTH about things and to learn to distinguish the REAL from the UNREAL when it comes to your relationship with yourself and the way that you’re filtering your life through outdated emotions.

That ‘niggling’ feeling – no matter who we are (man or woman) – is always just FEEDBACK from life that we need to return to life.

It’s not too late and when you start to unblock your masculinity again then you’ll start to get where you need to be in life.

Peace and hope this helped,

Control vs. Spontaneity: The Path to Self-Acceptance

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Coaching/Creativity/Life Philosophy/Mindset/Psychology/Relationships/Shadow Life

YouTube player — **This article is based on a transcript of this video from my Youtube channel.**

Reclaiming the ‘old’ you so that you can grow into the REAL you.

In this article, we’re diving into the delicate balance between control and spontaneity—a theme that frequently emerges in my coaching sessions. Many people, perhaps unknowingly, have silenced their spontaneous selves because past experiences taught them that letting loose could lead to ‘trouble’. This usually happens when spontaneity lacks balance, resulting in behaviours that are too extreme: overly hedonistic, excessively emotional, or even too innocent. Instead of recalibrating these traits, people often feel ashamed and go to great lengths to suppress them.

Over time, this suppression leads to a sense that something vital is missing. These qualities are real aspects of who we are, and the solution isn’t to bury them but to master and channel them toward our goals – by cutting off these parts of ourselves, we disconnect from our authentic selves, leading to feelings of shame, restlessness, and an unshakeable void.

This article explores the pattern of swinging from spontaneity to excessive control and the consequences of doing so. The goal here is to help you understand that the real parts of you are always real, and by balancing them instead of eliminating them, you can reclaim your path to being who you truly are in your REALNESS. At the core, this is about self-acceptance—acknowledging the parts of yourself that you’ve sent into hiding.

We all have aspects of ourselves that we’ve disowned, often due to external shame imposed by parents, teachers, or society. But when it comes to our own spontaneity, the dynamic is slightly different:

The fear of these qualities getting us into trouble is usually self-imposed, stemming from a lack of trust in ourselves. We’re afraid that if we continue to express these parts, we’ll lose control, so we build rigid structures to keep them at bay.

This fear creates a prison, locking away our true selves. The way out is to recognize that this fear is unfounded. We always have the ability to control and direct our actions in a healthy way. By embracing and accepting these spontaneous qualities, we can decide how to express them constructively.

This is a common struggle that many people face. They disown their real selves, create a false identity, and interact with the world in a controlled, rigid manner. This often leads to relationships where true intimacy is absent, as the relationship becomes more about maintaining control than genuine connection. The same applies to careers and other areas of life, where we may find ourselves in roles that don’t align with our true selves because we’re out-of-touch with our own realness.

Reconnecting to your SHADOW is the path to your REAL life.

Reconnecting with these disowned parts and finding a balance between control and spontaneity is essential for living a fulfilling and authentic life.

When we go out into the world in an inauthentic, unreal way, we inevitably attract inauthentic experiences. This leads to a self-perpetuating cycle where life becomes increasingly disconnected from reality. Eventually, something snaps, forcing the real parts of us to surface—whether it’s through a midlife crisis, a breakup, an illness, or some other life-altering event. The real self always emerges, so it’s better to face it sooner rather than later.

This struggle is something I’ve experienced first-hand:

There was a time when I lived as an unrestrained, hedonistic version of myself—wild, reckless, and completely undisciplined. I partied excessively, engaged in risky behaviours, and lived without any regard for self-control or discipline. This lifestyle led to various problems, including health issues and a sense that my life was spiralling out of control. I saw myself as a comet, blazing through life with no clear direction—destined to burn out eventually. And that’s exactly what happened. When I crashed back to earth, I had to rebuild my life from the ground up.

In response, I swung to the opposite extreme, becoming highly disciplined and controlling. I adopted a strict routine, monitored everything I ate, and lived with rigid self-imposed rules. While this approach brought order to my life, it also drained the joy from it. I was driven by the fear that if I didn’t maintain this control, I’d revert to my old, chaotic ways and lose everything I’d worked to regain. The pendulum had swung from one extreme to the other.

This journey from extreme spontaneity to extreme control is not uncommon. Often, we need to experience both ends of the spectrum to find a balance. In my coaching practice, I see this frequently. Some people come to me in a state of total spontaneity—they lack discipline, structure, routine, goals, and vision. For them, the path to balance involves introducing more control into their lives, establishing routines, and setting clear goals.

On the flip side, others come to me exhausted from living a life of rigid control. They’ve become control freaks, suppressing their authentic selves and those around them to maintain order. For these individuals, the solution is to let go, embrace spontaneity, and allow themselves to experience life more freely.

Balancing control and spontaneity – tension and release – is the key to a fulfilling life.

Finding this balance between control and spontaneity is crucial for living an authentic, fulfilling life. It’s about recognizing where you are on this spectrum and taking the necessary steps to bring yourself back to centre.

Navigating the shift between spontaneity and control can be complex. In this article, we’re focusing on those moments when an overindulgence in spontaneity leads to a swing towards excessive control.

This was my own experience: I began with a wildly spontaneous lifestyle that was exhilarating but ultimately led to chaos. I was running away from unresolved issues from my childhood, driven by shame and a lack of direction. This period of unrestrained spontaneity eventually led to me crashing and burning, and I found myself transitioning into a phase of extreme control and rigidity.

Through this journey, I learned the importance of balancing these extremes. I discovered that true happiness and authenticity come from integrating the spontaneous parts of ourselves in a controlled manner, rather than suppressing them entirely. Many people end up stuck in this controlling phase because their spontaneity once caused problems, leading them to overcompensate. However, remaining in a state of rigid control can be equally stifling, preventing true self-expression and growth. It creates a bubble of the ego that keeps our genuine qualities at a distance.

Finding balance means bringing those real parts of ourselves back to the surface without letting them overpower us. Through periods of control, we learn self-mastery, which allows us to respond to our inner selves constructively rather than merely reacting or engaging in unchecked spontaneity.

This pattern is quite common. For example, many women who become controlling have a past of rebellious or hedonistic behaviour. They might now be living a quiet, domesticated life, trying to fit into a role like the perfect housewife. This role can act as a cage, suppressing the real qualities they previously expressed. Consequently, they may feel a sense of emptiness.

Conversely, some men who were once very violent or involved in risky behaviours may become overly reserved and controlling later in life. They fear reconnecting with their anger, worried it will lead to aggressive actions or trouble. This fear of their own anger can cause them to become excessively controlled, avoiding their true emotions.

Regardless of gender, it’s crucial to own and accept all aspects of ourselves—whether it’s anger, joy, spontaneity, or sexual energy. These qualities are essential for a healthy and authentic life. By learning to tame these qualities – much like one might tame a wild horse – we can direct them in a positive way. If we merely deny their existence, playing a passive role or adhering to a constrictive identity, we’ll remain trapped and unhappy.

In summary, embracing and balancing both spontaneity and control allows us to live more fully and authentically. It’s about integrating the diverse aspects of ourselves and finding a harmonious way to express them.

Many people feel stuck because they’ve built rigid control structures around themselves, which creates inner friction. This friction, if left unaddressed, often escalates into frustration and eventually misery. The root of this problem is the internal battle to keep genuine aspects of ourselves at bay rather than embracing and balancing them.

To move forward and align with your true self, it’s essential to address this friction by finding a balance between spontaneity and control. The goal is to express yourself authentically in a healthy, balanced way, rather than swinging between chaotic spontaneity and restrictive control.

Achieving this balance involves several steps (as does any transformational journey – all of these steps come into play whenever I’m coaching people):

Awareness: Start by becoming aware of the aspects of yourself that you’re avoiding out of fear. Recognise that you won’t lose control if you confront these qualities; in fact, you’re already in control of yourself. It’s the lack of direction and purpose that can make these qualities overpower you.
Acceptance: Accept these parts of yourself instead of hiding from them. By acknowledging them, you build a solid foundation upon which you can build a more authentic life.
Action: Take action based on a clear vision or purpose. Without direction, you risk becoming too spontaneous and disorganised, which can lead to a lack of focus and control. Conversely, without spontaneity, life can feel dull and overly rigid. Having a vision helps you channel these qualities constructively, using them as fuel for your goals rather than letting them control you.

The key to balancing control and spontaneity lies in developing what can be termed as “controlled spontaneity” (from my book Shadow Life).

This means integrating spontaneity within the framework of your vision and goals. You remain flexible and open to life’s unfolding events while ensuring that your actions are aligned with your larger objectives.

In essence, you want to embrace life’s spontaneity and the genuine qualities within you while steering them purposefully towards your vision. Think of it as surfing the waves of reality—maintaining a sense of direction while enjoying the ride. By achieving this balance, you create a fulfilling and dynamic life that honours both your spontaneous energy and your need for control.

Finding balance means embracing and channelling the qualities within you to support your goals. For instance, in my own journey, I spent years living a hedonistic and spontaneous lifestyle. It was exhilarating, but it also led to significant challenges. The key takeaway is that you don’t have to entirely abandon your spontaneity or the traits that make you who you are. In fact, spontaneity is a natural and vital part of being REAL.

To live authentically, you need both structure and spontaneity. It’s not about completely eliminating one in favour of the other but integrating them in a way that aligns with your vision.

Here’s how you can do that:

Maintain Spontaneity Within Structure: It’s essential to have routines and structure in your life, but this doesn’t mean you have to suppress your spontaneous side. For example, if you previously enjoyed partying or expressing strong sexual energy, you don’t need to give that up entirely. Instead, channel those energies within the context of your goals. If you’re in a stable relationship, find ways to express your sexuality more meaningfully within that relationship, for example.
Find Healthy Outlets: If you have strong emotions like anger, don’t shy away from them. Instead, find productive ways to channel them. This could mean engaging in physical activities like MMA or using anger as motivation to drive you towards your vision. Anger, when directed healthily, can be a powerful force for change and growth.
Embrace the Moment: Living spontaneously means engaging with life as it unfolds rather than merely theorising or planning. Practice being in the moment, allowing yourself to interact with life dynamically while maintaining your core structure and routines. Know what results you want but once you’ve figured that out stay outcome-independent and live by focusing on the PROCESS.

Ultimately, balance is about integrating spontaneity and structure in a way that enhances your journey toward your goals. By embracing and directing these qualities within a structured framework, you can live authentically and effectively.

Anger has been described as “the dignity emotion.” It serves as a protective force, helping you maintain boundaries, safeguard your peace, and defend those you care about. When you’re disconnected from this powerful emotion, it can hinder your ability to achieve your goals, particularly if your vision involves doing your best for yourself and your loved ones.

To achieve balance, you must first acknowledge and accept your emotions, including anger. Then, consider how these emotions fit within the context of who you want to be. The real issue arises when we lack a clear vision and allow our emotions to dictate our actions, rather than guiding them purposefully.

Balancing spontaneity and control is crucial. Excessive spontaneity can lead to instability and disruption, while excessive control can create a sense of emptiness. The key is to understand what balance looks like for you, given your true self and your aspirations.

To move forward in a REAL way:

Acknowledge Your True Self: Embrace all aspects of yourself without fear or suppression. Recognise that these qualities are part of who you are and can be harnessed constructively.
Define Your Vision: Establish a clear vision based on your core values. This vision should come from a place of wholeness and realness, rather than ego reinforcement and fragmentation. It will guide you in integrating your genuine qualities in a meaningful way.
Channel Your Qualities: Use your emotions and traits as fuel for your vision. By aligning your actions with your values and goals, you can ensure that your spontaneity and control work together harmoniously.

For further guidance, I offer resources on my website, olianderson.co.uk, including a free course designed to help you clarify your vision and values – the Personality Transplant. If you’d like to explore these concepts further, you can also book a free initial call with me. I’m passionate about helping individuals break through their obstacles and align with their own REALNESS.

Thank you for reading. I hope this article has provided clarity on balancing spontaneity and control. Remember, embracing your authentic self and integrating your emotions thoughtfully is key to personal growth and fulfilment.

Stay real, find your balance, and peace to you.

Create Your REALEST Morning Routine (Pick n Mix Generator)

Published on

Coaching/Creativity/Life Philosophy

Oh, hi there.

I hope you’re feeling REAL today and that life is moving in the way you want it to? If not, then book a call with me.

In this quick article, I want to give you a ‘Pick and Mix’ approach to creating a MORNING ROUTINE that will help you to keep growing real if you’re consistent with it and that will set the tone and shape of your day so you can make every day count (time sure does fly by, after all).

In my own life, my own morning routine adds so much structure, stability and growth and – often, not always – when I’m working with coaching clients, ‘installing’ a routine in the early days of the transformational journey is one of the best and most effective ways to start getting results but – more importantly – to start reconfiguring the unconscious blocks and assumptions that may be holding them back.

My own routine is really simple:

Do some basic yoga stretches depending on what my intuition tells me I need (main focus is to wake my spine up and get the blood flowing).
Do my Sun Salutations (Surya Namaskar B for five rounds).
Do some High Intensity Interval Training (only 5 – 10 minutes)
Meditate.
Journal and plan my goals for the day (surprise, surprise – I use my Flow Builder)
Write (currently working on a new book called ‘Trust’)

I have other habits throughout the day (another article maybe) and I do my main workout in the afternoon/evening but this is a simple but effective routine that gets my blood flowing, wakes me up, and sets the tone of the day.

It’s also FUN – and remember: “IF IT AIN’T FUN YOU WON’T GET IT DONE” (sounds better in real life when you rhyme “fun” and “done”).

The results of a good morning routine also COMPOUND on themselves day by day as my general fitness keeps getting better, I have continuity of action from one-day-to the next (by checking in with goals etc., and that book keeps growing before my very eyes because I’m consistent with it.

**The three core functions of a Morning Routine for REALNESS.**

In my view, there are 3 things that we need from our morning routine to make it effective (and it doesn’t have to be complicated:

Wake up the body: When we first wake up we’re often tight and dehydrated and so what we need is something that kicks us physically into gear.
Quieten the mind and emotions to find PRESENCE: The tone that we set in the morning affects our whole day – in my view, the best tone to set is that of being fully PRESENT. Getting in our body helps with this (as body = breath and breath = presence) but there are other things we can do to calm our mind and emotions (like journaling etc.).
Plan direction for the day ahead: Ensuring that we use our presence to focus on the ACTION that will make a difference and take us where we want to be (towards our realest VISION for our lives).

If you can build these three things into your morning routine – even just five minutes of each – then I can pretty much guarantee your quality of life will improve over time (but you gotta be disciplined, consistent, and focused).

Here’s a ‘Pick ‘n’ Mix’ list to get you started (you can do as many or as few as you like – 1 of each is good, 2 of each is great, 3 or more of each is BEASTY):

Morning Routine #1: Wake Up the Body

Stretching routine: Perform basic stretches focusing on the neck, shoulders, back, and legs.

Jumping jacks: Do 100 jumping jacks to get your heart rate up.

Sun Salutations: Complete 5 rounds of Sun Salutations (Surya Namaskar A/B/C).

Push-ups: Do a set of push-ups, aiming for 2-3 sets of 10-20 reps. Studies have shown if you can do 40 push-ups then your risk of heart disease goes down drastically.

Dance to your favourite song: Put on an energetic song and dance like a maniac. Get out of your mind and into your body.

Quick walk outside: Take a brisk 10-minute walk around your neighbourhood.

Yoga poses: Practice 2-3 yoga poses like Downward Dog, Child’s Pose, and Warrior I.

High knees: Perform high knees for 1-2 minutes, rest, and repeat.

Bodyweight squats: Complete 2-3 sets of 15-20 bodyweight squats.

Get marching: March in place or around your living room for 5 minutes.

Foam rolling: Use a foam roller to massage your back, legs, and shoulders (I have this thing called a ‘Rumble Roller’ and it’s GODLY.

Balance exercises: Stand on one leg for 30 seconds each side, repeating 3 times.

Plank hold: Hold a plank position for 1-2 minutes, resting as needed.

Calf raises: Do 2-3 sets of 15-20 calf raises.

Breathwork with movement: Inhale while reaching arms up, exhale while folding forward (repeat as long as you like).

Leg swings: Swing each leg forward and backward for 1 minute each.

Side bends: Perform side bends, reaching your arms overhead and bending at the waist.

Dynamic stretching: Engage in dynamic stretches like arm circles and leg swings.

Qigong: Do some Qigong by following a YouTube video or learning a flow.

Skipping rope: Skip rope for 2-3 minutes, rest, and repeat.

Mountain climbers: Perform mountain climbers for 1-2 minutes.

Hip bridges: Do 2-3 sets of 10-15 hip bridges.

Toe touches: Stand and alternate touching your toes with opposite hands.

Jump squats: Do 2-3 sets of 10 jump squats.

Walking lunges: Perform walking lunges for 5 minutes.

Progressive muscle relaxation: Tense and relax each muscle group from head to toe.

Morning Routine #2: Quieten the Mind and Emotions and Find Presence

Deep breathing exercises: Practice slow, deep breathing for 5-10 minutes (use some of the techniques discussed in previous emails like 4-7-8 breathing).

Gratitude journaling: Write down 5 things you’re grateful for and why. Really get into feeling that gratitude feeling.

Meditation: Sit quietly and focus on your breath for 5-10 minutes.

Mindful drinking: Sip a cup of tea or water slowly, noticing the sensations.

Guided visualisation: Visualise a peaceful place or a positive outcome for your day. Get into the feeling that it’s already happened.

Affirmations: Repeat positive affirmations to yourself and remind yourself how you want to show up in a REAL way.

Mindful listening: Listen to calming music or sounds of nature with full attention.

5-minute body scan: Mentally scan your body from head to toe, noticing any tension.

Morning Pages: Spend 5-10 minutes just writing whatever needs to pour out of you. This can help you make the unconscious conscious and see what you really think.

Breath counting: Count your breaths up to 10, then start over.

Mindful walking: Walk slowly and pay attention to each step and your surroundings. See what thoughts and feelings come up to be processed.

Journaling: Write about a specific issue or problem you’re dealing with and see if you can gain some clarity.

Grounding exercise: Name 5 things you can see, 4 you can touch, 3 you can hear, 2 you can smell, and 1 you can taste to ground yourself in the present moment.

Self-inquiry: Ask yourself a awareness-raising question like “What do I need most right now?” or “What’s truly important today?” and write down your thoughts.

Emotional check-in: Pause and ask yourself, “What am I feeling right now?” and name your emotions without trying to change them.

Focus on an object: Choose an object and observe it closely for 5-10 minutes.

Breathing with intention: Inhale peace, exhale stress, and repeat.

Morning mantra: Create a personal mantra and repeat it to set a positive tone.

Chanting: Chant a soothing sound or mantra to calm your mind.

Observe nature: Look out the window or step outside and observe nature for a few minutes.

Silent reflection: Sit in silence and let your mind wander gently for a few minutes.

Brain dump: Write down all the tasks, ideas, and worries on your mind.

Morning Routine #3: Plan Direction for the Day Ahead

Review your to-do list: Go over your tasks for the day and prioritise them. Carry over any items that didn’t get done the day before.

Set daily intentions: Write down 1-3 POWERFUL intentions or goals for the day.

Time blocking: Allocate specific times for your key tasks or activities.

Visualize your day: Mentally walk through your day and see yourself completing tasks.

Create a mini-schedule: Write out a rough schedule for your day.

Identify top 3 priorities: Decide on the top 3 things you want to accomplish and make a promise to yourself to get it done.

Prepare a quick breakfast plan: Decide on your meals/snacks for the day.

Send a quick positive message: Text or email someone to set a positive tone for the day and keep relationships flowing.

Read a motivational quote: Find and reflect on a quote that inspires you.

Mind map your day: Create a quick mind map to organise your thoughts and tasks.

Set a challenge or Stretch Goal: Choose one challenge to accomplish by the end of the day.

Review your vision: Look over your short and long-term goals to align your day with your vision.

All of these things will add value to your life and get you ready for the day ahead – of course, you can change things up as often as you like…the important thing is to wake up the body, find that presence, and get ready to take ACTION (that’s the only thing that gets you where you’re going, after all)!

Hope this helps and stay real out there,

P.S. This article was originally an email that got send out on my mailing list but it got some great feedback so I thought I’d share it on here too.

Understanding Exasperation and Disillusionment: A Path to Realisation

Published on

Coaching/Life Philosophy/Mindset/Psychology

The world is not reality.

Welcome to this discussion about feelings of exasperation, disillusionment, and being jaded, stressed, or fed up—emotions that many people experience in today’s world. These feelings are not irrational; in fact, the world can often seem chaotic and overwhelming. Whether it’s the news or social media, there’s a great deal to feel exasperated about due to the constant presence of misinformation, tension, and chaos. It’s understandable why so many of us feel this way.

However, I want to suggest that these feelings of exasperation and disillusionment can actually be positive. They signify an awakening to some of life’s most fundamental truths, and offer an opportunity to realign ourselves with a more authentic path. This article explores the concept that the world, as we perceive it, is not reality. The feelings of disillusionment stem from the fact that we’ve bought into myths, conditioning, and propaganda that attempt to convince us that something unreal is, in fact, real.

When you begin to feel disillusioned, it’s your true self trying to resurface and reclaim its rightful place in your life. In this discussion, we will explore how we’ve reached this state of disillusionment and, more importantly, what we can do to regain a sense of freedom and wholeness, returning to a life aligned with our true selves.

The key takeaway here is that the world, as we experience it, is not reality. Reality is aligned with truth—it is fluid, constantly evolving, and inherently whole. The world, on the other hand, is made up of interpretations, systems, structures, and economic models that we have constructed in response to reality. Often, these constructs arise from a place of fear, scarcity, doubt, or shame, resulting from a lack of understanding of our true selves.

Consequently, the systems and beliefs we create are merely extensions of our disconnection from our true nature. This disconnection leads us to project an artificial world—a sort of matrix—over life itself. If we’re unaware of this, we end up mistaking this artificial world for the truth about life. When that happens, we construct an identity based on the world’s projections rather than on reality. This leads to a perpetual state of friction within ourselves.

Treating the world as reality means disowning our true nature, and this disconnection manifests in various forms of conflict. There are three main types of conflict that arise from this dissonance, which we will explore before delving into strategies for resolving them.

In essence, if the world is unreal because it’s an extension of our collective unreal relationship with ourselves and the beliefs that spring from this, we find ourselves in a challenging situation. However, it’s important to remember that while the world we’ve created may be unreal, what is truly real within us remains constant. By recognising this, we can begin to reconnect with our true nature and live in a way that is more aligned with reality itself.

The Impact of an Unreal World on Our Sense of Self

The way we are encouraged to interact with the world around us is increasingly detached from reality. This growing disconnection contributes to feelings of disillusionment, exasperation, and a sense of hopelessness. There are three main reasons why living in an unreal world causes these negative emotions.

1. Misalignment with Core Human Values

The first reason is that the constructed, unreal world often goes against our core human values. At their essence, these values are those that lead us towards wholeness—whether at the personal level, in our relationships with others, or in our connection to life itself. These values are about growth, evolution, and maintaining a sense of flow in our lives. However, the world as it is often demands that we halt this natural growth process. Once we finish our formal education and enter the workforce, we are frequently expected to fit into rigid economic models that do not allow for personal development in line with our true values.

As a result, when we feel disillusioned or exasperated, it is often because we are rebelling against this artificial relationship with life. We are not living in accordance with our values, nor are we expressing our creativity or experiencing a sense of freedom. Essential elements of human happiness, such as connecting with nature or engaging in meaningful work, are often not built into the structures of the world we’ve created. This misalignment between our values and the demands of an unreal world generates significant internal conflict.

2. Restriction by Ideological Boxes

The second reason is the world’s tendency to confine us within ideological boxes. These boxes are created by beliefs, linear thinking, and rigid ideologies. No human being can be fully defined by an ideology, as ideologies are merely tools for making sense of the chaos and complexity of real life. However, the more the world pressures us to conform to these ideologies, and the more we try to fit ourselves into them, the more friction and frustration we feel. This is because we are suppressing the vast depth, wisdom, and potential within us in order to fit into these artificial constructs.

While some ideologies might initially seem liberating or enlightening, the problem arises when we become overly attached to them. We begin to believe that our survival depends on adhering to these ideologies, which only deepens our disconnection from our true selves. If the world is driven by agendas that compel us to adopt unreal beliefs and identities, it’s inevitable that we will feel disillusioned, as we are being forced to live inauthentically.

3. Disregard for Our Moral Compass

The third reason is that the world does not align with our intrinsic moral compass. Deep down, we all have an innate sense of what is true, real, and whole. Morality, at its core, is about aligning ourselves with this sense of wholeness and connection. However, the world we live in is often fragmented, designed to keep people separated, to reduce individuals to economic units, and to prioritise profit over people. These aspects of the modern world conflict with our inner moral truth.

When we force ourselves to live in ways that contradict our moral compass, we experience a deep internal friction. This dissonance is not just a vague discomfort; it manifests as a persistent void or an inner itch that cannot be easily soothed. We carry this friction with us, and it haunts us because we are disconnected from our true selves.

The Consequences of Externalising Friction

This persistent friction often leads people to externalise their discomfort instead of looking inward to address the root cause. This tendency explains the increasing polarisation in the political landscape, particularly in the West. Many people are projecting their internal shame and disconnection onto others, rather than realigning with their true values, developing a genuine ideological understanding, and living in accordance with their moral truth.

Ultimately, when the world imposes constant friction on us, we eventually reach a breaking point. This is when we start to wake up and realise that something needs to change. The way forward is not about adapting to the world, but about making the world adapt to us, by living authentically and reconnecting with our true selves.

In my coaching practice, I encounter this scenario frequently. Many clients come to me because they’ve reached a breaking point—often due to the immense friction they feel from either going against their true selves or from the exasperation we’ve been discussing. This friction builds up to a point where they feel something has to change, or they fear they might snap in a way that could be damaging. Essentially, people are carrying around this internal conflict, but there’s an even more insidious layer to it.

The world is structured in a way that encourages people to keep others in this state of friction and unconsciousness. This might sound extreme, but it’s done subtly through mechanisms like shame and guilt. The world is designed to confine us within the ‘box’ or the ‘matrix’ we’ve discussed, and those whose identities are deeply tied to these constructs often use shame and guilt to prevent others from waking up. If you start to rebel—by living your own values or challenging the prevailing ideologies—the world responds by making you feel guilty or ashamed, as if there’s something wrong with you. This only adds to the sense of exasperation.

As a result, many people eventually run out of steam. Some give up, feeling they don’t have the energy to fight any longer, and they internalise the world’s values, ideologies, and moral codes. They trick themselves into believing the world is real, despite the inner conflict they feel. Others, however, recognise that the world is unreal but feel powerless to change it, so they go through the motions, acting as if it’s real to avoid the stress of confronting the truth. They do this to avoid the backlash from those who are still deeply entrenched in the illusion, fearing the shame and guilt that might be heaped upon them for stepping out of line.

Adapting to the world in an unreal way is ultimately a survival mechanism

This brings us back to the notion that while feeling disillusioned or exasperated is unpleasant, it’s also a positive sign of awareness. Once you start to awaken to these feelings, you’re faced with a choice: will you continue to succumb to the fragmentation of the world, or will you choose to align with what you know to be real?

In choosing the latter, something that has greatly helped me is understanding that what is real will always remain real. Just as a leopard cannot change its spots, the core of who you are cannot be altered. Often, when people find themselves overwhelmed by exasperation and friction, they seek an escape. The path of least resistance is usually to conform to the world—essentially, to ‘paint over’ their true selves in order to blend in with the world’s values, ideologies, and moral codes, thereby hiding what they know to be true about themselves. However, as we’ve discussed, a leopard cannot change its spots. You might temporarily disguise yourself to fit in, but your true nature remains unchanged.

Adapting to the world in this superficial way might seem like the easiest solution at first, but eventually, you will reach a point—perhaps five or ten years down the line—where you realise you’ve been living a facade. You’ve been playing a role within the constructed ‘matrix’ of the world to make life more manageable. This realisation often leads to what many refer to as a midlife crisis, where you understand that you’ve been living conceptually, not experientially; you’ve been existing in the world, but not in reality. At this point, you are faced with the task of undoing the false identity you’ve created under external pressures and the inner friction that has accumulated.

You can adapt to the world for a sense of short-term survival, or you can refuse to conform and instead, make the world adapt to you. This involves creating a vision for yourself that aligns with your true values, acting on it, and, most importantly, accepting the truth about who you are. This path leads to freedom rather than friction.

It’s important to note that adapting isn’t inherently negative. We can and should adapt in a real and healthy way as we navigate life, learning and evolving in response to our experiences. However, the type of adaptation we’re discussing here is different—it’s about hiding or cutting off parts of yourself to blend in with an unreal world.

There are two key things to understand about these survival mechanisms. First, when something hurts us, we often instinctively try to become more like it as a means of protection. For instance, a man hurt by a woman may adopt more feminine traits, while a woman hurt by a man may become more masculine. We adopt what we perceive as the strengths of those who have hurt us, believing it will make us stronger and more resilient in the future. But if we do this at the expense of our own nature, it only adds more friction between ourselves and reality, leading to further exasperation and disillusionment.

The second point is that these survival instincts only provide short-term relief. Adopting false values or ideologies might help you cope temporarily, as it removes the friction of resisting conformity. However, in the long term, this approach only deepens the gap between your true self and the life you’re living. Eventually, the unresolved truth about who you are will resurface, bringing with it a renewed sense of void, restlessness, and the feeling of something essential missing from your life.

In the end, while you can choose to adapt and conform to the world, this is only a temporary solution. The real you will eventually awaken, and you’ll find yourself needing to reconfigure your life to align with the truth you’ve been avoiding.

The best approach is to view disillusionment and exasperation as the beginning of a process of raising awareness. However, awareness alone isn’t enough. As I often say, the journey consists of three stages: awareness, acceptance, and action.

First, let the exasperation and disillusionment help you become more aware. Then, you need to accept the truth of what we’ve discussed here: you’re feeling this way because you’ve taken on things that aren’t truly yours—they’re not real for you. You can unlearn these false beliefs and recognise that the world, as it presents itself, is not reality.

Once you reach this point of acceptance, the next step is to start acting in alignment with what is genuinely real for you. This is where you’ll begin to reclaim your freedom. When you align with your true values and reality, the feelings of disillusionment and exasperation will no longer be burdensome. Instead, you’ll transform that inner friction into something meaningful, allowing you to move forward unencumbered by the weight of inauthenticity.

Awareness, Acceptance, & Action works every time.

So, what’s the way out of disillusionment and exasperation? It comes down to three key steps: awareness, acceptance, and action.

When you’re disillusioned, you’ve started to become aware of the gap between who you truly are and the external pressures and expectations the world imposes on you. This awareness can feel like tasting a bitter pill, but to move forward, you need to swallow it fully. By doing so, you move from mere awareness to acceptance.

Once you reach acceptance, the weight of the unreal things the world asks of you begins to lift. The illusions—this “matrix” or “veil” that separates you from life—start to dissolve. You realize that the only reason these illusions had power over you was because you had lost touch with your inner self, the real you. With acceptance comes freedom. You remember your true nature, reconnect with a sense of wholeness, and begin making decisions based on what’s real and true for you, rather than being driven by external, inauthentic influences.

From there, you can enter the third stage: action. With newfound clarity, you can act from a place of genuine values, creating a vision for your life that reflects your true self. You’ll start thinking independently, making decisions based on your own moral compass rather than being swayed by societal pressures or the latest trends. You’re no longer just reacting to the world, but living purposefully and authentically.

The lesson here is simple: the world isn’t reality, but you are. By focusing on what’s real—your real values, real connections, and real purpose—you can navigate away from disillusionment and find your true path. If you’re feeling that sense of disillusionment now, it’s a sign to shift your focus. Reconnect with what truly matters to you, find or build a community that resonates with your values, and stop living on autopilot. When you do this, the rest will fall into place.

In short, embrace your true self—your “leopard spots”—and don’t settle for living by the world’s illusions. If you feel disillusioned, it’s time to fully accept this and step into your real life. If you want to talk more about this, or need guidance, feel free to reach out to me at olianderson.co.uk/talk. Life can be amazing when we stay real and focused on what truly matters. Thanks for reading, and peace to you.

Inner Child Myths: Moving Beyond Literal Interpretations

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Coaching/Life Philosophy/Shadow Life

The inner child and misconceptions that cause us to become stagnated and fragmented.

Oh, hi there. In this article, I want to talk about the inner child and some of the misconceptions people have about this idea, particularly the tendency to take it literally. Often, the inner child can be a useful construct or metaphor that helps unblock energy and enable us to move forward in life. It reconnects us to parts of ourselves that we have become disconnected from or have disowned, which can help us develop a healthy, authentic relationship with life.

However, when we take the concept of the inner child literally, it can cause us to become frozen in time, ultimately blocking the healing process, which is fundamentally about becoming whole. If we believe that we literally have an inner child responsible for our poor choices and behavior, we end up stuck in the same cycle of thoughts, ideas, and assumptions that keep us where we don’t want to be.

This article isn’t just about the inner child; it’s about any therapeutic constructs or metaphors. Taking these constructs literally can be detrimental. If you see them as tools for growth and expansion, you’ll likely be fine. But remember, you’re one system. Anytime you create separation or fragmentation within your experience of yourself, you’re going to have a bad time.

I find it particularly interesting, and I’ve observed many times, that the inner child is just a metaphor. Despite this, some people, for various reasons we will explore in this article, treat it as literal. They act as though there is a literal child inside them that occasionally takes control of their mental, emotional, and spiritual faculties, causing them to feel out of control. They believe this child has needs that must be fed, and when it takes over, they feel justified in behaving however they like.

Maybe I’m creating a straw man argument for the sake of demonstration, but ultimately, if you take any of these constructs literally, you’re taking yourself out of reality. In reality, we are one fluid process that goes from birth, ripens, starts to decay, and then dies without any breaks in continuity. Believing in separate parts of ourselves causes us to step out of that process and become frozen in time.

The inner child is a popular example because it frequently comes up in discussions. This phenomenon can happen with many concepts, such as the shadow self or chakras. People sometimes become overly attached to these constructs, which can lead to problems in their spiritual journey. For instance, chakras, which are just energy centers where the body’s energy channels meet, are often depicted with fancy colors and superpowers. This can lead people to take them literally, which disrupts their natural flow.

This article is about recognizing that while these constructs can raise awareness and open your eyes, becoming attached to them can cause significant problems. I’ll use the inner child as an example to illustrate this point. Over-attachment to these constructs can take us out of reality. If you want to heal, feel good, and flow with life, you need to stay grounded in reality. Many constructs serve as convenient ways to avoid or resist reality. The inner child is particularly insidious because it appears to offer healing, but treating it unrealistically elevates fragments of ourselves over the whole, pulling us away from the truth. If you base your life on such misconceptions, you invite friction, frustration, and misery due to the gap between your perception and reality.

There are three main reasons we might attach to the inner child in an unrealistic way:

Distraction: Focusing on the inner child and its needs can distract us from addressing real-life issues. It allows us to avoid facing emotions and self-image challenges that come with personal growth.
Excuse for Behavior: The inner child can serve as a convenient excuse for bad behavior. For instance, in a relationship argument, blaming the inner child for a tantrum might earn sympathy and forgiveness, allowing people to avoid taking responsibility for their actions.
Relationship with the Past: This is more serious, as it involves shame, guilt, and trauma. Attaching to the inner child helps keep these negative emotions at bay. People fear that facing their trauma will be overwhelming and disrupt the identity they’ve built as a reaction to it. Thus, they use the inner child to freeze themselves and their emotions in time, forgetting that emotions are energy in motion.

In summary, while constructs like the inner child can provide insight, over-attachment can lead to avoidance of reality and personal growth. It’s essential to see these constructs as tools rather than literal truths to stay grounded and move forward in life.

And so, you need to feel these emotions and let them move through you so that you can progress to the next level and start facing reality. Looking at it this way, there are three reasons why the construct of the inner child might seem like it’s leading you toward facing and coming to terms with your past. This involves integrating the things you’ve been avoiding or need to reclaim, and releasing the things that no longer serve you.

Becoming frozen in time can give you a false sense of control over life, but that control isn’t real. The only way to have a genuine relationship with life is to let go, surrender, and start moving down the authentic path. The main problem with becoming overly attached to the inner child or any similar constructs is that they cause fragmentation of the self. Anytime you fragment yourself, you take yourself out of life and create problems. This distorts your relationship with life and prevents you from having a real connection with the truth.

The solution is to view these different parts of yourself as part of a unified whole, without putting any one of them on a pedestal or giving it more attention than it deserves. Treating a fragment as the whole makes you unreal. The most authentic relationship you can have with yourself and life is at the experiential level, not the conceptual level. These constructs are ultimately just concepts. If you use them as a filter or lens for your relationship with yourself and life, and become attached to that lens instead of what the lens is looking at—life—you remove yourself from the flow.

We are a unified whole. From birth to decay and death, it’s all one process. As we go through it, we can become more connected to life by accepting what is true, which leads us toward wholeness. Attaching to things that cause fragmentation makes their intended healing effect redundant, taking us off the necessary path and leading to more problems.

There is a real and an unreal way to approach this. The real way involves becoming more open—to life, to ourselves, and to the truth. The unreal way involves closing off, shutting down, and becoming blocked. This blockage always results from treating a fragment as the whole or viewing everything through a concept instead of experiencing it directly.

In the case of the inner child, there’s a real way to approach it. Use this construct as a tool to shape and guide your actions, helping you move forward.

Childish or childlike?

Instead of using the inner child as an excuse to hold back, shut down, and become frozen in time, it’s important to differentiate between being childlike and childish. Being childlike means bringing back valuable qualities that can help us have a genuine relationship with life—qualities that may have been metaphorically beaten out of us by life and sent into the shadow. These qualities include innocence, curiosity, joy, and spontaneity. Embracing these childlike qualities allows us to stay open, keep growing, evolving, and moving with life, filled with joy and wonder associated with childhood.

On the other hand, being childish means not being in control of your emotions, being frozen in time, having temper tantrums, and acting out. Childish behaviour often stems from a desire to protect the ego. As reality keeps evolving, it calls us to evolve with it. When we resist this call due to emotional resistance, we respond with childish temper tantrums. These tantrums are attempts to protect the image we’ve created to avoid reality, thus perpetuating avoidance, resistance, and distraction. Childish behaviour is a sign that you’re not healing; you’re trying to protect the things causing problems in your life and closing yourself off from life instead of being open to it.

As with all constructs, in the case of the inner child, you can choose to be real or unreal. Being real means moving, flowing, and evolving. Being unreal means trying to protect and preserve things that make you miserable. Acting childishly is a coping mechanism to keep reality and unresolved emotions at bay. In the short term, this might work, even attracting attention and sympathy, which some use as a substitute for the love they felt they didn’t receive in childhood and don’t know how to give themselves now. However, this is only a short-term strategy. In the long term, resisting reality will lead to more friction, frustration, and misery.

There are two main reasons people tend to choose childish behaviour. The first is simply missing childhood, longing for life to be like it was when we were children. The second is wanting to blame our childhood for the current state of our lives. Let’s explore these reasons in more detail.

One reason we want to remain in a childish state is because we miss childhood. In childhood, our relationship with cause and effect is completely different.

As adults, we constantly navigate cause and effect to achieve the results we want from life. When we’re kids, however, we experience safety, ease, and a sense of magic almost effortlessly. This is largely due to our relationship with life being intertwined with our relationship with our parents. Assuming a healthy relationship, our needs are generally met without much effort. We don’t have to work to put food on the table; babies cry and are fed. Many people miss this simplicity because navigating the law of cause and effect in adulthood can be challenging. It requires facing ourselves, facing life, and putting in effort. As a result, some adults yearn for that effortless state of childhood, whether they realize it or not. They adopt a childish mindset and lash out when reality reminds them that cause and effect dictate their lives.

The second reason people cling to childhood and act childishly is the need to blame their childhood for the current state of their lives. Bad things can happen during childhood—personally, I experienced some crazy stuff. However, once we reach adulthood, we have the capacity to accept, process, deal with, learn from, and move on from these experiences. This can be particularly difficult for those with significant trauma, but clinging to the past and blaming childhood for everything keeps us stuck. It provides a convenient excuse to avoid taking responsibility for our lives as adults. It may feel unfair if you had a tough childhood and then find yourself responsible for your life as an adult, but blaming the past only keeps you frozen in time.

If you want to move forward, you must let go of the past. This doesn’t happen instantly; it involves a process of facing emotions and coming to terms with why those who caused you harm did what they did. Ultimately, your healing is your responsibility. Clinging to the inner child in an unreal, childish way is a means of avoiding this responsibility. The inner child construct allows us to play the victim, justify temper tantrums, and cling to the past instead of moving forward. These behaviours are ways of avoiding ourselves and the reality that our lives—regardless of what we’ve been through—are ours to manage now.

Even the emotional stuff we’re holding onto is part of us. In my own life, when I think about some of the things I went through, the people who caused those events likely don’t ever think about them. They don’t care. The only reason I would hold onto it is because I’m not ready to face it. But by facing it, those issues dissolve, and you can put yourself on a real path. Childish behaviour is a way of avoiding what you need to face to take control of your own life. Ultimately, this is just a roundabout way of saying that the healthiest relationship you can have with your inner child is to realize that childhood is done; it’s gone. We are a unified whole. From birth to death, it’s all one continuous process.

If you’re attached to the concept of the inner child in an unreal way, that child isn’t a separate entity. It’s you. The seed of who you are today is that kid you used to be. Detaching from it or keeping it at arm’s length by conceptualizing and boxing it up only freezes you and takes you out of life. It’s a way of resisting instead of accepting the truth about who you are and what life is. When you see and accept the truth, you realize you have much more power than you may have been conditioned to believe. That power lies in your ability to learn, grow, evolve, and move forward no matter what.

So that was the article. I feel a bit high from writing so much, and I did drink a fair amount of coffee while going through it, so I’m a little dehydrated now. You don’t need to know that; I’m just wasting your time.

Ultimately, we talked about how these metaphors and constructs can be useful if you use them to raise awareness of some things you may have neglected within yourself. However, like with anything, if you treat the fragment as a whole and become overly attached to it as a coping mechanism, you end up screwing up your life. You take yourself out of the flow of life, stop yourself from moving in the way you want, and cause more fragmentation of the self, which takes you out of reality. This is counterproductive because reality is the only thing that can give you the healing you think you want from these constructs in the first place.

In general, I hope you got some value from this article and that it helped you think about whatever you are going through in your life. If anyone wants to talk about any of this stuff, there’s a link on my website, olianderson.co.uk/talk, where we can explore ideas and see what’s what. Ultimately, you can move forward, which of course you can. I also have a free course on my website, The 7-Day Personality Transplant System Shock For Realness & Life Purpose. Check that out if you want to grow more real. Either way, I hope this article helped you.

Peace to you. Thanks a lot.

The SHADOW DANCE: The Uncomfortable Truth About Why You’re ‘Stuck’

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Life Philosophy/Mindset/Psychology/Shadow Life

Our inner relationship with ourselves and connection to truth either causes us to become stuck or to keep flowing.

Welcome to this article where we’re going to discuss the war against the self and how our inner relationship with ourselves and our connection to the truth either keeps us flowing with life or causes us to become stuck. I will ultimately address some uncomfortable truths about why we do become stuck. This stems from inner friction and fragmentation that split us from who we truly are.

When we become split from ourselves at the most fundamental level, we end up experiencing various symptoms that cause us to become stuck. The main problem is that we identify with these symptoms, and by doing so, we exacerbate the problem because we’re dealing with identity. There is a chance that this article might upset some people. That is not my intention. I am coming from a place of love and ultimately trying to help people get moving again.

I have truly found and believe that we are here to keep evolving, flowing, and moving towards wholeness. This sense of connection to ourselves, the world, and reality is crucial. If we’re not moving with that natural drive towards wholeness, then there is almost always a mental or conceptual issue we are identifying with that causes us to hesitate and hold back unnecessarily.

In this video, I want to go over some of those symptoms so that if you are dealing with this problem, you can clear the path, start moving again, and find your real life:

Understanding this little problem of being ‘stuck’ ultimately comes down to understanding the Shadow Dance.

As with almost everything in the human condition, understanding this problem of being stuck ultimately comes down to understanding the shadow dance. That’s what I call it. You might not have heard me talk about this before; it’s the dance between the ego and the shadow.

The ego is basically the fragmented conceptual version of ourselves that we have created as an image in response to whatever we’ve been through in the past. It’s a reaction to the shame, guilt, and trauma that we have ultimately not been able to face yet. The shadow consists of all the things that we have disowned, hidden, or sent into exile because of that aforementioned shame, guilt, and trauma. The shadow and the ego are constantly battling for dominance in our lives.

Most of us cling to the ego because it comes with the illusion of control and stasis—that is, the illusion of things staying the same and not moving, when actually life is always moving. So you can see there’s an inherent contradiction between the way we relate to ourselves and life itself: the illusion of separation and independence. The shadow is actually much more real. It’s all the real things that we’ve sent into hiding because the world and ourselves are not ready to face them yet.

If we become stuck, it’s almost always because we cling to the ego version of ourselves and we’re not allowing the shadow to move and resurface in the way that it needs to so we can become integrated. When we block the shadow from re-emerging, we just end up creating a barrier between ourselves and life. So we can’t move in the direction that we need to. All of the symptoms that we’re about to talk about ultimately come back to this idea: we have identified with the illusion of control, order, and stasis, instead of the reality of chaos, growth, flow, and the real version of who we are when we align with the truth as we uncover it, live it, and breathe it.

If you have any of the symptoms that we’re about to discuss, then there’s a very high chance that at some level, you are blocking yourself from facing yourself and some of that shadow stuff that is bubbling beneath the surface, trying to get your attention. The way to become unstuck is to figure out exactly what that might be and then give it a direction to move in by developing a vision for yourself. This vision should involve qualities, skills, goals, intentions, emotions, or whatever it is that is waiting to come up to the light of consciousness.

The key ingredient, or the thing that unifies all of these symptoms, is that they treat changeable things as static. Ultimately, they’ve all fallen for the illusion of stasis or are treating fragments as the whole. This is basically the biggest mistake human beings can make: taking a trivial thing and treating it as the whole of life itself, identifying with it as though it encompasses everything about us or is an obstacle that stops everything from moving in the way that it needs to.

You’re either moving with life because life is always moving, or you’ve created some conceptual idea that is causing you to stop moving in the way that you need to. It’s all about removing those conceptual blocks so you can experience yourself and life. Then you can feel good because you’ll be flowing instead of forcing and resisting.

Let’s move on to the symptoms:

The first symptom that keeps us attached to the ego is an unreal relationship with our own emotions.

If you recognise any of these, you ultimately need to raise awareness of yourself, accept yourself, and then take action.

The first symptom that keeps us attached to the ego, thereby keeping the shadow at bay, is treating fragments as the whole. Another way to say this is treating the impermanent as permanent. The most common example of this is our emotions. As the saying goes, emotions are “energy in motion.” They are supposed to keep flowing and moving. As long as you don’t block them, they will eventually pass, and you will learn whatever you need to learn from them.

The problem arises when we’re trying to keep the shadow at bay and don’t want anything to be moving. If things keep moving, the shadow will inevitably surface. If we’re not ready to face it because we know it will cause the ego to dissolve or change form, this will cause us problems. In such cases, we don’t treat emotions as temporary, impermanent things. Instead, we fall into the trap of identifying with them and treating them as permanent aspects that define us as a person.

We label ourselves with the emotions. We don’t just have anger; we are anger. “I am angry.” We don’t just feel depressed, sad, or happy and then let these emotions pass. We become that emotion and identify with it. By doing so, we don’t allow it to pass, and we become more entrenched in the ego and the illusion of stasis. This stops the natural flow, and we wonder why we’re stuck.

The solution is to not identify with the emotions. Step back from them and feel them. It’s very important to feel them. I’m not suggesting that you ignore your feelings. All emotions need to be felt—that’s the only way you’re going to get rid of them. But if you identify with them, put them on a pedestal, or treat the fragment as the whole, you’ll end up stuck and causing problems for yourself.

The second symptom of the Shadow Dance is that you don’t embrace power of CHOICE.

The second symptom of the Shadow Dance, and a sign that the ego is winning, is the reluctance to accept and embrace the power of choice. Ultimately, we are all responsible for our own lives. We can make choices that empower us to move in the direction we want. However, if we accept that we have this power and that our current situation is undesirable, it means we have to accept that our past choices led us to where we are now. Many people become more stuck because they don’t want to acknowledge that their choices brought them to their current situation. They resist making different choices that could change their trajectory, especially if they’ve been making choices that aren’t authentic or grounded in their true selves.

The key issue here is the interplay between the ego and the shadow. If our choices have led us to an undesirable place, it’s likely because those choices were made from an ego-driven foundation, not a place of authenticity. This results in making unreal choices that produce unreal outcomes, which is why we end up stuck. To move forward, we need to forgive ourselves for past choices. These choices were likely the best we could make at the time, given our knowledge and experiences. Forgiving ourselves allows us to face the shadow issues that influenced those choices, unblock our energy, and start moving again. Without self-forgiveness, we create a box for ourselves, avoiding emotions and staying stuck.

The third uncomfortable truth is that we are often so accustomed to having problems that we don’t know who we are without them. When things are okay and we could move forward by taking real action, we often look for more problems instead. This happens because we are used to identifying with the ego version of ourselves that deals with problems. This search for problems distracts us from doing the real work that would help us grow and integrate our shadow self, thereby dissolving our current ego and aligning more with reality.

If you find yourself feeling strange or not yourself when you don’t have a problem, it’s likely an automatic reaction based on past experiences. Stepping away from this pattern and focusing on the foundation of truth in your life can help you take actions that move you away from problems. This process brings the real you to the surface, allowing you to flow with life instead of creating unnecessary problems.

Another common symptom of being stuck in the shadow dance is seeking guidance from friends or professionals like coaches or therapists but not actually taking their advice. This behaviour reinforces the ego’s hold by validating the excuses and reasons for staying stuck. A typical manifestation of this is the “yeah, but” game. This involves dismissing every solution with a “yeah, but” response, which serves to reinforce the ego’s illusion of stasis and avoid confronting the shadow self.

If you find yourself frequently saying “yeah, but” and never actually making changes despite discussing your issues, it’s likely because you want your ego’s version of reality to remain true. This behaviour prevents you from becoming who you truly are.

Lastly, a common occurrence when we’re stuck is having flashes of insight or epiphanies about how things really are and what actions to take. However, instead of embracing these insights, emotional resistance and expectations about how life should be kick in, leading to sulking rather than action. This resistance to moving forward with newfound understanding is another way the ego keeps us stuck.

To overcome this, we need to act on our insights, accept the reality of cause and effect, and embrace the necessary steps to achieve our goals.

So you’re here, and you want to be there. This is the effect, and the journey there is just cause – cause and effect. That’s how things work in the deterministic universe we find ourselves in. If you understand that, you can actually work with it. However, a lot of people, when they realize these fundamental truths, do get the insight but then start to think about how unfair it is. They don’t think it’s fair that they have to do the work. They don’t think it’s fair that we’re responsible for our lives. They don’t think it’s fair that we can make choices. They don’t think it’s fair that the same universal laws apply to everybody. In a strange way, this means that life is kind of meaningless because the universe doesn’t really care about us, and so we’re all alone in the world and we’re all just going to die.

It doesn’t matter if you think it’s fair or not. Embracing these truths and working with them is how you are going to move forward. But actually, a lot of the time, people have inner child stuff going on. This means there’s a part of them that still wants life to be like it was when they were younger, where all their needs were met by their parents or the universe or some force bigger than them. Anytime they get reminded that it’s about them taking responsibility for themselves, making choices, and using these universal laws like cause and effect to move through life, they start sulking because they think it’s not fair.

If you keep finding yourself saying that it’s not fair, this is not fair, that’s not fair, and you’re stuck, it’s a good sign that you need to accept reality rather than resisting it or distorting it. Resistance and distortion always come back to the same thing: ego. If you find yourself saying that life is not fair when what you’re really talking about is just the way life is, it’s beyond fair and unfair. It just is what it is. The way forward is to accept it so you can move with it, dissolve that ego, or at least reconfigure it and go to the next level, allowing the shadow to come to the surface.

The final symptom that I want to talk about in this article is EMOTIONAL TURBULENCE.

The final symptom I want to discuss in this article is that when we’re locked in the shadow dance and overly attached to the ego, we’re blocking that natural flow. This results in a lot of emotional turbulence, with many highs and lows. From time to time, we find something that distracts us from being stuck, but it only distracts us at the level of the ego. This means we find something that allows us to feel like our ego is the truth. For that short period, while it lasts, we feel amazing. This is usually due to a short-term distraction that often becomes an addiction, which is a topic for another video.

While we’re distracting ourselves, we feel like everything is working out and the things we’re telling ourselves at the level of the ego are the truth. For example, we might find one thing we think is a panacea for all our problems. It could be anything: our business, a relationship, or even drugs. We find something to put our energy into, alleviating the tension of inner disconnection and blocking the shadow from resurfacing. While this tension is being released, it feels amazing. But what goes up must come down. Eventually, because we’re only rearranging the furniture on the Titanic while it sinks, reality comes crashing back in. When it does, we crash down from the temporary high of whatever we were chasing, back to reality, losing the illusions that kept us in that ego place.

If you find yourself going through cycles where something makes you feel amazing for a short time, and then you crash back down to square one, repeating the cycle, it’s a sign that you’re looking for things that allow you to stay stuck in the ego. To get out of this cycle of emotional turbulence, you need to start facing that shadow stuff, so you can bring the real you to the surface and build on a solid foundation instead of a castle in the sky destined to crash down to reality.

These were the main symptoms, or some of the most common symptoms, of being stuck because you’re blocking your shadow from resurfacing. If you have this problem, one thing that can crack things open for you is finding something bigger than just yourself or your idea of yourself (the ego) to start giving yourself to. This can be anything, but as long as it’s one thing you focus on, it will take you away from the complexity and confusion that the ego brings, giving you a singular focus that draws you out of yourself.

Some examples are a higher power, a cause, your family, or a set of values. Anything that causes you to give yourself in service allows the real you to surface. This involves asking yourself who you need to become to serve in the way you want to serve. If you figure out who you want to become, you can start acting in alignment with that version of yourself, bringing those qualities to the surface. There are many strengths, goals, intentions, values, and emotions within you waiting to come to the surface, making you unstuck.

If you can find a way to serve others while bringing these qualities up, you’ll kill two birds with one stone and live the real life you want to live. It will feel amazing because you’ll be flowing with life instead of against it, no longer locked in this box.

That was an article about freeing yourself from the war against the self—just a dramatic way of saying freeing yourself from blocking yourself at the level of the ego and the shadow. We all need an ego because it helps us survive, but if you become stuck, you become overly attached to a specific version of yourself, probably one you don’t even want to be that attached to. If you notice you’ve become stuck, the way forward is to stop treating the fragments as the whole, detach from the symptoms we discussed, and realize those symptoms are not you. They’re a by-product of a fundamental disconnection from yourself and the natural flow and drive towards wholeness always trying to express itself from within you.

If you can understand that, you can free yourself, start moving again, and there will be no war against the self. You’ll feel a sense of peace because the peace of realness is what happens when you uncover and live the truth.
So that was the video. I hope it helped you. If you are stuck, you can become unstuck by facing the reality of yourself, the world, and reality. If anyone wants to talk about this stuff, you can book a call on my website, Olianderson.co.uk. Talking is just a way of exploring things and figuring out if you can move forward, which of course you can. I hope that helps.

Peace to you and take care,

Exposing Spiritual Bullshittery & ‘Divine’ Narcissism

Published on

Life Philosophy/Relationships/Shadow Life

How to stay away from spiritual bullshit on the spiritual path.

Welcome to this article about spiritual bullshittery and divine narcissism. This is an article, ultimately, about a fake kind of spirituality proliferating across the Internet and seeping into the real world, causing people more problems than it solves. I want to talk about it because, first of all, it makes me feel superior. But also, I want to distance myself from that kind of stuff, because a lot of the things I talk about creep into the spiritual realm. What I like talking about is reality, and if you talk about reality, it leads you to wholeness. Wholeness is just about connection to yourself, the world, and everything else. You can experience this directly anytime you like because it’s always there.

There’s a lot of bullshit that is really just marketing stuff, I think, that causes people to go in the opposite direction and keep chasing things that cause them to be fragmented and split within themselves, even though it’s dressed up as the quest for the truth. Ultimately, I want to explore that.

There are two main things we can talk about in this article:

One is just general spiritual bullshittery, and the other is the divine masculine and divine feminine thing, and how that is often used to justify dysfunctional, fucked-up relationships (pardon my French) between disordered personalities and neurotic personalities. It’s very interesting when you see it, but because people like to cling to their own stuff and dress it up in all the spiritual gobbledygook, I thought it’d be interesting to explore it. So let’s see what happens.

It’s probably best if I start with some definitions of what I think spirituality is when it’s not bullshit. Spirituality, really, if you think about it, is very, very simple.

It’s two things:

1. Uncovering the truth: Living in such a way where you question your assumptions, question what you’ve been told about life, etc., and take steps towards an experience of life rather than just a conceptual understanding of it. The conceptual understanding is just an interpretation, and the experience itself is the real thing, which is the truth.

2. Living in alignment with that truth whatever it is: The problem with the truth for a lot of people is that it pisses them off because the truth is the opposite of all the comfortable bullshit we’ve learned to identify with in order to keep our shadow self at bay and avoid facing the fear of facing that stuff, but also the unresolved shame, guilt, and trauma that caused us to go into hiding in the first place.

If you haven’t heard me talk about this before or you haven’t read my book, “Shadow Freedom from Bullshit in an Unreal World” it’s basically a dance that most people are involved in. I call it the shadow dance between the ego, which is the little box they’ve created for themselves to live in, and the shadow, which is all the unresolved, unfaced, unowned parts of themselves that they have become detached from, for whatever reason.

When you are on this journey to uncover the truth and then live the truth, you have no choice but to eventually face all those parts of yourself. That is an uncomfortable thing, which is why I often like to say that the truth will set you free, as Jesus said. But first, it will piss you off and make you miserable. That’s because, in the short term, what goes up must come down. All the illusions you’ve been attached to and living in the clouds of, so to speak, are going to come crashing back down to reality so that you can get that foundation of acceptance and then rebuild.

The problem is that bullshit can actually be a fun thing. It can make us feel like we’re living according to the image we want to live according to in order to keep hiding. It can make us feel like life is just some beautiful fantasy. It can make us feel like all our dreams are going to come true. Basically, we like bullshit because it is an escape from the truth. If you understand that, then there’s an inherent contradiction between anything that takes you away from the truth that claims to be spirituality and the truth itself – the journey back towards wholeness.

If you become fragmented and split within yourself, and all healing ultimately, is about that. Returning to wholeness and truth and wholeness are the same thing. The journey back to wholeness, to healing, is always going to be a little bit painful in the short term because it means letting go of all the bullshit. What I am starting to see is that there is so much stuff out there dressed up as healing and getting back on track that is actually taking people further and further into the darkness of their own bullshit instead of the light of truth.

And that’s ultimately all you need to understand: the truth is about wholeness, and bullshit is about fragmentation. If you want to heal your life or feel alive, you always need to choose wholeness over fragmentation. But there’s a ton of stuff out there causing people to be more fragmented than they need to be because it’s just pure bullshit.

Spiritual bullshit often looks like it’s about moving towards the truth. But when you step back and really look at it, you’ll see that it’s actually about resisting the truth and distorting it. It puts some filter between the direct experience of the truth and the truth itself. In other words, it’s an indirect way of seeing what’s going on inside ourselves and detaching from it.

The truth itself involves letting go, surrendering, and accepting that the truth just is what it is. We can’t control it; we can’t force it. We need to understand what it is by uncovering it so we can accept it and then build on top of it. It involves awareness. Ultimately, awareness is what allows you to see clearly. But if you have all this bullshit, confusion, and clouded ideas about what you need to do to return to the truth, you end up paying someone to give you a bullshit spiritual reading or do some energy work or whatever. If you fall into that trap, you’re actually distancing your personal relationship with the truth by adding extra steps.

First of all, you’re turning to someone else to tell you what the truth is. Secondly, they’re doing their little funny techniques and all the things they do. Thirdly, they’re adding their own interpretations, which are usually just their unconscious stuff projected onto you. So you’re just paying them to give you a bunch of assumptions based on their own unresolved issues and the shadow dance they are involved in themselves.

Most spiritual bullshit is about avoiding the truth because it causes you to resist whatever is actually going on inside you. It gives you all these other things to do. Instead of facing your own stuff, you go out there and play with some tarot cards, dance under the moon, or finger your belly button, or whatever it is. All of those things are actually just a distraction from the truth.

Of course, the truth is everywhere, and we can access it at all times. So if you go into these things with the right attitude, then maybe they can be a doorway into the truth. But in general, they’re a way of avoiding the truth because it becomes more about your ego and self-image. You’re not performing these rituals or whatever they are to let go of that image, but to reinforce it. That causes you to become more fragmented and get more and more lost down the rabbit hole of bullshittery and confusion, causing you to seek your real self.

This is why people go on these wild goose chases in the first place. They’re disconnected from themselves, but they get involved in all this stuff that just reinforces that disconnection. The way forward is to stop resisting and distorting, which means letting go of all that stuff, finding stillness, being present with yourself, and seeing the truth directly for yourself.

Ultimately, most spiritual bullshit is just bullshit because it’s an attempt for people to reinforce the beliefs they already have. Most of those beliefs don’t even belong to them; they belong to the ego. The beliefs are just an extension of this little box they’ve created for themselves to live in so they can keep avoiding their own emotional stuff. As long as you keep avoiding that emotional stuff, there’s always going to be a block or a barrier between you and the truth because you’re not allowing what needs to move inside you to move inside you so you can start moving with life. The ego ultimately stops all that stuff from going where it needs to go. The beliefs we create are ultimately just a way for us to stay in that state.

This is why there’s so much stuff online where people interact with it purely because it’s telling them that what they want to believe is actually true. For example, maybe we want to believe that we don’t have to do anything to make money in life. We can just close our eyes, finger our belly buttons, yada yada, and then all our dreams are going to come true. People love liking that stuff. It’s not because they actually think it’s true, but because they want it to be true.

It’s the same with stuff about relationships. There’s all this content that people share online about relationships, which we’ll get into more in a few minutes. Ultimately, people aren’t sharing information about what relationships actually are, how they work, and how you can come together and grow intimacy. They’re describing their fantasy.

A lot of the time, women want a guy who will deal with all their emotional outbursts and allow them to be as emotional as they want. They call this the “divine feminine.” They feel justified in destroying things or having temper tantrums as part of their femininity. If a man doesn’t accept this behavior, he’s considered not a strong man. On the other hand, men want women to be traditional wives who are subservient. It’s a fantasy. People like this stuff because it means they don’t have to grow up or change. They don’t have to do the necessary work to reconfigure their ego, allow their shadow to come up, and own their actual masculinity or femininity in a real way to come together with someone in intimacy and wholeness.

The things I’m talking about—where people just like things to justify their beliefs—are a form of control and forcing life. That is why I call it spiritual bullshit. It’s not about growing into wholeness and embracing who we are and what life is. It’s about trying to control external factors and circumstances to avoid the journey back to wholeness. It ultimately comes down to resistance and distortion. The ego mainly messes up our lives in these two ways: by causing us to resist the truth and to distort it. Ninety-nine percent of all this spiritual bullshit is just that—helping people justify what they want to believe so they don’t have to find out what’s actually true and create a belief in themselves.

Another really common form of this spiritual bullshit is projection. I’ve talked about the shadow dance. Most of us live life filtered through the ego. You can’t avoid it; there’s always going to be some ego. But if you’re aware of it, you can at least put it in the backseat. We’re living life through the ego, filtered through the ego. The cost of that is that we have all these unconscious, hidden parts of ourselves in the shadow self that are constantly trying to resurface. If we block that resurfacing process because we’re overly attached to the ego, we end up projecting the unconscious stuff onto the world around us to detach from it. This way, we avoid the painful process of facing the truth and being pissed off, as I mentioned earlier.

A lot of spiritual bullshit is just people projecting their unconscious stuff onto you. For example, maybe you’re on Instagram, and there’s a psychic doing an astro report because the moon or planets are doing something. Even though, since astrology was first invented, the planets have shifted, making it not even that accurate. But anyway, you go on Instagram, and she’s written a whole thing or made an article about how there’s something wrong with Uranus, so you have to start doing star jumps or whatever. That interpretation she put on is just her stuff. It’s not accurate in any way, shape, or form. It’s just her projecting her unconscious stuff onto the stars and then writing about it. If you find any meaning in that, it’s because you’ve projected your unconscious stuff onto it and it resonates. She doesn’t know anything about what’s going on inside you because of the stars. She’s just projecting her stuff.

Other examples include people channelling things. Because of their self-image, the ego, and its desire for them to see themselves as gifted, they experience that channelling—which is just the unconscious speaking to them—as being from some divine source or archetype they’ve attached to. Again, because of their unconscious stuff and its magnetic pull towards certain archetypes, it’s just the unconscious trying to resurface. There’s nothing magical about it. There’s a Carl Jung quote: “Until you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life and you will call it fate.” This is ultimately what he’s talking about.

I’m not saying fate doesn’t exist, or that God doesn’t exist, or that some people throughout history haven’t had a divine connection to the truth to such a high degree that they can share universal truths that apply to everyone. But what I am saying is that Linda on Instagram, who has just decided she wants to be a psychic, is just projecting her stuff. When she’s channeling and doing all this kind of thing, she’s actually communicating to herself about what she really thinks, feels, and needs to do in a way that allows her to keep her ego where it is. She’s not ready to grow through the ego resistance and distortion yet, so she brings these messages up as being from God, Angel Gabriel, or Mickey Mouse, in order to hear the messages but not actually receive them because there’s that detachment.

It’s the same with all the ‘personality’ stuff out there, like personality tests and human design. It’s generic. There’s a classic thing in astrology and similar fields where, when they’re writing horoscopes for newspapers, they’ll include a few generic statements. Anyone could read any astrological report in the newspaper and find something that resonates because it’s designed that way. When people are channelling, giving interpretations, and readings, they’re just projecting their own stuff onto you. The unconscious needs to become conscious, and that process is always unfolding, but they’re ultimately distancing themselves from it to keep their ego intact while still allowing that process to do what it’s doing. That’s why it’s bullshit.

I should point out that anything can take you closer to the truth because the truth is about wholeness, and the truth is everywhere. You don’t need to go into a monastery in the mountains. You can find the truth in a supermarket, at work, literally anywhere. If you do these rituals with the attitude that they’re about destroying or dissolving the beliefs you’ve already got and helping you break through them, then you can move closer to the truth. But you don’t need to do that because the truth is a direct experience. These things can help you move closer, maybe, but the more indirect it is and the more steps you put between you and the truth, the more you’re wasting your time.

Let’s get back to the divine masculine and feminine thing: It’s a good example of how spiritual bullshit shows up because masculine and feminine energies are real. They exist in the human experience and in nature itself. There’s yin and yang, Shiva and Shakti—these laws of polarity and how they interact have been observed for thousands of years. But with this modern divine masculine and feminine concept, it’s wrapped up in a lot of spiritual bullshit because it’s about selling people what they want to believe rather than the actual truth.

In other words, because it’s linked to marketing and such, it becomes about selling people their fantasies and what they’ll pay for rather than helping them connect to themselves as naturally masculine or feminine individuals and doing what they need to do to have a real relationship. The Internet version of divine masculine and feminine sells dysfunctional, toxic relationships as something godly and wholesome. A relationship dynamic that’s quite famous for being messed up involves one person with a disordered personality and another with a neurotic personality. This often shows up as one person with borderline personality disorder and another with narcissistic tendencies. Both are driven by unresolved shame, leading to strong egos that deal with that shame in different ways.

A disordered person externalizes everything. They don’t want to look at themselves and put everything outside of them, projecting and trying to control everything to avoid facing themselves. They blame others, try to control people, play the victim, and lack emotional intelligence and control in extreme cases. Ultimately, it’s about not taking responsibility. On the other side, a neurotic person tolerates all that because they take too much responsibility. They think they’re responsible for everything, falling into the ego’s trap of thinking they know everything and can control everything.

When you pair someone who takes too much responsibility with someone who takes none, you get a toxic dance where their egos serve each other, maintaining their egos and not allowing the unconscious to become conscious. They’re in a relationship ultimately about the unconscious becoming conscious.

And so, in these relationships, they constantly lock horns, argue, push and pull, separate, and come back together without truly developing any intimacy, which is the core of a relationship. The Internet’s version of the divine masculine and feminine sells this kind of relationship. It suggests that the divine feminine is about finding a man who tolerates an emotionally unintelligent relationship, and it tells men they must accept it to be considered men.

However, being a strong man or woman, divine or not, is about having a healthy relationship with yourself and the energy you embody. This doesn’t mean there isn’t a natural polarity; men and women generally have different energies. A man is more likely to stay grounded if he can be still and handle the external world, while a woman, or the feminine, feels more alive with movement and motion. But this doesn’t mean they must control each other and lock egos as the distorted version of divine masculine and feminine suggests. Without boundaries, mutual growth, and effective communication, which is all about maintaining egos rather than dismantling them, true intimacy will never be achieved.

This example highlights how people use toxic relationships as a way to indirectly experience the truth while maintaining their ego, filtering everything through it. A relationship should be a testing ground for intimacy, where the goal is mutual growth. If you use relationships to maintain your ego and allow your partner to do the same, you’re keeping the truth at a distance.

All spiritual bullshit operates the same way. It appears to lead you toward the truth, but it doesn’t. Of course, I’m just some guy on the Internet, and I might be projecting my own stuff into this article too. The point is, the truth is the truth. You can experience it directly wherever you are. You don’t need another person, rituals, or anything else. The truth is always real and always present. People know it’s uncomfortable to return to the truth, especially if you’ve over-attached to things and systems designed to avoid it. Consequently, people will sell you your fantasies, pain, and insecurities. All of that is spiritual bullshit.

All you really need to do, as I said, is uncover the truth and live the truth. If you can do that, you’ll keep flowing, keep growing, and avoid all the drama, tension, and stress that come from moving towards fragmentation instead of towards the whole. So, yeah, that was an article and a bit of a rusty article, if I do say so myself. I haven’t made one in a while. But anyway, that was an article about spiritual bullshit.

Even though it wasn’t the greatest article in the world, I hope that if you’ve made it this far, you can at least be open to this concept and keep your eyes open because that spiritual bullshit is everywhere. Also, pay attention to this kind of divine narcissism, where people ultimately dress up their personality defects as the solution or a panacea to all their problems. It’s ironic because it prevents them from reaching where they actually need to be, which is a place of wholeness.

Ultimately, it all comes down to what I said: the spiritual path, or if you want to call it that, the return to wholeness if you’ve been fragmented for a while, is always going to be unpleasant. If people are selling you the unpleasantness you’re already experiencing and getting you to identify with it, or if they’re selling you a fantasy and the illusion that things can always be pleasant, then it’s probably spiritual bullshit.

Remember that you need to uncover the truth and then live the truth. Part of that process is that the truth will set you free. That’s guaranteed because it leads to wholeness. Truth and wholeness are the same thing. The truth will set you free, but first, it will piss you off and make you miserable. The more you attach to all the fragments and all the bullshit you think you need, the more miserable you’ll be. But actually, you don’t need any of that stuff. All you need is your own realness, which is always with you because you are always real.

So, yeah, that was an article. I hope it helped you. If anyone wants to talk, shout at me, or call me names because of what I said in this article, you can book a call on my website, olianderson.co.uk/talk. Stay real out there. Peace be with you. Thanks a bunch.

100 Shadow Work Exercises: Making the Unconscious Conscious & Growing Real

Published on

Shadow Life/Life Philosophy

Shadow Work Will Set You Free of ‘Yourself’

If you’re on a journey to improve your life and to step away from the VOID and a sense that there’s an itch that can never be scratched, then you’re eventually going to have to face your SHADOW SELF.

To quote Shadow Life: Freedom from BS in an Unreal World:

“Your Shadow is all of the things, ‘positive’ and ‘negative’, that you’ve denied about yourself and hidden beneath the surface of the mask you forgot that you’re wearing.”

The “mask” that you forgot that you’re wearing is your EGO – the fragmented version of yourself that denies and disowns parts of your REAL SELF that have been deemed as being “unacceptable” in some way by the external world.

We put this mask on because of shame, guilt, and/or trauma that makes us feel like we have to hide who we really are in order to keep ‘surviving’ whatever we’ve been through in the past (though the more we attach to these methods of surviving, the less likely we are to thrive in the future as we get lost in reacting to life instead of responding to it).

Because these hidden parts are REAL, then then never go anywhere – they’re always there whispering (and eventually screaming) at us from beneath the surface of our lives and inviting us to come back home to a place of realness and wholeness so that we can finally live the lives we were born to live.

Until we’ve started to really integrate our Shadow, there will always be a state of disharmony or misalignment between the actions that we take and their capacity to take us deep into real life.

When I’m working with my clients, we normally end up going through a process of AWARENESS, ACCEPTANCE, and ACTION:

Awareness = deconstructing the ego so that we can see where it’s holding us back and giving us opportunities to get out of our own way and invite the flow back into our lives.

Acceptance = going with the flow once we’ve stepped aside so that we can truly accept ourselves, the world, and reality itself deeply (including the parts that we’re previously hidden/locked away behind ego because of the SHADOW DANCE that unfolds as ego and shadow battle each other for control of our lives).

Action = taking INSPIRED action once we’ve cultivated a strong foundation of acceptance in our live and learning to do what we can and then trusting life to fill in the blanks.

(“Do your best and forget the rest”).

This is more of a cycle than a linear process because we can always go DEEPER into wholeness. As long as we’re making the unconscious conscious and ensuring that all of the REAL parts of us are pointing in the same direction – instead of tearing us apart – then we’re making progress in life and will start to see evidence in the form of results that show us we’re on the right path.

The rest of this article contains 100 Shadow Work Exercises so that you can start to really listen to your Shadow and reunite yourself with some of the truths about you that are essential for moving forward in a real way.

The whole point is to uncover some of the messages from your shadow (unconscious mind) so that you can reconfigure your self-image/ego (conscious mind) and ensure that they are both pointing in the same direction.

(One reason a lot of people struggle in life and keep sabotaging themselves is because there’s disharmony between what they keep telling themselves consciously and what they really want at the level of their unconscious – this is why many people ‘sabotage’ themselves).

Choose whatever of these exercises ‘call’ to you and then do them in your own way. Don’t overthink it. Just do what needs to be done.

The whole point of any of these exercises is to get things MOVING again – there is always a natural flow towards wholeness but we end up blocking it when we resist or distort our relationship with our shadow. This is what causes friction, frustration, misery, and STRESS in our lives in many many cases.

The idea is to start communicating with your unconscious mind so that you can embrace the truth it holds and start to live it in a conscious, controlled, and more aligned way.

There’s no ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ way to do any of these exercises – it’s all about acquiring INSIGHT that frees you from the prison of EGO and gets you flowing again.

Get in touch with me at any time if you have any questions or want to go even deeper.

100 Shadow Work Exercises

Name	Basic Explanation	Steps to Perform
1. Journaling	Write about fears, insecurities, and regrets.	Set aside time daily or weekly to write without censoring your thoughts or emotions. The only aim is to face these negative feelings head on and to let them dissolve. Prompt: “What do I need to LET GO of?”
2. Inner Child Work	Connect with your inner child to heal past wounds.	Visualise or write a letter to your younger self, offering love and reassurance. Prompt: “How can I help my inner child move towards ACCEPTANCE?”
3. Letter Writing	Express unresolved feelings or ‘stuff’ to people from the past (unsent letters).	Write letters expressing your feelings to people that you have unresolved ‘stuff’ with, even if you don’t send them.
4. Mirror Work	Confront your reflection and practice self-acceptance.	Look into a mirror, speak affirmations, or have a dialogue with yourself. Tell yourself what you’re really thinking and learn to LET GO of any judgement.
5. Dream Analysis	Analyse dreams for hidden emotions and patterns.	Keep a dream journal and reflect on recurring themes or symbols. ‘ There is no ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ answer about what these themes and symbols mean but what you think they mean tells you a lot about what’s calling to you from your shadow self. Fox Mulder (yeah, from the X-files) said that “dreams are answers to questions we haven’t yet figured out how to ask.” This quote sums up how dreams can really help us to understand what our SHADOW is trying to tell us.
6. Emotional Release	Allow yourself to feel and express emotions fully.	Find a space to cry, scream, howl, shout, or express emotions through art or movement. As the old saying goes “emotions are e-motion, energy in motion” – we have to let them MOVE in order to let them pass and to integrate them. The only ‘thing’ that can block them is the mental ‘stuff’ of the ego and so if we can find healthy ways to release we can allow the unconscious and conscious to start moving together again (instead of tearing us apart).
7. Meditation	Observe thoughts and emotions without judgement.	Practice mindfulness meditation, focusing on the breath and observing sensations. People make meditation complicated and complex but all you really need to do is close your eyes and focus on your breath. If you notice your attention turns to your thoughts then return it to your breath. Breathe through your nose (nose breathing has so many benefits it’s unbelievable). If you like, you can inhale for five seconds, hold your breath for five seconds, and then exhale for five seconds.
8. Body Scan	Notice physical sensations to uncover emotions.	Lie down or sit comfortably and scan your body from head to toe, noticing tension or discomfort. The keyword here is TENSION. Tension in our bodies often affects our mental state which makes us even more ‘rigid’ in our thinking about things – this further entrenches us in ego. Learn to STRETCH (go on Youtube – there’s loads of great routines), do yoga, or invest in a foam roller.
9. Art Therapy	Express feelings through art (painting, drawing).	Create art without worrying about the outcome, focusing on self-expression. Allow the unconscious to become conscious through the creative process (our creative drives are often a ‘call’ from the shadow self to start integrating a disowned part or to release some emotion that’s blocking us). Check out my podcast Creative Status which explores how creativity is a vehicle for growing REAL by deconstructing ego, integrating shadow, and learning to trust life.
10. Shadow Dialogue	Have a conversation with your shadow self.	Write a dialogue between yourself and your shadow, exploring fears and doubts or any other messages that need to swim up from the surface. Again, you don’t have to overthink this – whatever you ‘imagine’ your shadow self to be communicating with you is going to hold some truth if you can let go of self-censorship and let the process of writing just flow.
11. Forgiveness Practice	Practice forgiving yourself and others.	Reflect on past hurts and practice forgiveness through writing or meditation. Forgiveness always takes us deeper into ACCEPTANCE because it’s about letting go of ego distortion and resistance and seeing things more clearly. If we find it hard to forgive it means that we’re clinging to our resentment because it’s allowing us to stay attached to the ego and avoid some unresolved shadow ‘stuff’.
12. Shadow Journaling	Write about hidden aspects of yourself.	Journal about traits or experiences you keep hidden from others. Increasing awareness of the parts you consciously hide from the world and embracing them will start to make room for some of the parts you’re not aware of yet to start coming through the cracks.
13. Timeline Exploration	Reflect on significant life events.	Create a timeline of your life and explore how events have shaped you. Prompt: “How did significant life events either cause you to go into hiding or allow something REAL to reveal itself about you?”
14. Role Reversal	Gain empathy by considering others’ perspectives.	Put yourself in someone else’s shoes and reflect on their viewpoint. Explore relationships where you still have something to LET GO of in order to move forward and ask yourself how things might seem from the POV of the other person (or people). Remember that there are three sides to every story: Your side, Their side, & The TRUTH. How can moving towards the truth help you to bring your shadow into the light?
15. Creative Writing	Express inner struggles and make the unconscious conscious through storytelling.	Write stories (or poems if you must) that explore your emotions and experiences and allow you to get a better sense of perspective around them. The characters in your stories are always a reflection of some aspect of yourself. You can put them in situations that will allow you to take yourself through a kind of catharsis that will lead you to healing (releasing what needs to be LET GO of and integrating what needs to be owned as you go from fragmentation to WHOLENESS). Like dreams, your stories can also help you to understand what your unconscious is trying to tell you through themes and symbols.
16. Music Therapy	Use music to access and express emotions.	Listen to music that resonates with your feelings and allow emotions to surface. This is relatively easy and simple but it comes back to the idea that emotions are “energy in motion”: the power of good music is that it carries us where we need to go (if we can let go and let it). The style of music that ‘calls’ to you will no doubt tell you a lot about what you’re trying to process beneath the surface of yourself. Experiment with different genres and styles and see what really ‘clicks’ or pulls you in a direction you need to move in.
17. Mindful Walking	Connect with nature and observe your thoughts – try to step beyond them.	Take a walk in nature, focusing on each step and observing your surroundings as though you’re an INHERENT PART of them (because you are). A lot of the time, when we talk about the Shadow, we frame the conversation only in terms of our own ‘personal’ unconscious but, actually – because of social programming and conditioning – there’s a lot of shadow aspects that are from our NATURE itself. One of these deep shadow aspects is the natural connection that we share to life and nature as a whole and our place within its flow. One reason so many people feel the VOID is because they’ve become detached from this. Mindful walking can help you to have a peak experience and remind you of your true identity in wholeness.
18. Shadow Drawing	Express and connect to shadow aspects through drawing.	Draw an image representing your shadow self – as in, literally draw your shadow. What does it look like? What does it tell you about yourself? Once again, there’s no need for self-censorship with this exercise – be audacious enough to allow yourself to just draw whatever comes up and see what it tells you about yourself as you make the unconscious conscious.
19. Scream Therapy	Release pent-up emotions through (extreme) vocalisation.	Find a private space (ideally out in nature somewhere) and scream – allowing whatever emotions need to be released. You might not think you have anything to scream about but once you let loose there’s a good chance you might surprise yourself. I actually ended up doing this exercise spontaneously one night with a girl I know up in the hills – we both thought it was stupid (but funny) to scream into the abyss at first but by the time we were done something had definitely shifted (and we lost our voices). There’s something primal that needs to be let out of most of us. If you’re feeling ‘brave’ then go give it a shot (emotions are energy in motion like we keep saying).
20. Boundary Setting	Assert boundaries and prioritise self-care and self-respect.	The easiest way to start undoing your conditioning (ego) is to start saying “NO” when it will serve you and your growth to do so (not in a selfish way – in a REAL way). So many people are locked inside themselves and hesitate and hold back on their true place in life because they have boundary issues. This is ultimately caused by unresolved SHAME that makes them believe they don’t have a right to protect their peace. When you start saying “NO” to the unreal situations and relationships in your life then you make space for the REAL stuff to creep back in (which means your shadow is becoming integrated and your ego is being reconfigured to stop blocking your path towards wholeness).
21. Breathwork	Use breath to release tension and emotions.	Practice deep breathing exercises to calm the mind and body. Nose breathing has already been mentioned because of the many benefits in can provide (we are DESIGNED to be nose breathers not mouth breathers) and so training yourself to do this as much as possible – including taping your mouth when you sleep – can give you great presence and flow. Getting out of the EGO and into the realness of moving with our SHADOW and making the unconscious conscious almost always starts with getting back in our bodies instead of just living in our heads. Making regular space in your life to breathe consciously and release tension from your experience of yourself will feed into everything else you do.
22. Shadow Dance	Express repressed emotions through movement (again: emotions are energy in motion, e-motion).	Dance freely, allowing your body to move without judgment. I’m not (too) ashamed to say that I sometimes blast some rock music and prance around my living room like a maniac. Sometimes, you just have to let your body do what it needs to do. Don’t worry about having ‘moves’ or anything like that – all you need to do is let yourself move. Note the tone of what you’re doing – is it joyful, angry, aggressive? What’s trying to get out?
23. Synchronicity Journal	Gain insights into subconscious patterns by ‘collecting’ synchronicities that you experience.	I’ve found in my own life that the more I get in the flow of making the unconscious conscious, the more synchronicities I experience (coincidences that seem to astronomical to be just “meaningless coincidence”). For example, one time, I had a coaching client in my home office and I was explaining that when he left the session and walked out of the door he was going to be on the Train (living and focused on his purpose). At that very moment, the Italian coffee moka I had on the stove started to whistle exactly like a steam train (it had never done that before). We both looked at each other in disbelief because we both caught the synchronicity. Staying open to synchronicity will give you even more experiences of it – journaling about these experiences and figuring out what it ‘mean’ can help you to understand what’s going on in the shadow that’s coming up to the light.
24. Nature Connection	Ground yourself in nature and its cycles.	Spend time outdoors, connecting with the earth and its natural cycles and processes. This is similar to #17 Mindful Walking but the point is to really get a sense of how nature is constantly changing around us and just doing what it needs to do without any real ‘effort’ or force. These natural cycles of change and growth are something that we’re constantly engaged in too – the problem for us human beings is that we get so distracted and distanced from these cycles that we think we’re separate. Again, the consequence of this is that we IDENTIFY (EGO) as something separate – this causes our natural capacity for flow to be sent into the Shadow Territory. If we can get in touch with it, then we can loosen up and learn to let go of what’s beyond our control (ultimately, reconnecting us to our TRUST which is essential for a real life and growth into wholeness).
25. Stop worrying.	Challenge limiting beliefs and affirm positivity.	You can train yourself (believe it or not) to stop worrying and to take yourself out of the HAMSTER WHEEL of negative thoughts and limiting beliefs that hold most people back. Worrying is ultimately USELESS because it’s about trying to change things you can’t control – on a deeper level, worrying is just a way for your ego to keep you where you don’t want to be. When you train yourself to stop worrying then you can stop blocking the natural drive towards wholeness as the unconscious becomes conscious. I have a free tool here (that I use with my coaching clients) that can help you to train yourself to stop negative / UNREAL thoughts in their tracks and shift to a focus on your vision instead.
26. Guided Visualisation & Meditation	Explore your inner landscape through guided imagery.	Follow guided meditations focusing on self-discovery and healing. This is similar to analysing your dreams except you can do it in a more conscious way and bring the unconscious (and the Shadow) to light through guided visualisations and meditations. The easiest thing to do is to go on YouTube and to search “Guided meditation/visualisation for [peace/stress/whatever]”. I’ve had some really great experiences with this Kundalini Meditation (it’s a bit ‘out there’ for some people).
27. Shadow Sculpting	Express shadow aspects through tactile art.	Create sculptures or collages representing your shadow self. This is similar to Exercise 18 but can take you deeper into it because of the choices you can make about materials etc. Again, it doesn’t matter if you’re ‘skilled’ or whatever – the point is that you’re doing this for yourself.
28. Fictional Character Analysis	Explore shadow aspects through literature.	Analyse characters in literature that resonate with your shadow traits. This is a good reminder that the shadow doesn’t just contain things that are ‘bad’ but also – depending on what we’ve been through and been forced to disown – many of the ‘good’ things about us too (like our joy, spontaneity, affection, need for adventure etc.). If there’s a particular character in fiction that either appeals to you or repels you then there’s probably some shadow learning to be done: If they really appeal to you (like a superhero, for example) then probably some of your hidden strengths are being called to you. If they repel you, then there’s probably something in them that you don’t want to face about yourself (but if you do face it, you’ll free yourself as you move closer to wholeness).
29. Body Movement	Connect mind and body through yoga or tai chi.	Practice mindful movement, focusing on the sensations in your body. I do yoga every day and I can honestly attest that it’s changed my life by allowing me to release so much of the tension and pain in my body and mind and to get back on a real path. In the book ‘The Body Keeps the Score’ (an amazing book about trauma if you haven’t read it) the author Bessel van der Kolk shows that yoga is one of the best ways to become EMBODIED (i.e. get out of our minds and back into our bodies after a traumatic experience – though it works for non-traumatised people too). He also shows how yoga can regulate your nervous system so that you can feel a sense of calm. My belief and experience has shown me that the wider the gap between the ego and the shadow, the wider the gap between our mind and our body. Doing yoga (I recommend power yoga in the week and yin yoga on weekends) can really help you to close that gap and start integrating the shadow and moving towards wholeness.
30. Soul Retrieval	Reclaim lost parts of yourself from past traumas.	Reflect on past wounds and how they caused you to become fragmented. For example, maybe when you were a kid your parents shamed your dreams or ambitions and so you cut them off and sent them into the shadow territory. “Soul Retrieval” is just a fancy way of saying that you figure out what was ‘lost’ so that you can open up the process of going into the shadow territory to reclaim it. If these things are REAL, then you won’t have lost them completely – they’ll just be in hiding. This is because WHAT’S REAL IS ALWAYS REAL.
31. Ancestral Healing	Heal generational wounds and patterns.	Explore your family history and its impact on your beliefs and behaviours. We usually become fragmented because of the fragmented people that brought us up and passed on their own shame (and pain) onto us because they weren’t ready to face it themselves. This isn’t because they were ‘bad’ people but because HURT PEOPLE HURT PEOPLE and they had the same thing happen to them. If you look back through your family history and try to understand what pain has been passed down to you then you can finally star to release it (and thus free the shadow self to come back to the surface).
32. Gratitude Practice	Cultivate gratitude for all aspects of yourself.	Reflect on shadow traits or experiences and find gratitude for the lessons they offer. This is the key to growing REAL: cultivating UNCONDITIONAL SELF-ACCEPTANCE. The different parts of you may be things that can be labelled ‘good’ and ‘bad’ but these labels are just a way of making sense of ourselves and the world. In REALITY, these things are beyond the duality of ‘good’ and ‘bad’ and just something that IS. (The thing that is ‘good’ or ‘bad’ is what you CHOOSE to do with them). Being grateful for EVERY aspect of who we are frees us from the ego’s need to be perfect. When we just accept that we are what we are then we have a solid foundation to truly grow and move towards wholeness. EVERYTHING about you has something to teach you about growing REAL – be grateful for these lessons and the opportunities that they bring.
33. Nature Mandala	Create mandalas using natural materials.	Arrange natural objects in a circular pattern, symbolising inner harmony and wholeness. Carl Jung believed that mandalas emerged from the collective unconscious, representing archetypal patterns and universal truths that could help us to taste wholeness and to unify and integrate opposites. He also believed that the process of creating them could help us to understand what was going on with our unconscious minds and to make it conscious.
34. Shadow Theatre	Act out inner conflicts and resolutions.	Use drama or role-playing to explore shadow aspects and potential resolutions. One of the reasons that actors find their work to be ‘healing’ is because it allows them to face parts of themselves that they’ve become disconnected from so they can integrate them (and doing it in public gives them more ownership of these parts). There’s no reason why you can’t do the same thing in your own life – re-enact scenes from your past and rewrite them, play a different version of yourself for a day, etc. The point is to FEEL what you’ve become disconnected from so it can be integrated or to RELEASE what you’re holding onto that no longer serves you. If you have somebody you can trust then you can play with this idea together. Alternatively, join an acting group or something (depending on how serious you wanna get).
35. Archetype Exploration	Identify and explore universal patterns within yourself.	Recognise archetypal roles and their influence on your psyche. This is similar to the work with fictional characters but with common themes and archetypes from throughout history. If there are certain ‘types’ of character that appeal to you (for example, the ‘hero’, the ‘mentor’, the ‘damsel’) in movies, then maybe there’s some shadow ‘stuff’ going on in you waiting to be unleashed. Alternatively, you can go on an exploration of archetypes from ancient cultures and see what ‘speaks’ to you (in the Greek myths, etc.). As with most of these exercises, what you’re looking for is what these archetypes can teach you about what is hiding beneath the surface of your current way of living and identifying. There’s always some TRUTH waiting to leak out.
36. Shadow Yoga	Use yoga poses for emotional release.	Practice yoga sequences targeting areas of tension and blocked energy. I already spoke a lot about yoga in #29 Body Movement but certain yoga poses will release certain emotions. For example, it’s said (and I’ve experienced) that a lot of TRAUMA is stored in our hips and so some poses that target this area will spontaneously make people feel emotional or even start crying. YIN YOGA is a very deep and powerful form of yoga that can help with this kind of emotional release by asking us to hold the poses for a relatively long time (up to five minutes on average, I’d say). When holding the poses for this amount of time, we go deeper into them and our bodies LET GO and just do what they need to do. This releases all kinds of ‘stuff’ and can be very powerful and healing. This is a really good Yin Yoga workout you can do at home.
37. Stream of Consciousness Writing	Explore thoughts and feelings without judgment.	Write continuously, allowing thoughts to flow without censorship. The best time to do this is either as soon as you’ve woken up or just before bed – generally, at these times, our conscious mind isn’t as active and there are less barriers to the unconscious mind just doing its ‘thing’. Unlike creative writing where you may have a fictional ‘theme’ etc. with this exercise you don’t have any idea what’s going to come out, you just let it. This is much easier if you don’t EXPECT anything or JUDGE (both ego blocks). There’s always something waiting to come out so just TRUST and let it happen. You can either set a timer and write for [8 minutes] or set a target for a set number of pages.
38. Random Word Association	Make associations to explore hidden emotions.	Use random words as prompts for writing or reflection, allowing thoughts to surface naturally. The ‘trick’ here (with a lot of this ‘stuff’) is not to think – don’t answer the prompt with your conscious mind but with your unconscious mind (then reverse engineer what you come up with by allowing your conscious and unconscious to merge into one system).
39. Shadow Poetry	Express shadow aspects through poetry.	Write poems that delve into darkness of the Shadow Territory, exploring hidden emotions and experiences. Once again, the Shadow contains both ‘good’ and ‘bad’ qualities so it doesn’t all have to be doom and gloom. Whatever qualities you fear about yourself (including the tender ones like love etc.) can be brought to the surface by playing with poetry. (It doesn’t have to be a ‘good’ poem either – most poetry that’s ever been written is ‘bad’ lol).
40. Symbolic Rituals	Use ceremony to symbolise letting go.	Create rituals to mark transitions or release past traumas, using symbolic gestures. A common example is writing down something that you want to RELEASE and then setting whatever you’ve written on fire. This is very dramatic maybe but also very symbolic and your UNCONSCIOUS MIND WORKS IN SYMBOLS & IMAGERY.
41. Reparenting Yourself	Nurture your inner child through self-care.	Engage in activities that comfort and support your inner child, offering love and reassurance. “Inner child” can be one of those buzz words that gets thrown around and then confuses people – all it really means at the simplest and most practical level is that you figure out some of the NEEDS that weren’t met in childhood and then GIVE YOURSELF them (or find ways to get them met). For example, maybe you had really strict, shame-driven parents who never gave you any kind words of encouragement. Find ways to meet this need now as an adult (by learning to encourage yourself). Maybe you didn’t get TOUCHED enough (which is vital for our development) and so you crave affection – find ways to get into your body or to work with your partner to meet this need in a healthy way (if you have one). The point is that if you become AWARE of what your “inner child” is still aching for then you can put strategies in place to finally meet these needs and release the ego ‘stuff’ that is blocking you because of this (and get the shadow moving again).
42. Graveyard Meditation	Contemplate mortality and impermanence.	Go for a walk in a cemetery, reflecting on the transient nature of life. That might be a bit extreme for some of us but only if we really ACCEPT that we’re going to be DEAD one day can we start to step away from the ego and start MOVING again. The ego is the illusion that things are FIXED but the truth is that everything keeps moving – the fact that we’re hurtling towards death is evidence of this. Many of us live in the DENIAL of death (also the name of a great book by Ernest Becker) but if we can face it then we can bring our realness out of the shadows because we won’t just accept ourselves but also LIFE. If you don’t want to walk in a cemetery you can just brood or something!
43. Sensory Exploration	Connect with your senses to ground yourself.	Engage in sensory experiences, focusing on textures, smells, and tastes. You can create scenarios and situations to really indulge in your senses (go “stop and smell the flowers”, so to speak) or you can keep it simple and just pause and reflect on what you’re sensing right NOW! Again, one of the main themes of integrating and facing shadow is to get out of our head and into our body (so we can better align the two and point them in the same direction).
44. Shadow Photography	Express shadow aspects through photography.	Go on a “photo walk” and see what your attention is drawn to. Explore your own photographs for meaning and see what they can teach you about your shadow self. Ultimately, when we let go and just allw our attention go where it needs to go, there will be something to learn about the unconscious mind and what it’s telling us. When we get in the mind flow of a photography walk, we change our state of AWARENESS as we become present with our surroundings and look for things that we find ‘photo worthy’ (i.e. worth ‘capturing’). Maybe there’s a shadow that appeals to you (a literal one), a reflection, an animal living its life without thought, a bag of trashing blowing around in the wind. Get snapping and see what you’re ‘capturing’ of yourself as well!
45. Symbolic Gestures of Goodwill	Look for opportunities to give to others.	Use symbolic gestures of goodwill to share something REAL of yourself with others. When you keep this in mind, you’ll find that there’s always opportunities to give to the world – sometimes, this might feel weird or strange but if it does it’s because there’s some EGO BLOCK (surprise, surprise) to sharing our real self with the world. We can undo our conditioning and better connect to others when opportunities to give arise and we go with it.
46. Animal Reflection	Pay attention to the animals that ‘show up’ in your life in meaningful ways and reflect on this meaning.	This may sound a bit ‘much’ for some people but – as with anything on this list – it’s the INTERPRETATIONS you put on things that show you what’s going on in your shadow (not to say that their isn’t some deeper, universal meaning). Animals are connected to the natural cycles of life and nature and can pop up in our lives at unexpected times that can seem meaningful. For example, a year ago I went hiking with a friend in the hills and he had an absolutely terrible time (kept falling over, getting tired etc.) – this brought a really frenetic energy to the day. I dropped him home after the walk and on my drive back to my place a deer jumped over a wall, in front of my car, and got hit by a car coming on the opposite side of the road (smashing its mirror into seemingly hundreds of tiny pieces). After that, the deer lay in the road right next to my car taking its last breaths and then it died right in front of me. I literally watched it pass away. Does this objectively ‘mean’ something? Maybe, maybe not. But I can take meaning from it and this can teach me a lot about my own shadow and what’s going on inside me.
47. Shadow Affirmations	Affirm positive integration of shadow aspects.	Create affirmations addressing shadow traits, affirming your commitment to releasing and/or integration. Basically, once you start to become aware of something that’s beginning to surface and either be RELEASED or INTEGRATED, then keep making a point to pause in your day and to remind yourself that it’s happening. You don’t have to FORCE it, but by keeping these things in conscious awareness you can let them flow more easily and ensure that you’re not blocking the process by falling into old patterns.
48. Shadow Journal Prompts	Use prompts for deeper exploration of shadow aspects.	Respond to journal prompts focusing on different aspects of yourself. By increasing awareness of yourself you will go deeper and deeper into ACCEPTANCE – the deeper you go into acceptance, the deeper you go into integration and ensure that the gap between ego and shadow is minimal. I have a free download here which gives 90-days of journal prompts for building overall awareness of oneself: 90-Day Journal Prompt Challenge.
49. Rage Release	Channel anger into constructive outlets.	Find a safe way to express anger, such as punching a pillow or engaging in vigorous exercise. Rage is often a product of unresolved toxic SHAME and shame leads to our (over) attachment to the ego and the presence of the Void in our lives. When you can channel your rage into something then you can RELEASE it and start dealing with the shame so it can dissolve. This might just involve whacking a punch bag, going to a boxing class, or even going to a “Rage Room” in your area (if there is one) where you can pay to smash things up in a violent manner.
50. Explore your hatred.	Look at what you can learn by exploring the things and people that you ‘hate’.	Write a list of the things or people in your life that you ‘hate’ and your REASONS for feeling this way. Hatred is a strong emotion (to state the obvious) and it almost always reveals some of our projections (hidden emotions and ideas about ourselves projected out into the external world) and can show us some of the things that we are FIGHTING within ourselves. For example, if you hate somebody in your life for being ‘weak’ or ‘cruel’ then it’s quite likely that you haven’t face your own weakness or cruelty and have sent them down into the Shadow Territory. Essentially, the more other people ‘trigger’ us to strong reactions, the more likely it is that there’s some quality in ourselves that needs integrating so we can dissolve these feelings and move forward.
51. Explore old attractions / relationships	Look for patterns and similarities in your attractions and relationships.	If we have “unfinished business” from our childhood then we tend to keep attracting people that remind us (unconsciously) of old patterns and scripts so that we can work our way through them. This is why so many people often find themselves with different partners but in the exact same situations: they’re bringing the same dynamics into their life so that they can heal and release something they’ve been clinging to without realising. For example, maybe when you were a kid, you had an exceptionally strict and hypercritical parent – this caused you to try and ‘win’ love by seeking approval and developing people pleasing tendencies. As an adult, if you look back at your relationships you might realise that you’ve been reliving the same dynamic – i.e. attracting partners who can never be pleased and keep giving you the familiar ‘buzz’ of not approving of you (so you dance through hoops to ‘win’ their love). This is just one example but exploring your own relationships for these patterns will show you how your ego has been formed and what patterns you need to smash through to free the shadow.
52. Shadow Integration Ritual	Create a ritual to integrate shadow aspects.	Design a ritual symbolizing integration and acceptance of your shadow self. This can literally be anything that ‘feels’ right to you and will be something completely personal and subjective (embodying the THEMES and SYMBOLS that you think express your shadow and feel like you’re getting things moving again). Maybe you’ll go dance beneath the moon, maybe you’ll stare into a candle for a few hours, maybe you’ll simply find some creative way to delineate a turning point of sorts… The point is to design some ritual that can serve as a rite of passage for crossing the threshold between fragmentation and wholeness – once you’ve crossover you will be deeply committed to the process of UNCONDITIONAL ACCEPTANCE and integration of the Shadow.
53. Explore your love	Look at what you can learn by exploring the things and people that you ‘love’.	Really, just the other side of the coin of exercise #50: Explore your hatred: write a list of the things and people that you love and the reasons for this (the qualities they embody etc.). A lot of the time, the qualities that we admire in others are positive qualities that we possess ourselves but that we’ve become detached or distanced from. Once you understand what some of these qualities might be then you can start to put strategies in place to figure out how you can BECOME a version of yourself that embodies these even more. This will bring them out of the Shadow Territory and back into the light where they belong.
54. Family Dynamics Reflection	Reflect on the dynamics within your family of origin.	Notice any patterns of behaviour or communication styles that have been passed down through generations, and consider how these dynamics might influence your own projections onto others. It will be especially useful to look back at some of the “hot topics” in your family of origin – for example, maybe somebody was addicted to something and it caused everybody stress, or somebody had some kind of trauma that nobody was allowed to talk about. Essentially, look back at the family that shaped you into the person you are today and think about what dysfunction might have shaped you, caused you to hold back, or simply just impacted you in some way. Prompt: “What do I still need to let go of that the original family dynamic asks me to still carry today? Who would I become if I let go?”
55. Shadow Ritual Dance	Use dance as a ritual for integrating shadow aspects.	Dance with intention, expressing and integrating shadow aspects through movement. This is similar to exercise #22 but instead of just letting loose in a free-flowing and spontaneous way you set some intentionality or specific shadow theme as motivation for your movement. Maybe you have some unresolved ‘anger’, for example – blast some angry music and get it moving again. Maybe you feel like there’s some unresolved issues around a specific incident that happened in the past – unblock yourself by re-enacting it and taking control of the situation with the new energy you bring through dance. Obviously, this isn’t for everybody but if you’re a ‘dancer’ type then get on it.
56. Art Journaling	Combine writing and art for deeper self-exploration.	Use a journal to write and create art, exploring and expressing your inner world. You can follow some journal prompts or you can simply take a stream of consciousness approach and just let whatever needs to pour out to do so. Don’t limit yourself to just words and add doodles, drawings, or whatever elaborate artistic creations you want to bring to the experience. By doing this you can bring your left and right brain into the equation and make it an even more ‘holistic’ experience.
57. Shadow Affirmation Cards	Create cards with affirmations for shadow integration.	Make cards with affirmations addressing specific shadow traits, using them for daily reflection. This is a useful exercise once you’ve started to raise AWARENESS of what’s down there in the Shadow Territory waiting to resurface. Once you’ve got a grasp of what some of these ‘things’ might be then ask yourself what your highest and most REAL vision for them might be. For example, if you notice that your creativity is finally starting to surface, ask yourself where you want to take it. Write this down on a card in the first person, PRESENT TENSE and frame it in the positive: “I am bringing my creativity to the surface and am trusting it as a vehicle to release old patterns” (or whatever). Carry these cards with you throughout the day and remember to look at them every so often. Obviously, don’t just ‘look’ but pause to really FEEL that you’re engaged in the process and to visualise where you’re headed. The whole point is to remind yourself to stay in the FLOW of managing cause and effect to get where you’re headed.
58. Shadow Puppetry	Use puppets to explore and express shadow aspects.	Create and manipulate puppets to act out scenarios representing inner conflicts or emotions. This works with different ‘parts’ of yourself that you’ve noticed and want to face but also with different SUB-PERSONALITIES you might have developed over the years to keep your ego where it needs to be as part of the SHADOW DANCE (between ego and shadow). In relation to the different parts, you might create some kind of puppet that represents your anger and another that represents the more relaxed side of yourself. In relation to sub-personalities, you might notice that there’s a version of you that’s a ‘people-pleaser’ or that has addictive tendencies and easily caves in to unhealthy habits under pressure (etc.). You can create a ‘puppet’ that represents this side of yourself and then talk it out. Again, how deeply or seriously you want to take this exercise is up to you: you might create an intricate ventriloquist dummy, you might just use your sock and stick some googly-eye on it. The point of many of these exercises is just to PLAY and stay CURIOUS about this ‘stuff’ so you can get moving again.
59. Shadow Yoga Nidra (Yogic Sleep)	Practice yoga nidra with a focus on shadow integration.	Engage in yoga nidra, focusing on integrating and accepting shadow aspects. Yoga nidra is also known as ‘yogic sleep’ and involves getting in a deep state of relaxation whilst maintaining a sense of awareness of our inner state. It’s easier to get in this state if you’ve done a (physical) yoga session but you can also just put yourself in savasana (corpse pose) and allow yourself to close your eyes, relax, and get into your breath. When you get into this deep state of relaxation, you can experience yourself as UNCONDITIONED CONSCIOUSNESS – this is the opposite of our day-to-day state of conditioned consciousness which is constantly being distracted by the hamster wheel of thoughts and the filter of identity/ego. Stepping into this unconditioned state allows you to see your true identity in wholeness and to experience the natural flow of yourself as a living being. This means you step away from the (illusory) stasis of ego and start to move with the shadow as the unconscious becomes conscious. Here’s a yoga nidra video on Youtube that can help you experience this.
60. Memory Exploration	Reflect on childhood memories for hidden insights.	Recall and journal about childhood memories, exploring emotions and experiences. This might sound a bit strange but try and remember memories that you can’t remember – you might have to close your eyes and really let go to do this but if you’re open then you’ll be taken back to places you forgot about. (Hypnotherapy can really help with this if you find a good hypnotherapist). One memory I uncovered by getting a hypnotherapy session was about my dog dying when I was a kid and my dad and stepmother laughing at me for being upset about it (the dog got attacked by a pitbull and was shaking in his bed). This allowed me to understand all kinds of things about the dynamics in that family and some of my own personality defects and tendencies as an adult (long story short: they were laughing at me because I’d just returned from my Mum’s house – my parents were divorced – and they were trying to shame me into no longer visiting her). Anyway, the point here is to see what memories are blocked from view. Once you see them, there’ll always be some learning.
61. Shadow Meditation	Meditate with a focus on exploring shadow aspects.	Practice meditation, bringing awareness to shadow aspects without judgment. We’ve already had a ‘generic’ meditation exercise but in this case you literally set the INTENTION of meeting your shadow in the meditative state. This might involve visualisation or simply just setting an intention and seeing what happens. Once something does happen, you can learn from the experience as well as cultivate a deeper ACCEPTANCE for what you uncover about yourself (again: UNCONDITIONAL SELF-ACCEPTANCE is what it’s all about).
62. Early Influences and Role Models	Explore the qualities embodied by people you admired as a child.	Go back to your childhood (again!) and reflect on some of the people that you looked up to back then. Maybe it was a movie star like Arnie, maybe it was Michael Jackson, maybe it wasn’t even somebody famous but the bin man or something like that. Think about what it was that appealed to you so much about these role models and what they were trying to call out of you. Did those qualities get embodied as you became an adult? Was it just a passing phase? Is there still some work that needs to be done? What does this tell you about your shadow and where you might be limiting yourself (if anything)?
63. Shadow Drumming	Use drumming to access and express emotions.	Drum with intention, allowing emotions to surface and be released through rhythm. This is really just another way of allowing those e-motions to get moving again (“emotions are energy in motion”). Bang on a literal bongo or simply just whack the table or something. See if you can find a natural rhythm that’s waiting to be expressed. Maybe this rhythm can teach you something? (What does its tone tell you etc.)?
64. Unresolved Conflicts	Examine the unresolved conflicts in your life.	Look at your life and the unresolved conflicts that you may be involved in with other people. This maybe a relationship that you walked away from that still has “unfinished business”, it might be a disagreement with somebody that’s still causing you irritation, or it might be a situation where there’s a real or difficult conversation that needs to be had in order to heal the relationship and move forward. What CHOICES are you making that are keeping this conflicted unresolved? What does this tell you about your ego and how it’s keeping the shadow at bay? What can you DO about this conflict? Can you resolve it by getting in touch with the person in question? Or do you just need to work on cultivating acceptance because it’s out of your control? Either way, CONFLICT is always an opportunity for learning – unresolved conflict even more so because it means there’s some kind of EGO BLOCK somewhere.
65. Gratitude Shadow Journaling	Find gratitude for shadow aspects.	Journal about shadow traits or experiences, finding gratitude for the lessons they offer. Prompt: “What are some of the sides of myself that I consciously hide from the world? What reasons do I have to be GRATEFUL for these parts of myself?” The ‘parts’ that we feel forced to disown because of social pressure etc. are still very REAL – if we can be grateful for this REALNESS, we can release the energy of these parts and bring more flow into our lives.
66. Childhood Fears	Look at fears and anxieties that shaped you as a child.	Try to remember some of the fears and anxieties that you had as a child and see what they can teach you about the person you became. You might’ve had a strong fear of one of your parents dying, for example, which was a reflection of some abandonment issue that you still carry to this day. You might’ve been scared of going too far away from the family home which is still reflected in your fear of taking risks or giving into that call to adventure in your heart. It doesn’t matter how ‘big’ or ‘small’ these fears might be but there may be some shadow learning if you can unpack them and see how they still drive you today (if they do).
67. Mindful Eating	Practice mindful eating by paying attention to your thoughts and emotions while eating.	Notice any judgments or criticisms that arise about the food or your eating habits, and reflect on what they might reveal about your relationship with food and your body. Pay attention to how you either use food as a DISTRACTION or as something that truly makes you present and allows you to get in your senses and your body. The link here to your SHADOW is that – as we’ve said in other exercises – the conflict between your ego and your shadow is really a conflict between your body and your mind. Mindful eating really allows us to bring all ‘parts’ of ourselves into a whole and to point them in the same direction.
68. Monster Metamorphosis	Imagine transforming into the monsters from your childhood nightmares or memories.	Explore what fears or insecurities these monsters represent. Reflect on the emotions and memories these monsters evoke, and journal about their symbolic meaning. I remember when I was a kid being absolutely terrified of Chucky from the ‘Child’s Play’ movies – there’s was a period of a few months where I found it really hard to sleep and found it hard to feel safe in the family home (lesson: don’t watch Child’s Play when you’re a kid). I think watching this movie really increased a fear I already had of not feeling ‘safe’ in that home – it added an extra level where I felt like I couldn’t trust my own toys and didn’t know what might happen at any moment. I could probably unpack so much from thinking about this – if you have any other ‘monsters’ from your childhood then try stepping into their shoes and see what you can learn about where you’ve been and what you’ve been through. This kind of ‘stuff’ can help you understand what formed your ego and the way you might be holding back and blocking the shadow.
69. Shadow ‘Ugly’ Portrait Painting	Use painting as a ritual for shadow integration.	Paint a self-portrait focusing solely on your perceived flaws and imperfections. Embrace and celebrate these aspects rather than trying to hide or mask them. The whole point is to simply ACCEPT (there’s a theme here!) these ‘uglier’ sides of yourself and to get into a state where you can just play with them. At the end of the day, WE ARE WHAT WE ARE. Anything that can help you see this will set you free.
70. Secret Society / Cult	Imagine you’re starting a ‘Secret Society’ or cult where all your needs are met.	Imagine that you get to be in charge of your own secret society or cult (…just imagine!) and that you can determine its overarching theme, symbols, and anything else that you think is relevant. What would this cult do? How would they spend their time? What rituals would they have? This might seem a bit ‘out there’ but it will help you to see how you would show up in the world if there were absolutely no restraints on what you were ‘allowed’ to do. Understanding this will show you what’s hiding in you and can’t find a way to be expressed because of the limitations of the ‘regular’ world. Once you know what these hidden parts are you can start to think of healthy ways to help them resurface.
71. Kink Exploration	See what your sexual ‘kinks’ might have to teach you.	Look at some of the things that could be considered ‘kinks’ when it comes to your sex life (things that you’ve expressed or that remain unexpressed but that you’re aware of). Sex isn’t something that we HAVE but something that we ARE – the version of you that wants to really show up in your most intimate moments is probably showing you something very REAL about yourself. For example, if you’re a CONTROL FREAK in your day-to-day life but you like somebody to take away your control in a sexual situation (with consent of course), then it might show you that the workaday control is just a façade because your real self actually wants to surrender (to the flow). There are all kinds of kinks and quirks that we might have – don’t judge them but see what they’re trying to teach you or how they’re helping you to make the unconscious conscious so you can heal yourself.
72. Shadow Collage Meditation	Meditate while focusing on a collage representing shadow aspects.	Meditate while gazing at a collage depicting your shadow self, allowing insights and emotions to arise. As we said in exercise #27, the act of making a collage can be therapeutic and edifying in itself – meditating on it can allow the unconscious to tell you things that you might not have expected or realised during the creative process. If you don’t want to spend time making a collage then you can find some symbol or anything else that represents the shadow and you can use as a meditation aid.
73. Lost and Found Treasures	Reflect on cherished possessions from your childhood that were lost or discarded.	Make a list of cherished possessions from your childhood that are no longer in your possession. Reflect on the emotions and memories associated with each item, and journal about their symbolic significance. I remember when I was a kid and we moved into a new house – when I went into my bedroom for the first time I found a red plastic cowboy on the floor. I have literally no idea why but that red cowboy pops up in my mind every so often and I can see it clear as day. This would be excellent fuel for this exercise as it’s already ‘calling’ to me from my unconscious mind – probably in your own life there are lost objects from the past that have thing or two to teach you in the present.
74. Reverse Role Models	Put yourself in the shoes of the people that hurt you when you were growing up.	Make a list of people from your childhood whom you disliked or envied. Reflect on the qualities or traits that triggered these feelings, and consider how they might mirror aspects of your shadow self. This might be a parent that was too strict, a bully at school, or anything else – imagine yourself in the shoes of this person and try to think about what they saw in you that made them treat you the way they did. What does this have to teach you about your own shadow in the here-and-now?
75. Time Capsule Unearthed	Imagine discovering a time capsule from your childhood.	Explore what hidden memories or emotions might be preserved inside. Again, you might end up surprising yourself here with memories that you didn’t ‘know’ you remembered – this means you’ve unblocked something that was holding you back from this awareness and start to flow with the natural drive towards wholeness. What can you learn from this ‘time capsule’? How is the past still trying to teach you to be REAL?
76. Imagine the Opposite of Yourself	Think about what the opposite of yourself might be like.	You can either journal on this, create some kind of artwork, or simply just sit and meditate. The idea is to really get a grasp of what you would be like if you were in the reverse polarity of the qualities you embody now. For example, maybe you’re a PEOPLE PLEASER who often holds back and is incredibly reserved – in this case, the opposite version of you might be hyper-aggressive and just does whatever they want without thinking about other people. Maybe you’re somebody who is ridiculously horny all the time – the opposite version of yourself might be completely averse to such behaviour. The idea is to list as many of these OPPOSITE qualities as possible and to remember the old Taoist saying that “everything contains the seed of its opposite”. The next step is to ask where you need more BALANCE – if people-pleasing is causing you issues and frustration then it’s more than likely that this OPPOSITE quality is in your shadow and needs to be actively integrated to bring more harmony.
77. Recurring Dreams	Look at the recurring dreams you’ve had in your life.	All dreams are ultimately a product of the unconscious trying to process the FRAGMENTS of our lives and to make them more WHOLE (in my understanding). If you have or have ever had a recurring dream then odds are that it’s showing you were your unconscious mind keeps meeting the same BLOCK – if you can figure out what this is then you can start to actively unblock it by looking at the shadow qualities that need freeing from ego. I used to have a recurring dream that I’d be walking down the street (or wherever) and then I’d suddenly leap into the air and be carried away by the wind. The feeling of FREEDOM that I got from being carried in this way was incredibly intense and a reflection (I know believe) of the freedom I craved in my life at the time because I was ‘stuck’ for various reasons. Now I have a lot of freedom in my life, I no longer have this dream, but it’s interesting to see what this was both teaching and giving me at that time. If you have a recurring dream then it might be your shadow’s way of giving you what your conscious life is lacking and craving so you can move towards wholeness.
78. Shadow Letter	Write a letter to your shadow.	Write a letter to your shadow self, expressing any feelings, thoughts, or questions you have towards it. How far you go with this is totally up to you but the idea is to write and let your shadow know that you’re trying to INTEGRATE it and to explore the process. If you’re feeling next level then you can write a letter back to yourself from your shadow and see what it might tell you (this will involve getting your conscious mind out of the way for obvious reasons).
79. Embrace Chaos.	Actively invite chaos into your life.	This one might be for the ‘braver’ among us but actively finding ways to invite CHAOS into our lives can help us to break free from ego and to invite something REAL back into the picture. This is because the EGO is always an illusion of false ORDER (which is why the most ego driven people are almost always control freaks – they’re trying to manipulate life to keep the shadow at bay). Inviting CHAOS breaks us free of all of the systems and structures we’ve created in our lives in order to stay in the ego’s comfort zone. To ‘invite chaos’, you might just deviate from your usual routine, you might invite somebody out for lunch that you’ve typically avoided for whatever reason, you might do something wild like go climb a mountain on a whim instead of going to work. There is CHAOS everywhere so there are plenty of opportunities.
80. Celebrate Failure	Look at your ‘failures’ and celebrate them instead of hiding from them.	We’ve all ‘failed’ at some time in our lives – this is just part of being a humble human being who isn’t omniscient or omnipotent. Instead of running from or avoiding your failures, look back and explore the ways in which these ‘failures’ really revealed something REAL about you or brought about unexpected opportunities. We’ve all heard the cliché that failure is really just a state of mind – it’s also a MENTAL BLOCK. If you can learn to celebrate your failure then you’ll also learn to celebrate the disowned parts of yourself that have been locked behind a narrative that we have to be ‘successful’ all the time (and ideas of ‘success’ that are all rooted in ego anyway).
81. Dance in the dark	Literally turn all the lights off one night and dance around in the dark.	Turn off all the lights and dance in complete darkness, allowing your movements to express the hidden depths of your shadow self. To be honest, this might be a bit overdramatic but the idea is to SYMBOLISE (your unconscious mind works in symbols and images) your familiarity with the darkness and your capacity to let go when submerged in it. (Note: most of these exercises are about LETTING GO).
82. Laugh at your Fears	Learn to see the funny side of your own fears and doubts.	Find humour in your fears and anxieties, laughing at their absurdity and reclaiming your power over them. Many of our fears, doubts, and judgement of ourselves and life are completely irrational and just an emotional ‘thing’ that’s causing us to stay blocked to real movement and growth. Make a list of the things that scare you about life and then try to imagine yourself as some outside observer laughing at these things. There’s almost some ‘angle’ where we can see the funny side because in truth NOTHING is as serious as we convince ourselves it is (because life is just a joke without a punchline really). The point is to become DISTANCED from these fears so you can reclaim your POWER over yourself by shifting your PERSPECTIVE from illusion to REALITY.
83. Name Your Demons	Look at your emotional ‘demons’ and give them names so you can start to befriend them.	We all have ‘demons’ – things that haunt us or that we’d rather not face. By not facing them, though, we just end up making the problems they bring worse (as Carl Jung said “what we resist persists”). We don’t have to force ourselves to dive right in and accept our demons blindly (if we don’t want to) but we can start the process of reconciliation by giving these demons names. Ideally, these names need to be ‘silly’ or ‘cute’ so that we can disarm them in some way and start to absorb some of their power ourselves. The main benefit of naming them is that when they show up we don’t feel as much like running but can start facing them in their familiarity. Eventually, they’re not just familiar – they become part of us (i.e. we released and integrated).
84. Wear Your Masks Proudly	Embody an extreme version of the ‘masks’ you find yourself wearing.	Instead of trying to remove your masks, wear them proudly and explore how they serve and protect different aspects of your psyche. The problem with a ‘mask’ isn’t that we’re wearing one, but that we FORGOT we were wearing one and confused it with our REALNESS. When we try too hard to ‘remove’ our masks instead of ACCEPTING them, we can cause unnecessary friction for ourselves because the mask only really exists to help us SURIVIVE. In this exercise, we make a list of the masks that we have to wear in certain social situations and contexts and then TURN UP THE VOLUME. This gives us a conscious control over the mask instead of being controlled by it. Eventually, this helps us to see what’s real and what’s not and to let go of the unreal ‘stuff’ and let the shadow do its thing.
85. Play with Taboos	Push the boundaries a little by not shying away from the taboo.	Deliberately engage with taboo subjects or behaviours and examine your reactions without judgment, recognising the societal conditioning that shapes your shadow. The reason that a lot of things are ‘taboo’ is because they’re in the collective shadow of society as a whole – for example, DEATH is a taboo topic because most of us aren’t comfortable facing this fact of life. Sometimes, if I’m in a social situation and I get a joke pop up in my head that I know is a little risqué or inappropriate I will push through that niggling voice that tells me not to say it and say it anyway. Nothing bad has ever happened from doing this but it has really helped me not to be held back by social conditioning alone. In all relationships, there will be some TABOO topics that often get ignored – these are actually beautiful opportunities for GROWTH because they always bring more TRUTH back into the situation. Explore the taboo in your own life and there will always be some shadow ‘stuff’ that gets brought up. Next time you feel like you “shouldn’t” say something, say it anyway.
86. Break Your Own Rules	Purposefully break your own rules and boundaries.	Purposely breaking your own rules and boundaries allows you to explore the freedom that comes from transcending self-imposed limitations. This will ultimately to help you learn if your rules are just arbitrary constructs that you’ve attached to for the sake of your EGO (and therefore keeping the shadow at bay) or if they’re actual REAL STANDARDS rooted in your realness. This is particularly effective around rigid rules that you might have created because of some fear of losing control. For example, maybe you’re terrified of eating calorific food sometimes in case you get a taste for it and go off the rails (eating it all the time). Maybe you won’t let yourself loosen up and have ‘fun’ by [going out/playing a video game/texting somebody that you want to talk to/whatever]. Some of these things may actually be ‘bad’ if you do them all the time (everything has an opportunity cost after all) but the point is that if you LET GO of your own rules then you can see if they still apply to your life and whatever is really going inside you. If you’re just acting on autopilot then you’ve probably become too attached to ego and you’re blocking some side of yourself from being integrated in a healthy way (which is why you need strict ‘rules’ to control it instead of being able to make a CONSCIOUS CHOICE).
87. Shadow Nature Connection	Connect with nature to explore and integrate shadow aspects.	Spend time in natural settings, reflecting on how the elements of nature mirror your shadow self. The point here is to not just connect to nature but to see how nature can REFLECT yourself back at you and show you who you really are. As we’ve said, it’s not just our personal ‘stuff’ that’s hidden in the Shadow Territory but also our superconscious connection to nature itself and the universal truths and patterns that apply to us all but get lost behind all of the layers of interpretation and BS in the world. For this exercise, you spend time in nature actively looking for things that remind you of your own true nature: Maybe it’s watching the leaves fall from the trees in autumn reminding you that we all go through cycles and that death is coming for us all. Maybe it’s watching a stream carry itself to where it needs to go without any effort or force and you remind yourself that this is how you are too at your most real. Maybe it’s looking at a vast open sky and realising how much potential you have in your own life if you can just empty your mind. There’s no ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ about these ideas and reflections – you’re just looking for messages from your deeper self (shadow) reflected on the canvas of nature itself.
88. Embrace Intimacy	Instead of avoiding intimacy, intentionally open yourself up to it.	Our ‘natural’ impulse is often to run away from intimacy because it will expose who we really are away from our masks and the protective cloak of the ego (despite us all, ironically, craving intimacy and being ‘seen’). Avoiding intimacy is a ‘safe’ way to stay in our comfort zones and to keep going through the same old patterns and scripts in life but it’s antithetical to our growth into wholeness. If there’s somebody in your life that you have an opportunity to be truly intimate (in the sense of sharing your real self) with, then step up and take it. Make a commitment to sharing the truth about yourself and life with this person to the greatest extent possible (and vice versa). This has to be somebody you can trust but if you can really let go and just allow yourself to be ‘seen’ then you will push the limits of your ego and truly taste expansion. Make some time to just really BE with somebody and to have a deep and truthful conversation and some shared moments of WHOLENESS (the ego is the opposite of reality which is why this is so powerful).
89. Challenge Authority	Question and challenge societal norms and authority figures.	Our egos are often formed and kept in place because of the sources that we deem to have ‘authority’ over our lives – if we don’t question or challenge these sources then there’s a very high chance that some of the limits this authority imposes are just keeping our shadow at bay. For example, many people still live under the ‘authority’ of the narratives they picked up in school about certain human qualities – creativity, passion, aggression – not being ‘good’ if we want to be ‘productive’ members of society. In other cases, some of us blindly follow the advice of ‘thought leaders’, ‘experts’, and ‘media personalities’ that have made careers out of telling us what to ‘think’ at the cost of not understanding what we really think ourselves. You could even take this ‘authority’ as far as the law (though I don’t recommend breaking it!) – if you just accept everything without question then it’s quite likely that you really don’t know yourself and your own power. Make a list of the authority figures in your life, what they’ve taught you, and what questions you have about these teachings. You might learn that hidden in your shadow is something much more deeply connected to the TRUTH that can open your life up and set you free.
90. Seek Darkness in Light	Look for the darkness in the things that bring ‘light’ into your life.	Look for shadows and hidden depths within seemingly bright and positive experiences, acknowledging the complexity of light and dark within every aspect of life. The ego is rooted in the idea of judgement and duality and the belief that things are either ‘light’ or ‘dark, ‘good’ or ‘bad’. Reality itself – including our own shadow and the realness that it can invite into our lives – is beyond any of this duality and is a deeply rich and beautiful cocktail of different shades. Look at the things in your life that give it meaning or a sense of lightness in the darkness. What qualities can you unpack here that may be the opposite of how you usually see these things? Few things are all ‘good’ or all ‘bad’ – if you can find the opposite qualities in the things you may have put on a pedestal then you can see where you may WANT to believe something rather than it simply just being ‘true’. In the gap between what you believe and the actual truth then you’ll see your own shadow and start moving towards wholeness. Every ‘good’ thing comes with a COST – for example, if you get married that’s ‘good’ but the cost is that you can’t be with anybody else. Every ‘bad’ thing comes with an OPPORTUNITY – for example, if you get seriously ill it will show you what’s important in life. Look at your life in these terms and see where you’re blocking movement and flow being too either/or with your thinking.
91. Embrace Rejection	Seek out rejection and embrace it as an opportunity for growth and self-discovery.	Recognise that ‘rejection’ is often a reflection of your shadow’s fears of unworthiness because of unresolved shame (a disconnection from the TRUTH about yourself and life). When we fear being rejected it’s because our ego has been built as a response to underlying fears of not being ‘good enough’ in some way and externalising the feeling that it may be possible to be ‘good enough’ to some source besides the truth (i.e. other human beings). Creating opportunities to ‘collect’ people saying ‘No’ to us can serve as a kind of ‘exposure therapy’ that removes some of the impact of being rejected and shows us that we’re ALWAYS REAL no matter what. This gives us a more solid foundation of ACCEPTANCE that can let us start moving with reality again because we’re not blocking it with ‘ego’ stuff. If you want to find a partner, for example, then create opportunities to put yourself out there and receive rejection (you might surprise yourself and get a ‘Yes’). If you’re a writer, then send your work to publishers and see how many times you can hear the word “NO”. Etc. The point is to overcome your fear of the word “NO” so you can see what remains and how you can keep saying “YES!” to yourself. That’s where the REAL ‘stuff’ is and where you’ll learn where you ego has been holding you back from seeing clearly. This will also teach you that “WHAT’S REAL IS ALWAYS REAL“.
92. Look for Unconscious Intentions	Reverse engineer your life so you can see what you really think.	We can learn a lot about what’s going on in our unconscious mind by looking at the RESULTS we keep getting in life (even though we might tell ourselves we don’t want these results). For example, maybe you keep telling yourself (at the level of identity and EGO) that you “want to lose weight” but no matter what you ‘try’ you just can’t get the pounds off. Or maybe you keep telling yourself (at the level of ego again) that you want more success in your business but it just never seems to happen. In ALL cases like these, you can pretty much guarantee that you have an UNCONSCIOUS intention that outweighs the conscious one – whatever this is will tell you about your shadow so you can finally face facts and start freeing yourself. In the case of losing weight, the unconscious intention might be that you DON’T want to lose weight because you’re scared of the responsibility of being more attractive (for example). In the case of not getting that business success, this might because you actually have an unconscious fear of rejection and so you keep sabotaging yourself. There’s a video I made about this here – ultimately, reverse engineering based on the results you keep getting is one of the most powerful ways to figure out what’s going on in your shadow and driving you.
93. Media Consumption Analysis	Look for themes in the kind of media you regularly consume.	Looking for recurring themes and patterns that occur in the media you consume can tell you a lot about what might be bubbling away beneath the surface. For example, maybe you constantly watch WAR movies or play video games about adventure and epic quests and battles. This is just an example but it’s highly likely that this is showing you something about the REAL VALUES you hold that are not being expressed in your life and are stuck in the Shadow Territory. Maybe you need more ADVENTURE, maybe you need more camaraderie (which is why those war movies call to you), maybe you need to find a sense of meaning through some kind of QUEST. Or maybe you just watch romantic comedies all the time? Probably there’s some romantic ‘side’ of you that’s not getting expression. If you can figure out these patterns then you can start to actively BRING these things into your life in a real way and start integrating the shadow.
94. Unvisited Places	Learn from the places you’ve never been but that call to you.	Different places bring different ENERGY to our lives (for example, New York city is a totally ‘masculine’ / Yang place compared to a beach in Hawaii or something which is more ‘feminine’ / Yin). There are certain places that you want to visit but that you’ve not had the chance to do so yet – you can learn a lot about your unexpressed shadow needs by looking at the energy these places embody (even if it’s just an idea you’ve picked up, not the real thing). For example, I’ve never been to Miami but there’s something about it that really appeals to me – the ocean, the extreme weather, people living lives that seem completely free but also very cool and with a bit of attitude. Miami might not be like this at all but the point is that these QUALITIES are all really important to me at some level because they ‘speak’ to me. If I can learn to ‘listen’ and start bringing some of these qualities into my life then there’s a high chance I’ll allow some shadow ‘stuff’ to swim to the surface and live a more integrated life.
95. Random Memories	Pay attention to memories that pop up out of the blue.	Pay attention to the random memories that ‘pop up’ in your experience when you’re just going about your business and doing something totally unrelated. This might be a memory about a place, a person, an experience – it really doesn’t matter…the idea is just to ‘capture’ these memories so they become something you can grasp consciously instead of it just being some nebulous thing that happens without you really ‘seeing’ it. It will be easier if you keep some kind of ‘journal’ (or just a dedicated note on your phone) so that you can train yourself to get better at capturing these memories and seeing them clearly. Once you’ve captured a memory then try and reflect on what it ‘means’ – maybe it’s just a random flash of images about a place you used to spend time in…you might decide this is telling you to face that the past is done or to go visit because you have ‘unfinished business’. As with so many of these exercises, it doesn’t matter if you’re ‘right’ (you’ll never know for sure) – it matters that you take some meaning that can teach you what’s going on beneath the surface of yourself.
96. Destroy to Create	Destroy something that you want to let go of but struggle to stop clinging to.	There are some things in our life that we would rather let go of but that we have some emotional need to cling to. In these cases, we annoy ourselves – or at least get frustrated with ourselves – because we know that we’re ready to move on but simply can’t. If there’s something in your life like this – either a physical object from the past or a toxic and unhealthy relationship in the present – then find the strength to ‘destroy’ this thing and to get rid of it. This will allow you to step away from the old patterns and ego scripts that keep you clinging and to CREATE a more real version of yourself from whatever learning you get as you move on.
97. Embrace Death	Reflect on the fact that all of this is going to be over one day.	Studies by researchers at Bar-Ilan University have shown that our brains are wired to distract us from thinking about our own mortality (though we can think about other people’s no problem!). This makes a lot of sense as the EGO (which keeps the shadow at bay) is built around the illusion that nothing ever changes, that we will stay the same forever, and that we can distract ourselves from the truth. If you want to undo some of the programming of your ego and put yourself back into the natural FLOW of life (which involves the flow of your shadow towards integration and wholeness) then reflecting on your own DEATH can get you moving again. Stop and really look around you as focus on the fact that all of this is temporary – ask yourself who you really want to BECOME before it’s all over. By thinking about this and really FEELING into it, you can see what ideas and beliefs are rooted in a need to escape life and what you really need to DO to live a real life whilst you have time. I have a free 7-Day Course with 158-page Workbook that starts with a module on ‘Death’ and helps you to find REALNESS & LIFE PURPOSE.
98. Take a Wilderness Day	Spend a day either in the wilderness of nature or in the wilderness of your mind.	A ‘Wilderness Day’ is what I call the days in my life where I actively separate myself from everybody else – either in nature or simply by staying in my apartment – and allowing whatever emotions etc. that need facing to be faced. *The real ‘wilderness’ is your unconscious mind.* So often in life, we’re running around like headless chickens – completely DISTRACTING OURSELVES from ourselves and life. A Wilderness Day is a day where you commit fully to NOT distracting yourself – you simply spend time in solitude and wait for things that need to surface to surface. The fact is that – because of the natural drive we all share towards wholeness – there are always things just outside conscious awareness that are trying to get our attention: when we stop distracting ourselves we can reveal them fully, learn from them, and move on. Exactly what a ‘Wilderness Day’ looks like will be different for all of us – for me it means lots of yoga and meditation. Figure out how you can LEARN from solitude and give yourself this amazing gift.
99. Drown in Silence	Spend a day or two in silence.	There’s so much pressure for us to constantly have the ‘right’ thing to say or to know how to make conversations flow and to evolve. This leads to a state where many of us FEAR silence because we fear that if we stop making noise then we’ll lose control completely and won’t know who we are any more. We also fear being ‘seen’ in some way before we’re ready for it (and so constant talking is a form of shame-driven control freakery). This exercise challenges you to be SILENT for as long as possible. Doing this will teach you the real value of your words and help you to determine the difference between EXPRESSING yourself for real reasons and DEPRESSING yourself (without knowing) because you’re just going through the motions. If you find it difficult to ride out silence without distracting yourself then there’s a very high chance you find it difficult to just ‘be’ with yourself and others. This almost always means there’s some ego ‘stuff’ going on and your shadow is waiting to be revealed in the silence (if you can just ride it out).
100. Embrace Absurdity	Play with situations and scenarios to remind yourself of the absurd ways we seek meaning.	Many of the goals and ambitions we hold for ourselves are really just a way of maintaining order and finding ‘meaning’ in a chaotic universe where we have very little control. Maybe – like me – you’ll try and find meaning in some creative endeavour or by trying to serve others and help them connect to themselves. Maybe you want to climb a mountain and be the ‘best’ at something so you can feel like it all ‘matters’. This exercise challenges you to actively seek the ABSURDITY in our tendency to take these things so seriously. Look around you and remind yourself to LAUGH at how crazy all this is – the ego takes things way too seriously but our shadow knows it’s all just a game. If you can embrace that and loosen up then you can PLAY with life and get in the flow.

I hope at least a few of these exercises ‘speak’ to you and give you some impetus to start raising AWARENESS of what’s going on in your unconscious mind and trying to get your attention.

The bottom line when it comes to Shadow Work is that we’re always being CALLED towards more wholeness by either RELEASING the things that no longer serve us or INTEGRATING the truths that can save us from ourselves (or…at least, the ego).

When we can step out of our own way and ‘lose ourselves to find ourselves’ then we can get into the natural rhythm of life that allows us to flow instead of only ever forcing things through ego and getting back friction, frustration and misery.

As the famous quote by Carl Jung says:

‘Until you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life and you will call it fate.’

The Shadow is constantly trying to work its way back into the centre of your life so that you can be the REAL version that you were meant to be.

By doing some of these Shadow Work exercises, you can speed up the process of making the unconscious conscious so you can make REAL CHOICES about who you are and what you’re doing with your life.

Our ‘Fate’ is the cards we were dealt with; our ‘Destiny’ is what happens with the CHOICES we make about these cards – if the gap between who you think you are and who you really are is minimal then these choices will take you where you need to be and you can live a life that’s REAL.

If you want to learn more about the Shadow and bringing your shadow life back to the surface then check out my book on the subject: Shadow Life: Freedom from BS in an Unreal World.

If you want to talk to me about working together or any of the ‘stuff’ you’ve read on this site then book a call with me or send an email.

Stay real out there,

Emotional Manipulation & Blackmail: How to Stop Being Played & Stay REAL

Published on

Life Philosophy/Mindset/Psychology/Relationships

If you don’t read this article, then you’re a terrible human being.

Oh, hi there.

Before we get started with all this, I just want to say that if you don’t read this article, then you’re a terrible human being:

You’re holding back the human race. Your degeneracy and immoral attitude towards life is ultimately ruining society.

And it’s people like you that make life way more difficult than it needs to be.

For the rest of us – the ‘good’ people out here in the world – who are just going about our business being real and so on and so forth….

Oh, wait a second. All of the things I just said were complete horsesh*t. It was my attempt to emotionally manipulate or blackmail you, into reading the rest of this long ass article – that’s because this (emotional manipulation and blackmail) is the theme of what follows.

If you read it, you’re going to become more aware of all of the emotional manipulation going on in the world and in your life, and – more importantly – I’m going to help you to become immune to it by giving you an inoculation, metaphorically speaking, so that you can stop buying into all that bs, stop being manipulated, and live a real life without unnecessary drama and nonsense.

Let’s have at it.

Emotional manipulation involves taking total responsibility for someone else’s feelings.

So before we get into the heavier stuff, let’s begin with a really simple definition of what we mean by emotional manipulation and/or blackmail, which are basically the same thing:

Emotional manipulation and blackmail is any instance of somebody else trying to make you take total responsibility for their feelings, their choices, their expectations, and ideas by turning your feelings against you.

Normally the feelings they’re going to “turn against you” are most likely to be fear, guilt and shame, and they’ll control you by creating some unreal standard of how you should behave, of how you should be, how you should feel.

If you don’t act according to this unreal standard – which is just something that they pulled out of their ass so that they can maintain their ego and not have to change or grow in life – then they’re going to put you on a guilt trip, they’re going to punish you, they’re going to basically make your life a living hell because they want you to take their feelings as your own and be responsible for them, when actually that is total nonsense (because at the end of the day, we’re all responsible for our own feelings).

If you have some kind of unresolved emotional ‘stuff’ inside you (again, usually SHAME) that makes you take on board that responsibility, then you’re going to get caught up in the cycle of being emotionally manipulated. And if you want to put an end to that, you need to ask yourself why you’re buying into it. That’s what we’re about to do.

So in this article, we’re really just going to explore why you would accept that responsibility for somebody else’s feelings and choices etc., and why you would live up or try to live up to their unrealistic standards that they have just created in order to control you in the first place (so that they can stay the same and they can watch you dance through hoops and do a whole song and dance, trying to please them so they can feel powerful).

Ultimately, that’s what this is all about: a power dynamic. And the only way that you end up giving away your power is by getting detached from your own realness, your own truth about yourself, and starting to believe some unreal nonsense that can only really belong to your ego.

And so if you can step back from your own ego ‘stuff’ and you can start to see clearly again, then you’re ultimately going to be able to stop feeding into other people’s egos, and that’s going to allow the whole house of cards to fall down.

The only reason that emotional manipulation works is because at some level, you’re choosing to be manipulated. And normally, that’s just so you don’t have to feel uncomfortable – i.e. it’s so you can feel the familiar buzz of being who you currently think you, are.

But if you’re being manipulated, then whatever it is that you think you are is unreal.

And so what you need to do is to flip the script, start being real again, and get your power back; when you do this, you remove the power over whoever it is in your life that’s manipulating you with all of this ‘stuff’.

Now, the bottom line, for the record, is that nobody is responsible for their own feelings and choices apart from themselves.

Except maybe in extreme cases, of course – if somebody’s holding a gun to your head, maybe they can coerce you and make you choose something that you don’t want.

But on a day to day basis, we are all responsible for our own feelings and our own choices.

And that means that anytime somebody tries to pass that ownership on to you, instead of owning their own feelings and choices, you have a choice to make:

You can either stop it in its tracks, or you can try and take it because of your own ego ‘stuff’ and your need to feel approval or love or whatever it is that you think you’re going to get by taking it on board.

In that moment – when you have that choice to make – that is where you have the opportunity to step into your power.

Accepting this fact of life – that we’re all responsible for our own choices and our own feelings – doesn’t mean that we should go around purposely trying to upset people or ruin their lives by upsetting them. It just means that if we’ve been real and we’re going about our lives the best way that we can, chasing our values and our true intentions and all that kind of stuff, we probably will upset at least one or two people along the way (purely because we all have different needs and agendas which is totally fine and healthy).

But as long as we’re not doing that intentionally, we don’t have to fall into the trap of being controlled when people are upset with us being on a real path whilst they’re getting worked up over something unreal in their minds – I’m just putting that out there because even though we’re not responsible for other people’s feelings, we don’t need to purposely annoy people.

But at the same time, we don’t need to get so worked up and upset if we do upset somebody that we allow ourselves to be manipulated.

Emotional manipulation is basically when people try to make you own things that aren’t yours.

So now I’m going to give you three examples of the most common types of emotional manipulation.

Once you’re aware of these, you’re going to see them all over the place because a lot of people are coming at life from a place of ego and they don’t even know that they’re manipulating other people – it’s just a survival mechanism that they’ve picked up to be able to cope in life and get the results that they think want.

And so a lot of the time it’s automatic. It’s not like people are just evil or anything like that. It’s just something that they do because they’ve always done it.

But anyway, as we already said, emotional manipulation is basically when people try and make you own things that aren’t yours, like their feelings and choices, or when they try and get you to be something that you’re not and that you can never be, because what they’re asking you to be is some unreal thing that they’ve concocted because of their own ego stuff and their desire to keep the ego where it is and to not have to face their own stuff and grow real.

So here’s the three examples:

Example #1: Feelings

The first example of emotional manipulation is the feelings thing. It shows up like this:

Somebody will say to you, “If you don’t watch read this article that I wrote, if you don’t walk my dog, if you don’t, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, I’m going to be really upset, I’m going to be really angry, I’m going to kill myself, I’m going to jump off a bridge” or whatever it is.

This is their attempt to persuade you that you are responsible for their feelings and what they do with those feelings.

Now if you’re the kind of person who has been conditioned to please everybody, i.e. you’re a people pleaser or a nice guy, whatever you want to call it, this is going to work on you because the most horrifying thing that you can imagine is making somebody feel negative emotions.

Actually, if you put yourself in the position of being responsible for this person’s feelings, or, even worse, show them that you actually will take responsibility by walking their dog or reading their stupid articles so they don’t jump off a bridge, etc. then you’re actually showing them that they can control you in that way.

When you look around you’ll see that this type of manipulation is everywhere:

It comes from our parents, sometimes it comes from our siblings, it comes from our friends -but at the end of the day, you are not responsible for anybody’s feelings except your own.

So even if they do get upset, even if they’re angry, or whatever then it’s not because of something you could or couldn’t do differently, but because of the choices they’re making about their own feelings.

Even in the absolute worst possible case of them going to jump off a bridge, it’s not because you didn’t walk their dog or whatever; it’s because – at some level – they just wanted to do that, which I know sounds really harsh, but the point is that you’re not responsible for their feelings. And if they try and make you feel that way, well…you just got manipulated.

Example #2: Choices

The second example of how manipulation and blackmail of this type shows up is around choices.

It takes place when somebody makes a choice that’s maybe not the best choice, and instead of taking responsibility for it, they try and find a way to blame you.

So maybe, for example, you go for lunch with a friend and they’re on a diet or wherever it is, and during the lunch, they end up just eating loads of calories and going away from the diet plan that they’re on.

After the meal, they start blaming you:

“Oh, my God, I can’t believe you let me order that on the menu. Like, you know, I’m on a diet and blah, blah, blah.”

Or maybe you got another friend who is trying not to drink alcohol, and, you go out and they have a few pints, and then the next day, well, it’s your fault because you let it happen.

Now, maybe you could have tried to talk them out of it if you so desired, but ultimately, that choice was theirs. And as soon as you let them put you on a guilt trip for the choice that they made, well, again… you just got manipulated.

As soon as you start kind of trying to pacify these kinds of people – or put an argument forward as to why you let it happen or why you wish you didn’t let it happen or you show that you feel bad about it or whatever – well, congratulations…you’ve just been manipulated again.

Example #3: Being

The third form of this kind of emotional manipulation is sometimes quite subtle, but it’s also very common, and it happens all over the place.

This is the kind of manipulation I’ve already alluded to where somebody pulls an unrealistic standard out of their bee-hind and then they use that standard against you, even though it’s just something that they concocted because of their own ego.

Once they’ve conjured up this standard, they try and use it as a sort of box that they want you to live in so that they can keep you under control and so that they stay the same (they need the box to avoid facing their own ‘stuff’) – ultimately, what we’re talking about here is a kind of control freakery.

We can safely say that these people are control freaks because they’re filtering life through the ego and the only way that their ego can maintain its hold over them is if you voluntarily put yourself in this kind of a box so that they can stay in their comfort zone.

Ultimately, the way that this box takes shape by demanding that you be something that you’re not.

Three really common examples or, areas where this happens are in relationships, friendships and at work.

So, for example, in relationships, your partner might say, “Right, if you don’t remember every single little detail of my life, then you don’t love me” – and ultimately that’s impossible because nobody can remember every single little detail of somebody’s life (and doing so has nothing to do with love but how good your memory is).

As soon as you buy into this idea and trying living up to it as though it’s actual reality, well, you’re putting yourself up for all kinds of guilt trips. They’re going to be able to control you. They’re going to say, “Well, because you don’t remember every little detail of my life and you don’t love me, you’re going to have to walk my dog and you’re going to have to do this, you’re going to have to do that.”

It’s all bs though and it only maintains its hold over you because you choose to let it.

In friendships, they might say something like, “If you don’t lend me £1000 (or whatever) you’re not a real friend” – and the box, ultimately, is shaped by this definition of “a real friend”.

That’s what all of these kinds of thing are about in relation to how you should “be”:

They create a label that is ultimately a mask for all kinds of bs that you can never live up to but that you’re required to live up to in order to receive emotional validation. If you don’t know that you can give yourself this validation then you’ll be ensnared in the trap.

That’s really the whole point of these labels and ‘standard’ from the POV of the manipulator/blackmailer:

You’re not supposed to be able to live up to it because if you can, they’re not going to have anything to moan about and manipulate you with.

Anyway, so, in the ‘friendship’ thing, this kind of manipulation shows up like this:

“If you don’t call me every night and listen to me talk about all my problems nonstop, you’re not a real friend.”

“If you don’t drop all of your plans, you’re not a real friend.”

Basically, the box is the idea of a “real friend” and they can come up with all kinds of highfalutin ideas about what it means to live in that box. But actually, you don’t want to live in the box. That’s the whole point. You want to get out of it.

The third thing is, third example here is at work, your boss might say, “If you don’t work on a Saturday, then you’re not going to get that promotion. You’re not a good employee”, or “If you don’t stay and do overtime, even though it’s not in your contract, then you obviously don’t care about this place, and you’re not part of the family here in the workplace, and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah”.

It’s all nonsense. They’re saying that you should be a certain thing so that you can live up to their standards and climb into another one of those ‘boxes’.

As soon as you try to be whatever that is, instead of realising that it’s just pure nonsense and refusing to feed into it, then you’ve been manipulated.

In all of these cases, emotional manipulation only works if you let it – whether it’s about taking responsibility for their feelings, their choices, or trying to live up to being some unreal standard just so that their ego can maintain its hold over them, the solution in all cases is the same, and it’s very simple:

Don’t feed into it with your own ego.

The only reason you’d buy into this kind of manipulation is because your ego is causing you to believe something unreal, and so, the solution, as always – because “REAL ALWAYS WORKS” – is to step back, find your realness, and to ground yourself in something true.

And as soon as you do that, you’re no longer pouring gasoline on the fire by allowing your ego to meet their ego.

Now, often if you resist – in fact, usually if you resist – the next level after the initial manipulation is that they’re going to try and punish you:

They might make threats or they might give you the silent treatment. They might call you all kinds of names. They might constantly put you on a guilt trip and try to make you feel bad.

We could fill a whole thick book with examples of the kind of punishment that these manipulators are going to try and enforce upon you if you don’t buy into the manipulation… but in all cases, the solution is the same and it’s simply to just not feed into it.

As soon as somebody gives you the silent treatment, for example, and you start chasing after them and trying to beseech them and get down on your knees and beg that they start talking to you again, all you’ve done is managed to show them that the manipulation is working.

In other words, any attempts to appease them by giving them what they want is only going to make the situation worse.

So let’s take a quick look at how by just being REAL you can give yourself an immunization to the emotional manipulation and black by not feeding it.

Don’t feed the Gremlin.

“Do not feed the gremlin” – this is the lesson to remember next.

The solution to the problem of emotional manipulation is always to find your realness again.

I know that sounds simplistic, but the only way that you can be manipulated is because you had a moment of being unreal that taught whoever is manipulating you how to press your buttons – and if you have a button that can be pressed, it simply means that you have some unresolved shame or guilt – or even trauma (in the most extreme cases) – around something that whenever it’s pressed causes you to react in an unreal way.

The mechanics behind this are simple:

Every time that button is pressed, it’s ultimately just causing your emotions to send your ego kicking into gear – once this has been triggered you’re going to feed into the ego dance between yourself and the manipulator where you’re engaged in the power battle we talked about for being responsible for their feelings, their choices, and being whatever it is that they say you should be – so that they can finally approve of you and make you feel good (when if you focus on being REAL, you can naturally feel good about yourself anyway without them giving you the approval and validation and all that kind of stuff).

And so, what I’m saying is that you need to take the power back by realising that the only person who can press your buttons is you – and you can only do that by facing the underlying emotional ‘stuff’ that is causing those buttons to be ‘pressable’ in the first place.

There are a few strategies here that can help you in relation to these emotional manipulators and they’re all very simple:

The overarching strategy is what I’ve already said:

Don’t feed the Gremlin.

If you realise that somebody is emotionally manipulating you, then the best thing to do is to ignore them. If somebody is giving you the silent treatment, for example, ignore them right back until they cool off and come back.

Let them go off and be silent and brood and do whatever it is that they’re doing – just don’t chase after them. That’s the worst thing you can do.

If somebody is giving you the whole spiel about how if you don’t do a certain thing, then you’re not a “good friend” or a “good lover” or a “good employee” or whatever else, let them think that and don’t be shaken from yourself.

“So be it. Okay, then. I’m not a good lover. I’m not a good friend. I’m not a good employee. Oh, my God, the world is going to crumble around me.”

Not.

(Because the standard that they’re holding you accountable to is not real).

And so, ultimately, this is always the best policy: Just ignore them. Let them get on with it.

Don’t feed the Gremlin.

That will show you that they actually have no power over you – because by ignoring it, you’re kind of going to flip the script.

If they really do care about you, deep down, they’re going to have to come back to you and change the whole dynamic of the relationship by communicating in a different way and looking at how their behaviour is only serving their ego and not the relationship.

If they don’t? Well, remember the sacred mantra:

“Gimme something REAL or GTFO”.

So that’s the ultimate way to avoid the manipulation. Just ignore it and don’t feed that gremlin.

If you got some ego stuff going on, that’s going to be hard. You’re going to have a little voice in your head saying, “Oh, help me Lord, I can’t believe I’m ignoring this person. I’m a bad person”.

Or, you’ll have another niggling voice saying, “Oh, Heaven’s above, what if I am a bad lover? What if I am a bad friend?”

No. That voice is your conditioning but you’ve confused it for your conscience. It’s the ego.

If you’re coming from a place of wholeness and you care about that person and you’re there for them, but you still care about yourself and your own life, that doesn’t make you a bad anything – it means you have healthy boundaries (shock! horror!).

You’re a human being, and there’s no point trying to live up to these UNREAL standards that people create so that they can manipulate you for their own shame-driven reasons (don’t judge them, though, just ignore them and don’t feed the gremlin)!

You can set boundaries or walk away if someone is manipulating you.

The other two things that you can do are:

One, you can just say “No!” and set the boundaries.

Boundaries always begin by saying “No” to the unreal ‘stuff’ and “Yes” to the REAL.

You might have to say it a few times but eventually they’ll get the message…

There’s a famous technique in assertiveness training called the ‘Broken Record Technique’ where you literally just say the same line every time.

So if somebody says to you, for example, “Go walk my dog or I’m going to jump off a bridge”, you can say, “Well, look, I really don’t want you to jump off a bridge because I love you and I care about you, but I’m not going to walk your dog right now because I have to go focus on my own thing and do some yoga or whatever.”

Then they’ll come back at you with more manipulation, “Oh, you don’t love me, blah, blah, blah. You want me to jump off a bridge”.

Just say the same thing (like a broken record):

“Well, actually I really don’t want you to jump off a bridge because I really love you and I think you’re an amazing person. But I have to go do this other thing right now. Sorry about that.”

The other thing you can do is to remember the super ultimate mantra that comes into play in all relationships, which is the one I mentioned above:

“Gimme something real or GTFO”.

If somebody is only ever manipulating you and your attempts to not buy into it or to set boundaries don’t work, then you’re actually allowed to just walk away.

And maybe when you do walk away, they’ll reflect and they’ll realise that they need to change their way of doing things – or maybe you’ll never see them again, but it’s better to be alone than in unreal company.

If you know that and you have an abundance mindset – which means you can understand there are other opportunities out there and that you don’t have to put up with this kind of treatment – life gets way easier and more real as you’ll remove unnecessary drama from your life.

So in the face of manipulation and blackmail you can either:

Ignore it by remembering not to feed the gremlin and so it loses it’s power.
You can say “No” and set boundaries (which may make things worse depending on the person).
You can just GTFO and go find someone who actually appreciates you and isn’t going to manipulate you.

Three reasons why people may not step into their realness in the face of emotional manipulation:

So I want to finish this article with three main reasons why people may not step into their realness and end this cycle of manipulation that they may have found themselves in.

These are really common reasons, and if you understand them, it’s going to give you that awareness to be able to make that choice to step into something real and not keep going around in circles trying to please somebody who can never ever be pleased.

The bottom line with all this is that manipulators and blackmailers can’t be pleased – they’re a black hole of shame that has consumed them:

They don’t want to be pleased. They want to manipulate you so they can feel powerful – and if you understand that, it’s going to make it easier to step into your realness and be who you need to be.

The first reason that stops a lot of people ending this cycle of emotional manipulation is that they have unresolved shame and guilt themselves (they’re shame-driven people, ultimately, and so they don’t know how to be real because the opposite of realness is ego which is always fuelled by shame).

If you have guilt, you’re going to be really easy to control, because guilt is ultimately just a useless case of some external voice infiltrating our brains and telling us that there’s something wrong with us because we’re not doing this or we’re not doing that (shame, in contrast, is about there something ‘wrong’ with your being itself – always unreal!).

If you’re carrying guilt like this, then you’re ultimately going to have buttons that can be pressed.

And it’s the same with shame:

If you have feelings of worthlessness or that you’re not good enough, it means that you don’t accept yourself and that you’re avoiding something inside your experience of who you are that’s causing these buttons to be ‘pressable’ in the first place. And so actually, the solution is to face those unresolved emotions.

Normally, what happens when people face them, they finally (after years of avoidance) just look at them head on, is they dissolve. It’s the resistance that causes them to linger in the first place. And we resist them by hiding behind our own egos.

As soon as we take the ego out of the equation and we take a good long look at what’s going on inside us, those buttons can no longer be pressed, because the buttons mean that we’re resisting something.

When we turn inwards and we face the truth about who we are, we are going to be way less likely to be ‘manipulatable’, because people will still try and press the buttons, but – like I said earlier – we now realise that the power of the button is in our hands.

That’s the most important thing to remember:

You can only be manipulated if your buttons can be pressed; your buttons can only be pressed if you’re resisting something; the power to face things is always in your hands.

So you can avoid all kinds of external ‘button pressing’ by staying grounded in your realness and by understanding what’s making those buttons ‘pressable’ in the first place.

All you need to do is start finding ways to make whatever you’re resisting dissolve, which always means bringing the truth into our lives, allowing the unconscious to become conscious.

Once you do this, you’ll be free of your own inner fragmentation whilst also being free of the external fragmentation in the form of these relationships where you get endlessly manipulated until you reclaim your power.

The second thing that stops people from staying real – being grounded in their realness in the face of these emotional manipulators, and either ignoring what they’re doing (ignoring the silent treatment, for example, or walking away, or setting a boundary) – is a fear of conflict.

They’re worried that if they go back to being real, then the unreal person in this situation – the emotional manipulator – is going to do something that the real person, or the person trying to break the cycle, can’t tolerate – or is going to cause them to be in a situation where they feel lonely, or they feel bad about themselves, or whatever it is.

When this happens it’s actually just a sign that you (the person being manipulated/blackmailed in this scenario) don’t have an abundance mindset.

For example, maybe you’re in a relationship and somebody is constantly manipulating you and you’ve tried to set the boundary or whatever it is, and you’re ready to step up – to actually call them out on it – but you’re worried that they’re going to end the relationship if you do.

Well… that’s because you have a scarcity mindset.

An abundance mindset would show you that if they do end the relationship, maybe that’s for the best.

Because why would you want to be in a relationship with someone that’s manipulating you all the time, even after you set boundaries and expressed what’s REAL to you?

It’s the same with a friendship:

If you have a friend who’s always taking the p*ss and trying to send you on a guilt trip or whatever it is…

Maybe, for example, you call attention to it and they say, “Right, that’s it, F you, I’m not your friend anymore” and they disappear.

Is this a ‘bad’ thing or have they just done you a favour?

The same with a job:

Obviously, jobs and our ability to pay the bills and stuff are intertwined – but, at the end of the day, if you tell your boss that you’re sick of this emotional manipulation and he says, “Right, that’s it – you’re fired!”

Well, s/he’s just done you a favour as well – but if you have a scarcity mindset, you’re not going to realise that you can go replace these things – your unreal relationships, ‘friendships’, employment situations, or whatever they are – and because you’re probably replacing them with something better or more REAL, well…it’s nothing to worry about.

It just means some short term discomfort as you rearrange the fabric of your life and go from unreal to real.

The third main reason that stops people from breaking the cycle of emotional manipulation by being real is that they actually have empathy and compassion for the person manipulating them.

Now, empathy and compassion, we all like those things, right?

Obviously, it’s very important to have them.

But in this case of dealing with an emotional manipulator, empathy and compassion are actually your enemies. They just make the situation worse.

For example, if you start telling yourself a story like “this person is manipulating me because they had a difficult childhood”, or “they’re going through a lot of stress at the moment”, or whatever it is, you’re actually making your life more difficult, because by doing that, it’s going to change your thinking and feeling in that way is going to change your behaviour towards the person and you’re going to cave into the manipulations.

In a strange way, the empathy and compassion are just going to make you more easy to manipulate in this kind of scenario.

What you need to do is remind yourself that manipulators are human beings too:

We can have sympathy for them and understand that, “Okay, life is difficult and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah”, but we need to remember that you can’t pour from an empty cup, and so if you’re putting them before yourself in this situation, you’re just going to keep being manipulated because you’re showing them that you are going to submit to them and their manipulations. In other words, the cycle is never going to end.

This doesn’t make you a ‘bad’ person. It just means you may have to be a little bit emotionally reserved so that you don’t give into their ego ‘stuff’ and whatever sob story comes with it because – the moment that you do – you’re giving your power over to them.

None of this is to say that we shouldn’t be compassionate in life – it just means that in this particular case, if you’re too compassionate towards someone that’s manipulating you, you’re just giving them permission to keep doing it.

So that’s ultimately all I need to say for now:

Emotional manipulation is a power struggle. “Power” is the key word because the only way that you can give away your power is by giving into illusions, which means that your ego is in control instead of your realness.

As soon as you do that, you meet the ego of the manipulator with your own ego because of your own unconscious shame and guilt and trauma and all these kind of things, then you’re just going to keep this cycle, this dance of emotional manipulation going by feeding the gremlin.

You can end the cycle at any time by just being real and not feeding into it – but to do that, you have to really be grounded in your realness because the manipulator is going to challenge you:

They’re going to try and make things worse. They’re going to push those buttons more and more and more.

But if you just stay real and you stay grounded, it’s almost impossible to be manipulated.

After reading this (long ass) article you know that there’s people trying to make you responsible for their feelings and their choices – or that they’re trying to get you to be something you never can be.

You’re going to see this all over the place. And it’s not just between people in ‘real’ life:

You turn on the TV, someone’s going to be manipulating you; you’re scrolling through your social media, some influencer is going to be trying to manipulate you – it’s everywhere.

But no matter where you’re experiencing this, it’s always the same:

You’re either being unreal because your ego is feeding into it, or you’ve been real and you can just keep flowing and do your own thing without any of this bs holding you back – making you feel bad, or just getting in the way of living a real life and being who you really are – not who they’re demanding that you to be because of their own ‘stuff’.

Stay real out there,

If you want to grow into your REALNESS then either book a call with me or sign-up for my free 7-Day course in REALNESS and life purpose.

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Embracing WRONGNESS: How Being ‘Wrong’ Can Set You Right

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Life Philosophy/Mindset/Psychology

Being ‘wrong’ may be exactly what you’re looking for…this article will help you understand why.

Oh, hi there.

In this article, we’re going to explore how being ‘wrong’ is actually a good thing that can free you from the ideas you hold about yourself that are holding you back from life so that you can evolve into your REALNESS and the person that you were born to be

When you truly embrace being ‘wrong’ in this way, you can step into your potential, have better relationships with other people, and feel the sense of tranquillity and peace that comes from letting go of the need to control everything through being ‘right’ all the time.

When you embrace being ‘wrong’ in this way, you’ll find that you’re not constantly forcing life through control freakery and manipulation in an attempt to bend everything to your will, (which is probably wrong anyway) and you can just relax into you true humanity – in other words, you can just allow yourself to be a REAL human being who is limited in understanding and is humble enough to not attempt to be omniscient omnipotent (that’s EGO).

So the short-version of all this is that if you can just get over yourself – sorry to say – and start being ‘wrong’, I can pretty much guarantee that life is going to be way better because you’re going to be aligned with REALITY instead of forcing yourself against it and bringing unnecessary friction, frustration, and misery into your life.

Let’s go.

Socrates: “I know that I know nothing”.

So somebody like me popping up and saying that we should be wrong isn’t actually a new thing. That’s because “there is nothing new under the sun” and the human condition has always been the human condition as long as human beings have been around – and not one of us mortals – in the whole of human history – has ever been right about everything. Ever.

The most famous quote that sums this up is Socrates, the Greek philosopher. He said (quoted by Plato): “True wisdom is knowing that I know nothing.”

That’s a good way to say it. It might be a little bit extreme because we all know a little bit of something. Like, for example, I know that I need a haircut. I know that the weather outside is pretty ‘bad’ right now. So I do know something.

Either way, the point stands that if we think we know everything, then maybe we do know nothing, or we don’t know enough. Because only if you know that you don’t know everything can you truly know something and align yourself with the truth of our life. And so ultimately, I think Socrates was right: Wisdom is knowing that we don’t know everything. Let’s say it like that.

No matter who you are or what you’ve experienced, there’s always more to learn and the things you think you may know could eventually turn out to be wrong so the most REAL approach is to remain open-minded.

What we think we ‘know’ and happen to be ‘right’ about is usually just conceptual ideas and interpretations that we’ve created about life on the best judgments that we have according to the greatest understanding that we have – but because conceptual knowledge is just made of concepts and concepts are not reality itself there’s always going to be limits and we’re never going to be 100% ‘right about things. That’s just the human condition, I guess.

The thing about ‘concepts’ is that can either point you towards reality or away from it – they can never be reality itself (which we can only know through EXPERIENCE, not concepts).

For example, the concept ‘dog’ points to a thing that exists in the world; the concept ‘unicorn’ points to something that just isn’t real, although we can imagine them anyway. The point here is if we’re just trying to interpret life through our interpretations and conceptual knowledge, then we’re always going to be limited.

But for some reason, even though we all often like to believe that wisdom is one of the keys to happiness, we sometimes act in a way where we’re not being wise, according to Socrates’ definition, because we’re acting like we know everything, which is always going to cause problems.

So here’s why:

The bottom line is that human beings can’t know everything. It’s literally impossible because the truth itself is whole but we are fragmented. We’re in fragmented bodies on a fragmented planet, swimming through a fragmented relationship with time, space, and causality – if you want to get into all that.

That means that, by definition, we’re always going to be ‘wrong’ about something – we could even go so far as to say that it’s just our nature to be wrong (and that’s fine…it’s what makes life interesting and keeps us learning and evolving).

And, even if we do just grasp something that seems true through our conceptual understanding, then life just keeps moving anyway, and the STATIC concepts in our head are inherently conflicted with the way that reality is in FLUX all around us. In practical terms, this just means that there’s a very high chance that the concepts we’re using to make ‘sense’ of life are pretty much guaranteed to eventually be out of date, and then we’re just going to be back where we started: being ‘wrong’.

And so, actually, if you’re out there plodding through life like you’ve got everything figured out and that you’re ‘right’ about everything, like I often do, then something has gone horribly wrong. Horribly, horribly wrong. And the reason it’s gone horribly wrong is because it is our nature to be wrong about things – and so if we think we’re right about everything, we are literally going against our own realness.

We’re not accepting who we are. We’re not accepting life. We’re not accepting the world. We’ve taken ourselves out of the natural, REAL flow of things – which means that we keep moving, we keep evolving, and, by extension, we have to keep learning. And, that means that we will realise we were wrong and that we can go deeper into understanding the things that we already think we know.

And so if we take ourselves out of that process, we’re actually removing ourselves or distancing ourselves from our humanity and from our realness. And actually, that’s what this is all about:

The best way for human beings to feel ‘good’ is to be aligned with our realness – with our natural flow of constant growth and evolution and movement towards WHOLENESS.

If we stop moving with that NATURAL DRIVE towards wholenes or we stunt our growth and stagnate because we keep putting these conceptual blocks in our own path and try to be ‘right’ about them and defend them, then we’re going to have a really ‘bad’ time.

And so, as per usual, it all comes down to the same old problem:

What is that same old problem?

Well, you guessed it, boys and girls, it’s the EGO.

The ego is the illusion of separation, the illusion of disconnection. And in relation to what we’re talking about, the illusion of stasis, the idea that for some bizarre reason, even though everything that’s real continues to move and ebb and flow and to keep changing, we fight to stay the same.

And the more we cling to that static picture of who we are, what we think the world is, what we think reality is – the more we cling to that – the harder things get for us, because we put in friction between ourselves and life.

But even though it’s hard, so many of us try and cling to this static picture because we don’t want to face all of the ‘stuff’ going on beneath the surface that the natural unfolding and changes in life are going to cause us to face as the unconscious becomes conscious and we have to take a good look at ourselves so we can become whole again.

As a kind of COPING MECHANISM, we create these points of view, these systems of thought – these ideologies – that are ultimately an extension of the ego. And that is actually the main (and perhaps only) problem.

When people are obsessed with being ‘right’, what they’re actually doing is trying to defend a point of view that they’ve created, which is an extension of the thing that’s causing them to be miserable in the first place (because they think they need for survival).

People always talk about how the ego is a survival thing that we evolved for protection and this is true – it helped us to survive whatever we’ve been through in the past and the emotional pain that we weren’t ready to face at that time. – in addition to this, though, the points of view that we attach to – like our political views and whatever else – are more often than not, if we’re obsessed and fixated with them being ‘right’, an extension of the same old ego.

A point of view ultimately, in this sense, is just the ego’s way of working its way through the world and interacting with the world so that it can maintain its hold over us. And so what I’m saying is that when people are so obsessed with being ‘right’, they’re not actually bothered about the truth; they’re bothered about protecting the ego so they don’t have to change.

This is why it’s important to be wrong and to be open to being wrong, because if you’re not – if you’re going around through life just trying to be ‘right’ about everything – you think that you’re protecting yourself, but actually all you’re doing is protecting the ego, which is the only thing making you miserable in the first place.

And so, paradoxically, perhaps, by being WRONG, you can have some short-term discomfort, sure, but you can also free yourself from this idea, this parasite that has wrapped itself around your psyche and that is holding you back from real life.

So the short version of all that is that the more you need your point of view to be ‘right’, or the more you need other people to believe that your point of view is right – and to come to your way of thinking – the more you’re basically trying to convince yourself that it’s true because, at some level, you don’t actually believe it because it only really exists because of the fundamental state of disconnection within yourself – because of fragmentation, because of the shame, guilt, and/or trauma that have caused you to create a little ego version of yourself and to put that out into the world.

If you understand that, you can realise that, “Okay, if I want to be happy, if I want to feel peace, if I want to be tranquil, blah, blah, blah, I can step back from all that bullshit.

I can be open to the fact that I might be wrong, and I can realise that, actually, all of my opinions and all of my points of view and so on and so forth, they’re not ME or that I am. They’re just something that I have.

And if I can see that, and I can get a better relationship to the truth, then I can solve a lot of problems in my life.”

Because most of the bullshit going on out there in the world, if you look around you, is just people arguing about who’s right and who’s wrong. But it’s all nonsense.

Here’s a little secret about life (if you want to use a dramatic word like secret):

It’s not really a secret, but anyway, this thing that I’m about to share is this: The truth is the truth.

Wow. That’s deep, right?

But what it means is that the truth doesn’t change. Nobody has ever argued about the truth. Nobody can argue about the truth. Throughout all of human history, the billions and billions of dead people – and there are more dead people than living people (just throwing that out there) – but anyway, throughout human history, nobody has ever argued about the truth.

Which may sound weird at first, but when you think about it, the only thing we can argue about is our interpretations of the truth. Our opinions of the truth, our understanding of the truth, none of those things are the truth itself.

None of our attempts to defend the truth have any effect on the truth itself

None of the arguments that we have, nor any of our attempts to defend what we think is the truth – or to shatter other people’s visions of the truth because we disagree with it – none of that stuff has any effect on the truth itself.

And so if you can understand that, the ‘secret’, it actually allows you to kind of step back and to relax because you realise there’s two different levels:

1) There’s the level of fragmentation and all the opinions and the arguments and etc. going on out there in the world. And then there’s: 2) just the truth itself – which is just there truthing along without anything impacting it or anything affecting it. The truth is just the truth – all of these circles we run around in trying to be ‘right’ and to make other people wrong, they have no effect on it whatsoever.

And even if you think you do have the truth, even if you did have the truth, you wouldn’t need to waste time defending it and trying to be ‘right’ about it, because it doesn’t need defending, because nothing can change it, nothing can hurt it, nothing can have any impact on it whatsoever.

You either accept it and you’re happy or you don’t accept it, and then you spend your life arguing about whatever you think is the substitute for it, and then you get miserable. And it’s really that simple.

The truth does not need defending. The truth does not need you going out there running around trying to be ‘right’ about it. All you’re doing is fighting for your interpretations and your ego. But the truth is the truth.

So that was very philosophical. But what does it mean? How do you use this information to be happier in life, to be more real?

Well, it’s really simple:

It just means that you have to stay aware – you have to monitor yourself, so to speak. And anytime you find yourself getting overly emotional and trying to be ‘right’ or trying to persuade other people, well, you’re not actually on about the truth; you’re not trying to bring more truth into the equation – you’re trying to defend your ego.

And if we’re real with ourselves, like we’ve already said, the ego is the main source of all the problems in our life anyway. And so whenever you think that you’re on some kind of a CRUSADE to defend the truth and you’re getting overly emotional about it, well, because the truth doesn’t need defending, and all of your emotional outbursts and so on and so forth have literally zero effect on it, you can step back and you can remind yourself, “Okay, it’s my ego here that I’m actually trying to defend”.

And – maybe, if you’re lucky – that will be enough to make you stfu. So you can actually just breathe again and remember that you’re not going to change anything anyway, because no one cares if you’re ‘right’ apart from you.

This also means that you don’t really need to invest energy in defending your opinions. That’s counterintuitive to some people, because we think the more vociferous we are about our opinions, the more other people are going to come on board and think that we’re ‘right’.

If we we’re driven by underlying shame – which is often what causes us to need the ego to be true in the first place – then we feel like if we can get others to just believe that we’re right, then some of that shame is going to be diminished and we’ll feel better about ourselves.

But, actually, it doesn’t need to be that way – because if you think about it, if you really believe that your opinions are true – if you truly, truly believe it – you don’t care what other people think.

That sounds a bit arrogant, maybe, but you just don’t. It doesn’t matter what other people think though: you’re aware that what you believe is true because you’ve had some experience beyond the conceptual. And so it doesn’t matter if other people say you’re wrong. It doesn’t matter if other people think you’re right. You just know the truth.

And so maybe you’ll put it out there in conversation, and you’ll share it with people, and you’ll have a dialogue and all that kind of stuff – normal human behaviour. But if somebody disagrees, you can either calmly say, “Well, actually, I think this”, or you can just smile and nod and then go about your life knowing that you’re aligned with the truth anyway, but also knowing that you might not be (and if you’re not, that’s fine, because maybe you’ll learn some other stuff, maybe you won’t).

Either way, there’s no point wasting time arguing about things when you can just be living the truth that you think you found to the greatest extent possible.

A quote that I love throwing out there is by the physicist David Bohm. He has this book called On Dialogue where he says something like, “Your opinions are not something that you are, they’re something that you have.”

They’re not something that you, are. They’re something that you have. And I think that’s a really great quote because it just reminds you to kind of step back.

If somebody is disagreeing with you or saying that your opinion is stupid or that it’s wrong or whatever else, well, that’s fine, because they’re saying it about your opinion, which is just a conceptual idea that you’ve picked up to make sense of life. They’re not saying it about YOU.

If you can remember this and you can take your ego out of the equation, once again, you realise that you actually don’t have to take disagreement or anything like that personally, because what’s real about you is always real: you can’t add to it, you can’t remove from it, because it’s a state of WHOLENESS – and so whether your opinions are aligned with the truth or not, well, it doesn’t matter because you’re still real.

If you need to be ‘right’ all the time, then you just have some kind of a block between you and life. And if you’re open to being ‘wrong’, you can ensure that that block diminishes in its power over you, and then things are just going to be better.

So I just want to put that out there: Your opinions are something that you have, not something that you are. And if you understand that, you can free yourself because you can be wrong, and then you’re going to be aligned with life.

3 ways to align yourself with REAL life by finding your own ‘wrongness’

Here are three things that you can do so that you can align yourself with your own realness by being wrong and using that wrongness to develop a closer relationship to the truth (which sounds weird and paradoxical and maybe like bullshit, but I promise that’s how it works):

The first thing you can do is exactly what we just said: Don’t take things personally.

The only reason you take things personally is because you, are lapsing into control freakery – because you need your ego to be the truth – and any disagreement is basically threatening the scaffolding that your whole ego rests upon and you’re terrified that it’s going to come falling down and you’ll just be like an empty husk of a human being.

But actually, if the ego disappears, you become more real. So anyway, don’t take it personally because it’s just an opinion.

The second thing is to remember that if you’re wrong in life, then it’s going to allow you to learn something new. And if you keep learning, well, ideally, unless you’re fooling yourself, the only thing that you can learn is more about the truth – you can go deeper into it, and then you’re going to have a solid foundation to grow real and it’s just better.

The third thing is just to remember that nothing really matters anyway. If you’re right with your opinions, okay, that’s cool. If you’re wrong, well, that’s fine as well.

But ultimately it’s all just ebb and flow, and we’re all going to die one day anyway, so it doesn’t really matter.

So that’s ultimately all I need to say in this article – there is nothing wrong with being wrong.

In fact, there’s actually a lot right with being wrong because by being wrong, you can align yourself more closely with the truth and then – because you get out of the ego – you get into the flow of life, and you keep evolving and expanding in a real way that allows you to be more connected to yourself and have better relationships with other people because you’re not going around in circles arguing about things that they don’t really care about.

At the end of the day, most people are not interested in changing their opinions for all of the reasons we talked about – and so, you can ultimately just release yourself from a lot of the unnecessary friction and stress and nonsense that goes on out there in the world about people being obsessed with being ‘right’, because they think that being right somehow makes them a better person.

It doesn’t, which is weird to hear, perhaps because our whole lives we’ve been learning things in school by rote and things like that – thinking that we have to pass our tests and everything, picking up all these facts and stuff like that.

Obviously, it is better to be ‘right’ if you can be, because then you’ve got, the truth on your side to some extent. But what I’m saying is it doesn’t matter that much – or not as much as everyone makes out – because we can always learn more.

All I know is that I know nothing.

If You Argue With an Idiot, It Makes You an Idiot.

The final thing I suppose I want to say here is that there’s an old saying – I don’t know who said it.

They say “If you argue with an idiot, it makes you an idiot”.

This is just a reminder that if you find yourself out there and somebody comes up to you and they’re trying to be ‘right’ about everything, then don’t argue with them. Just let them think that they are right, because there’s no way you’re going to persuade them otherwise anyway and it’s just going to drive you mad.

It’s going to be a waste of time. And arguing with an idiot makes you an idiot, so it’s kind of a dumb thing to do.

And if you are the idiot – no offense – that’s going out there trying to be ‘right’ about everything….well, ask yourself “Why?”.

The answer is almost always going to come down to the same thing: ego ‘stuff’, underlying shame and a need to control life because you’re scared to leap into the great unknown of uncertainty and find out who you really are.

I hope that helps you if you needed it. I know it might be wrong in many ways. That’s cool. But, hope it helps. If anyone wants to talk to me about any of this stuff or anything else, book a call or click the WhatsApp button on this article and you can send me a message.

Let go and grow real!

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Life Philosophy

Reclaiming the ‘old’ you so that you can grow into the REAL you.

Reconnecting to your SHADOW is the path to your REAL life.

Balancing control and spontaneity – tension and release – is the key to a fulfilling life.

Morning Routine #1: Wake Up the Body

Morning Routine #2: Quieten the Mind and Emotions and Find Presence

Morning Routine #3: Plan Direction for the Day Ahead

The world is not reality.

Adapting to the world in an unreal way is ultimately a survival mechanism

Awareness, Acceptance, & Action works every time.

The inner child and misconceptions that cause us to become stagnated and fragmented.

Childish or childlike?

Our inner relationship with ourselves and connection to truth either causes us to become stuck or to keep flowing.

Understanding this little problem of being ‘stuck’ ultimately comes down to understanding the Shadow Dance.

The first symptom that keeps us attached to the ego is an unreal relationship with our own emotions.

The second symptom of the Shadow Dance is that you don’t embrace power of CHOICE.

The final symptom that I want to talk about in this article is EMOTIONAL TURBULENCE.

How to stay away from spiritual bullshit on the spiritual path.

Shadow Work Will Set You Free of ‘Yourself’

100 Shadow Work Exercises

If you don’t read this article, then you’re a terrible human being.

Emotional manipulation involves taking total responsibility for someone else’s feelings.

Emotional manipulation is basically when people try to make you own things that aren’t yours.

Don’t feed the Gremlin.

You can set boundaries or walk away if someone is manipulating you.

Three reasons why people may not step into their realness in the face of emotional manipulation:

Thank you!

Being ‘wrong’ may be exactly what you’re looking for…this article will help you understand why.

Socrates: “I know that I know nothing”.

None of our attempts to defend the truth have any effect on the truth itself

3 ways to align yourself with REAL life by finding your own ‘wrongness’

If You Argue With an Idiot, It Makes You an Idiot.

Thank you!

Thank you!