Habits and Shadow Work

Hey otherworldly family!

This subject is something I'm always thinking about and tring to improve on.

I want to discuss some tips I think are really important for people who struggle with a low or anxious mood. But to begin, I want to talk about my experience with depression and lower vibration living

When it started, I was labeled lazy by a lot of people. I was young an.d around 13 at the time

I had a terribly messy room, no friends, I barely showered, and I was getting low grades. Mentally? No one thought about the mess in my head, neither did I.

Yikes...

No one really saw this as a separate problem, I was just lazy or didn't care enough. Maybe even seen as too rebellious at times.

In reality, I felt stuck in myself.

In my mood.

In my emotions.

I was barely active.

I played video games all day.

I was 260 pounds.

I needed help, but I thought I was the problem.

Slowly over the past decade of growing up I realized some things....

I wasn't the problem, the accumulation of trauma and unhealthy stress was

Whatever was done can be rewritten, not erased.

I had the tools to get myself out of this, everyone does! 🥰

There is so much we can do for ourselves, and we are always holding the key to our problems. You have the perceptive/Instinctual abilities to help yourself.

Sadly, mental loops caused by trauma does not help. Toxic behaviors. Bad habits. This all relates and piles onto each other to create a person who you don't recognize OR trust anymore.

Loving and learning to trust ourselves creates a key to different perceptions and new heights.

How do we get there though? If you were like me, I surely thought I was, pardon the language, fucked.

I was young and in deep hole.

Even though your ego doesn't like it, and you may be a perfectionist, focusing to change one small part of yourself at a time really helps in the long run.

The first habit I knocked, out of piles of bad ones, is not drinking pop.

I thought it was relatively destructive with the sugar and how my mood felt. So I thought, maybe if I can do this little bit, Ill feel a little bit better.

When you are so stuck and paralyzed within yourself, I totally get how hard things can be. You are thinking of all the things you are doing wrong and what you could be doing right. You want to be doing everything right, RIGHT now, or else it doesn't matter.

It does.

That first conscious decision to stop drinking pop started a decade's worth (and more) of self growth and a consciousness of myself and others.

I slowly started to raise my vibration by knocking out things I knew were hurting me. I consistently kept an open mind for constant growth and kept uncovering the dark parts of me that were not serving me.

This includes eating habits, relationship habits, exercising habits, cleaning habits, and much more. I slowly dissected myself and tried to problem solve on how to be better. Not comparing myself to others, but constantly comparing myself to who I was the day before and who I could be in the future.

A book that you probably have heard about by now is Atomic Habits by James Clear. You may have even heard of concepts such as Shadow Work by psychologist Carl Yung and others.

If you do some personal research and reading on this topic, it will give you insight into what I mean about how you can improve your mood through focused and continual growth.

An overview of what you can learn about your habits from the book Atomic Habits:

• Focus on systems rather than goals. (I had one goal at a time, I started with not wanting to drink pop anymore)

• Stack your habits (Add to your habits little by little, slow continual growth)

• Use the two-minute rule (If you are having trouble because of getting overwhelmed by the task, use the two-minute rule. Simplify the habit in form so it only takes two minutes. For example, my whole diet was bad. I simplified that into not drinking pop because that was small enough to get me started. I allowed myself junk food and everything else, but after the pop I moved to junk food. It was easier compared to if I tried to eat healthy all at once. Ps, I have tried that, and it bombed! After junk food, I then tried making it a habit to incorporate more fruit in my diet. This goes back to stacking your habits as well. It's all part of an evolving process! Be patient with yourself. )

• Get in the habit of journaling. (Doing this helps to track your mood and habits. Also, I think journaling is great for setting intentions and goals! Get your thoughts out and be amazed how you grew when you go back to read it!

• Take advantage of the Goldilocks rule. (Not too cold, not too hot. You don't want to push yourself too much or too little. You want to find that sweet spot for your growth. Again, I'm not going to set all these goals at once, like eating super healthy, because I'll get burned out -too hot-. I also won't set a goal so low, like not drinking pop one day out of the week -too cold-. It just isn't enough of a change to create a new habit, and will be hard to stack healthy habits effectively.

Now, when uncovering habits you will notice something about yourself.

Your shadow.

Your unconsciousness stores and hides away trauma and pain; this is so that the consciousness doesn't have to be so burdened with the past.

There is a beautiful quote by Carl Young saying, "“How can I be substantial if I do not cast a shadow? I must have a dark side also if I am to be whole.”

Understanding your dark side (subconscious) can be very tricky and confusing. We tend to create illusions that will blind us eventually from our center. Our egos like to trick us into thinking we need to be perfect OR that we could never do this because we are far from perfect.

The goal is to find a balance. You don't want toxic positivity and you don't want to play victim. Both don't get you very far when trying to uncover you subconscious.

You need to be real with yourself, good and bad, and just notice yourself as you are.

You're not perfect and you are not helpless. You are a complicated mess of neurons that can be more than one thing. It's what you make of it and how real you are with yourself.

So how can we pay more attention to this subconscious, which reveals the deepest parts of oneself?

There are 3 things you can start doing right now to get digging, according to Carl Yung

1. Pay attention to themes and patterns in your life (connects to habits)

2. Create a journal to document these themes

3. Pay attention to your emotions, especially the negative. Start questioning why things make you feel this way and how they make you feel. You are reacting for a reason, even if it is irrational.

By questioning why you think the things you think, why you react emotionally in maybe illogical ways, or why you do the things you do, you can really understand what makes you tick. You can gather where certain emotions come from and that will be a healthy step in eradicating a negative behavior or trigger.

Being aware of your shadow means you can gain more control of yourself. Because if your unconscious is hidden from consciousness, then those deep systems are controlling you, such as pain/trauma.

When you understand and accept the good and the bad, you will actually feel more whole!

Journaling about these thoughts and patterns will really solidify the problem and will create a better solution. You can release your emotions without being too overwhelmed in your head, and you can also see the progress of habits/ changes in your thinking.

Thank you so much for taking the time to read.

I hope some of these words helped you for your journey; we all get stuck and need a little help from each other,

Have a weird day :)