Workshop on Shadow and Self, Bangalore

We are organising a workshop - Light from the Dark - Shadow and Self in Bangalore from February - 25th to 27th

Link to the website with details - Click here

Working on this topic and this project has been a great energy giver to us. The topic is deep and demands that we are alert, active and we persevere.

Designing a program which help participant experience it has been very tough. But the first program was a reasonable success.

One of the thoughts after the program has been not to associate ourselves and the program with Shadow alone, but to Self also. The way to deal with Shadow is to get centred with the Self. If we associate very closely with Shadow, we are running the risk of introjecting shadow elements from outside us also. Associating with Self on the other hand brings us closer to achieving our purpose. Hence this time the title of the program includes Shadow and Self.

Welcome to the program! This is an opportunity to experience it, not just talk about it!

Why do I have a shadow? Could I have grown up without a shadow?

1.       

           As we work with shadow, one of the way it eludes work with us is by blaming others for its creation -

          "Others did this to me.They should be working on their shadow."
            Blaming others for the shadow that I have., can we grow up without developing a shadow?

Ans to my shadow

It is a euphemistic idea of growing up such a way that we would not have a shadow. Our abilities, feelings and capacity to impact others existed before our minds developed enough to recognize and deal with it.  A new born child for ex, has such a huge impact on its parents. Its actions can drive people around it crazy. But it has no awareness of it and in no way can deal with this power that it has over others.Thank God for it, otherwise it would have been an ignorant tyrant on the parents. Though the newborns dont realise this, kids as young as 7 month olds start realising this and start manipulating to get their way done!

Our sexuality develops before our ability to build strong and responsible relationships with others. Our abilities to build relationship as adult is the basis for marriage which we now understand has to be done only after we reach 20s

Our minds are a tad slower in developing compared to these basic human aspects.We often cannot fully understand the consequences, advantages and disadvantages of our energies. 

Hence there is a need to safeguard these wild energies in us before we can understand and deal with them, to be able to take responsibility of them. Hence it is essential for our parents and society to help us from our wild emotions before we can deal with them. In the process these parts gets pushed underground for us to deal with them later. But as we grow up, our abilities become better, it is natural for these forces to start putting pressure asking us to deal with them again. Unfortunately, even after we grow up, many a time, this need to deal with these energies is forgotten. Our parents and societies also often are not geared to teach us how to deal with them effectively.

For ex, if you are 30 and not yet fully understood and expressed your sexuality, that emerged at puberty, then you are in for trouble!

It is when our ego and self are ready, that we can bring out our shadow and deal with it effectively.

This also reason for us not to blame others, particularly our parents for our shadow. Ultimately shadow exists because we did not acknowledge it in ourselves. Now, after our minds are mature enough, we can choose to acknowledge these parts of ourselves and thus bring them out.

This natural process may however be deviated at times because of injuries to the ego-self. This may leave us incapable of handling our shadows effectively. These may be cases of severe abuse, lack of safety for young children, etc. Such times, the adult may seek professional help in the form of therapy to heal the injured part and then develop the ego well.

Below is a link to the flyer of our upcoming prog on Shadow
https://sites.google.com/a/partneringwithuniverse.com/home/the-programs/light-from-the-shadow