Your “Shadow Self.” How To Face It, Bring It To Light & Transcend It

 

By Milan Kareli in Collective Evolution

“What you most need will be found where you least want to look, but you have to look purposefully. If it chases you, then you’re the prey; if you confront it, you can transcend it.” – Jordan Peterson

There is a lot written about shadow and what it is. The direction is clear. Shadow is something we repress and hide from others, and in most cases, from ourselves. Where does it originate and what can we do to integrate or heal it?

Let’s begin by asking ‘why we have a shadow?’ Is it because we carry darkness at our core or does the shadow take shape over our lifetime as residue of fear, rage, shame and guilt, and their avoidance? I’d say a little bit of both. On the human collective level, we carry trauma related to suffering and aggression of our ancestors. But for the most part, our shadow develops during this lifetime in the form of a complex and sophisticated personality, that keeps us with a sense of control.

Deep down we feel vulnerable but try to hide it

Our inner world is complex and for some, unbearable. We continuously face and fear exposure of our contradictory complexity, towards ourselves and others. Instead of delving into the depth of our psyche and inviting more consciousness, we would rather guard ourselves. The more conscious we are, the more responsible we become for our actions. One of the reasons we so meticulously hide our shadow is because we don’t want to carry the consequence of our actions. And so, our vulnerability and shadow are closely linked.

There are many effective ways not to feel vulnerable and retain a sense of innocence. Abiding by a strict morality, adhering to ideologies, be they social, political or spiritual, or relying on religious dogma, all achieve exactly that protection. The kind of protection in which we cradle ourselves in feelings of righteousness and innocence. This is not to imply we shouldn’t seek for our actions to be moral or avoid believing but to become aware when they are used in service of feeling superior over others. Interestingly enough, our wish to remain innocent is a big shadow in and of itself.

So, while we’re busy repressing and controlling, the shadow feeds and grows with every attempt to fight off rejection, humiliation or punishment, as well as situations that leave us feeling guilty and ashamed

Here are some examples of how our shadow hides our vulnerability. Let’s say we want to be recognized for something we’ve done. Instead of asking for acknowledgment, we hide it through false humility and become resentful for not getting the attention we feel we deserve. Another example is our need to belong and be important to others. But again, instead of communicating this need, which makes us vulnerable to rejection, we make others feel important in the hope of being praised for our actions. Over time we’ve developed innumerable sophisticated ways to sugarcoat our shadows and feel in control.

Shadow integration begins with an honesty that seeks nothing in return

We can see, that most shadow has to do with survival attempts of some kind. This happens when we try to control our environments by behaving as victims, gaining respect through false humility, moral superiority and other forms of manipulation. When we talk about shadow integration, it’s crucial we are precise as to what the facets of our shadow are.

We want to, for example, be able to say, while refraining from any judgment, that ‘I smile at others, in order not to be attacked’ or ‘I control my partner by making him or her feel guilty’. Any judgment of what we discover in ourselves is a hidden attempt at victimizing ourselves and finding excuses. The ‘why’ is of secondary importance here, because the list of reasons is endless and the absolute source is difficult to pinpoint, but the urge to limit our vulnerability is still there.

This may be a good moment to say, that shadow integration is not about redemption, but about understanding the inner workings of vulnerability and protection, which are closely linked to our sense of survival, both physical and emotional.

Furthermore, we want to face our shadows, not to feel better or lighter in the future, but in order to become more integrated within ourselves and lessen the sense of separation that the shadow produces. We want to return integrity that comes with the responsibility of belonging to a history and culture that experiences a great deal of suffering and is greater than our individual selves. Integrating our shadow implies allowing the darkness to be part of us, without the desire to surpass it.

Drop the hope for a pain-free life

When we face our shadow, we want to fully own the aggression, fear, selfishness or greed living inside us. We want to clarify first and foremost to ourselves how we play power games and seek control. This acknowledgment doesn’t necessarily reduce the hurt to ourselves or others or enable us to change. There is no certain outcome from shadow integration and that’s a tough pill to swallow. What we’re ‘simply’ doing, is bringing something hidden to light, without the attempt to make it more or less significant or dramatic, but rather see it as it is, thereby becoming more aware.

The more emotionality we induce into the characterization of our shadow, the less integration takes place. Shadow integration should be a non-dramatic act, surrounded by a hint of coolness, where we observe who we’ve become. We will feel the pain of lies, betrayal and hurt to others during this observation. And in the process of doing so, holding back judgment, positive or negative, is truly challenging. How is it possible ‘not to comment’ on what we regard as a personal experience? We need to understand that any commentary also contains the attempt to change the experience, be it freeing or punishing to us.

Healing the shadow is a magical process in which we are the participant, not the director

The great challenge in shadow integration is to grow our capacity to be with or hold an experience without having the ability to change it. What has been done is in the past and can’t be undone; it can only be held and by holding it patiently, more facets can emerge and be seen. Like when a child injures itself, we can only hold them to share the pain of waiting for healing to take place, but the magic of healing has its own mysterious timeline.

When we own our shadow, it puts us in a helpless and humbling place. It shows us our limitations and that is something we don’t want to feel. Maximizing our potential for our own feelings of greatness is just another shadow. Acknowledging the limitation of our potential, without minimizing our strength or exercising false humility, allows us to share our light.

Life comes with a lot of limitations and the shadow tries to interfere with life itself. Facing our shadow is a spiritual act as we embrace and allow a little more of our human totality to be included. Through this experience, we can get in touch with a humility and simplicity, that can often touch something at our core, which is mystically meaningful and expanding.

Integration comes from a place that is non-dramatic, because drama always takes sides, and it makes us miss the simplicity lying in the acknowledgment of human complexity. Shadow integration is a lifelong and even a magical process. It happens when we are completely truthful, giving up all deals with God or fate, and surrendering to what we essentially are: vulnerable. We want to invite feeling the pain our shadow reveals to us without seeking redemption. In a way, every time we say yes to a shadow part in us, we agree to re-enter continuous vulnerability of being human.

This is where integration begins.

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REVERED AYAHUASQUERO TAITA JUANITO HAS AN ESSENTIAL MESSAGE FOR THOSE STRUGGLING DURING THIS CRISIS

 

Dylan Charles, Editor

Waking Times

When I look at people’s faces covered in masks, I try to discern from their eyes alone what they are feeling. And it’s tough.

But, it’s tough not because you can’t see their whole faces, it’s tough because people everywhere are hiding their whole selves behind their egoic masks of confidence, surety, and stoicism. They are hiding their true feelings, their pain and their suffering from the world.

We are all experiencing unprecedented stress, loneliness, anxiety, worry, and uncertainty right now. And in this climate, it’s very easy for the mind to take you in to fear. Fear of what’s happening now, and fear of what is to come.

But these feelings aren’t the whole story. They don’t represent the deepest truths about our lives.

The fear is a finger pointing at the moon. Pointing to something so big that we can’t see it right in front of our eyes. Yet here there is a truth much greater and far more powerful than all the fear in the world combined. And when you connect to this truth, your power and your smile return.

Speaking in a recent online conference, revered Ayahuasquero, Taita Juanito shares a powerful message for all people who are experiencing these challenges right now. It’s a message that gets lost in the clutter and flash of an info-drenched and drama-craving world, but it is so simple and pure, that when you open your heart to it, it cuts right through everything else.

I hope you are doing well, but if you’re struggling right now, give some consideration to Taita Juanito’s words here, and please share them with those you know who are also in need of such a reminder.

The following transcript was taken from an interpreter to Taita Juanito in a recent presentation by Canta Con Amor 2020:

“All people that are going through difficulties, we send you many blessings, because you are our family. All of us are connected. Now, in this time it is different for all of us. Some of us have practices and medicines, and this is good. Continue practicing your spiritual path, and you can consult plants at home. But another part is that some of us don’t have spiritual practices. We’re in sadness. There’s absence in their life, in their heart. And for all of you experiencing this absence in your heart, please understand  that you have never been alone. Always, there is something greater, bigger, deeper, which is the Great Spirit. You have to connect more. You, who are experiencing absence, open your heart.

Some say that you need faith. We say you need to find balance in this time, because for those that have a spiritual path and for those that don’t, there is a lesson for both. First, never feel alone, because when you close your eyes and you feel the vibration of nature, the Spirits of nature, and the Great Creator, there, automatically you’re not alone. It’s a limiting belief that is taking you there.

For you, we pray for you, and you should pray as well, from your heart. And if you have plants, do plant baths. Share this time with your family, your children, your friends, because all this is teaching us community. We run around too frequently, searching for money, or things that we may need or want, but then we forget to live life. So now you have this chance. Live life. Live intensely, asking the Creator and nature.

The plants have always been here when you place a good intention to a bath or steam bath with plants, or you have a visionary plant, ask of the plant, and the plant will always show you the door. This time is a gift. Many people might see it different, but when we go to the deepest aspect, there’s an ecstasy, a vibration of energy, of light.

A few days ago I drank medicine and I was asking, and what I saw was a world full of vibration, full of colors, and we were observing it, and I was asking why are you showing me this? And it said to me, ‘you, humanity have to be here, in this world of vibration with nature.’

It’s always been her for you. The spirits have always been here. You might call them Guardians, Angels, or Guides, but they have always been here. We have to ask from them, ask your Guardian, ask that energy of Spirits, the Angels, to come and change your memory through a prayer, through a fast, to strengthen you.

All this fear, this absence that I feel, it is only a limiting belief which is coming, and all things which come to your life, they are for something. They will bring you strength, they will bring you study. What is this experience teaching you? What does it want to say to you? And there we connect with the art of life, the art of feeling.

This is why the Creator gave us our senses, eyes, mouth, nose, ears, skin. Activate it. Activate the listening. It’s important to listen to the heart and to listen to all the energy of the Spirits.”

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Huachuma: The Earthly Key to Heaven

 

A Most Profound Near-Death Experience: Mellon-Thomas Benedict's Inspiring Story

 

(The take-away is ancient memory, stored in our biological structure, is meant to evolve and flower forever. We are designed to embody a never-ending unfolding of alive, aware, Consciousness, intimately knowing itself through each individual. To awaken to this fact begins the process......Suzen)

PEERS - Public Education & Empowerment Resource Service

Mellen-Thomas Benedict is an artist who survived a near-death experience (NDE) in 1982. He was dead for over an hour and a half. During that time, he rose up out of his body and went into the light. Curious about the universe, he was taken far into the remote depths of existence, and even beyond, into the energetic void of nothingness behind the Big Bang.

Eminent near-death experience researcher Dr. Kenneth Ring has said, "His near-death experience story is one of the most remarkable I have encountered in my extensive research on near-death experiences."

Note: For a rich collection of profound near-death experience stories and near-death experience resources, click here.

Near-Death Experience Story of Mellen-Thomas Benedict 

In 1982, I died from terminal cancer. My condition was non-operable. I chose not to have chemotherapy. I was given six to eight months to live. Before this time, I had become increasingly despondent over the nuclear crisis, the ecology crisis, and so forth. I came to believe that nature had made a mistake – that we were probably a cancerous organism on the planet. And that is what eventually killed me. 

Before my near-death experience, I tried all sorts of alternative healing methods. None helped. So I determined that this was between me and God. I had never really considered God. Neither was I into any kind of spirituality. But my approaching death sent me on a quest for more information about spirituality and alternative healing. I read various religions and philosophies. They gave hope that there was something on the other side.

I had no medical insurance, so my life savings went overnight on tests. Unwilling to drag my family into this, I determined to handle this myself. I ended up in hospice care and was blessed with an angel for my hospice caretaker, whom I will call "Anne." She stayed with me through all that was to follow.

Into the Light 

I woke up about 4:30 am and I knew that this was it. I was going to die. I called a few friends and said good-bye. I woke up Anne and made her promise that my dead body would remain undisturbed for six hours, since I had read that all kinds of interesting things happen when you die. I went back to sleep. The next thing I remember, I was fully aware and standing up. Yet my body was lying in the bed. I seemed to be surrounded by darkness, yet I could see every room in the house, and the roof, and even under the house.

A Light shone. I turned toward it, and was aware of its similarity to what others have described in near-death experiences. It was magnificent and tangible, alluring. I wanted to go towards that Light like I might want to go into my ideal mother's or father's arms. As I moved towards the Light, I knew that if I went into the Light, I would be dead. So I said/felt, "Please wait. I would like to talk to you before I go."

The entire experience halted. I discovered that I was in control of the experience. My request was honored. I had conversations with the Light. That's the best way I can describe it. The Light changed into different figures, like Jesus, Buddha, Krishna, archetypal images and signs. I asked in a kind of telepathy, "What is going on here?"

The information transmitted was that our beliefs shape the kind of feedback we receive. If you are a Buddhist or Catholic or Fundamentalist, you get a feedback loop of your own images. I became aware of a Higher Self matrix, a conduit to the Source. We all have a Higher Self, or an oversoul part of our being, a conduit. All Higher Selves are connected as one being. All humans are connected as one being.

It was the most beautiful thing I have ever seen. It was like all the love you've ever wanted, and it was the kind of love that cures, heals, regenerates. I was ready to go at that time. I said "I am ready, take me." Then the Light turned into the most beautiful thing that I have ever seen: a mandala of human souls on this planet. I saw that we are the most beautiful creations – elegant, exotic ... everything.

I just cannot say enough about how it changed my opinion of human beings in an instant. I said/thought/felt, "Oh, God, I didn't realize." I was astonished to find that there was no evil in any soul. People may do terrible things out of ignorance and lack, but no soul is evil. "What all people seek – what sustains them – is love," the Light told me. "What distorts people is a lack of love." 

The revelations went on and on. I asked, "Does this mean that Humankind will be saved?" Like a trumpet blast with a shower of spiraling lights, the Light "spoke," saying, "You save, redeem and heal yourself. You always have and always will. You were created with the power to do so from before the beginning of the world." In that instant I realized that we have already been saved.

I thanked the Light of God with all my heart. The best thing I could come up with was: "Oh dear God, dear Universe, dear Great Self, I love my Life." The Light seemed to breathe me in even more deeply, absorbing me. I entered into another realm more profound than the last, and was aware of an enormous stream of Light, vast and full, deep. I asked what it was. The Light answered, "This is the River of Life. Drink of this manna water to your heart's content." I drank deeply, in ecstasy.

The Void of Nothingness 

Suddenly I seemed to be rocketing away from the planet on this stream of Life. I saw the earth fly away. The solar system whizzed by and disappeared. I flew through the center of the galaxy, absorbing more knowledge as I went. I learned that this galaxy – and the entire Universe – is bursting with many different varieties of life. I saw many worlds. We are not alone in this Universe. It seemed as if all the creations in the Universe soared past me and vanished in a speck of Light.

Then a second Light appeared. As I passed into the second Light, I could perceive forever, beyond Infinity. I was in the Void, pre-Creation, the beginning of time, the first Word or vibration. I rested in the Eye of Creation and it seemed that I touched the Face of God. It was not a religious feeling. I was simply at One with Absolute Life and Consciousness.

I rode the stream directly into the center of the Light. I felt embraced by the Light as it took me in with its breath again. And the truth was obvious that there is no death; that nothing is born and nothing dies; that we are immortal beings, part of a natural living system that recycles itself endlessly.

It would take me years to assimilate the Void experience. It was less than nothing, yet greater than anything. Creation is God exploring God's Self through every way imaginable. Through every piece of hair on your head, through every leaf on every tree, through every atom. God is exploring God's Self. I saw everything as the Self of all. God is here. That's what it is all about. Everything is made of light; everything is alive.

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RETURN OF THE WARRIOR

 

Elva Thompson, Contributor
Waking Times

“It may be that some little root of the sacred tree still lives.
Nourish it then
That it may leaf
And bloom
And fill with singing birds!

Hear me, that the people may once again
Find the good road
And the shielding tree.”  – Black Elk

Dystopic reality

Are you wondering what the HELL is going on in this shit show reality? The sheer insanity of world events and the palpable madness of our spiritually unplugged leaders is spectacularly obvious even though the masses cannot see it. Floods and fires ravage the planet leaving disaster in their wake. Seventy percent of wildlife has been destroyed in the last decade. Hundreds of thousands of birds are dropping lifeless from the sky, dead fish line many coast lines and whales are beaching and dying.

So what is going on?

The end of a grand cycle

“We are men and our lot in life is to learn and to be hurled into inconceivable new worlds.”― Carlos Castaneda, 

 

Planetary cycles within cycles are all ending in crescendo. December 21st 2012 was the marker for the end of the twenty six thousand year period known as the Grand Cosmic Year. And, the Old Year has to die before the New Year can begin. Everything is about to change…. and we will be literally hurled into an inconceivable new world. The signs are already here for those who can see beyond the narrative pedaled by the matrix hive mind.

As we speak, there is a magnetic pole reversal in event mode. Two north poles battling it out and playing havoc with the jet stream. The magnetosphere is weakening and as cosmic rays increase we can expect many challenges in the days and years to come. Catastrophe is served up not only by the evil that runs this world but the cosmos in its cycles of creation and destruction. It is time to choose our path amid the chaos that is erupting all around us. We can either ride the mental fear train into oblivion or we can return to the wisdom of our ancestral way of life and find inner peace.

Becoming brave

“We don’t need anyone to teach us sorcery, because there is really nothing to learn. What we need is a teacher to convince us that there is incalculable power at our fingertips. What a strange paradox!”― Carlos Castaneda

 

Strange paradox, indeed! For we do have incalculable power at our fingertips. The question is how do we find it?

There is much truth in the old adages: “Knock and the door will open.” “Ask and you will receive.” Visualise and knock on the spiritual door. The gate that leads to a re-connection with archetypal aspects of Self. Our eagle nature, wolf nature, bear nature, fox nature, hare nature, deer nature, etc. – our natures both predator and prey. Shaman’s of the older days understood that all things in the outer world were One in inner space and everything that exists is contactable.

All tribal once

Do not forget that we were all tribal once before evil overtook us. It is no accident that our shamans and healers were taken by the government to lunatic asylums many in a ball and chain and later murdered. No accident that sonic language – the language of the spirits was banned along with sacred ceremonies and spirit calling. Indigenous children all over the world were brutalized by the bible toting invaders for speaking their native language.

What was the invading evil so afraid of?

Could it be our spiritual power and the realities attached to them?

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WINNING THE WAR ON CONSCIOUSNESS – HUMANITY’S GRAND AWAKENING FROM DEEP STATE

Juliet Tang, Wake Up World

Waking Times

2020 is the year many in this world find themselves in an ultimate spiritual war of good and evil.

It started with a global lockdown that quickly escalated to race war, the talk of mandatory vaccines, 5G, transhumanism (the merging of human with AI), etc.

The war with Deep State (Cabal, Illuminate, the 1% elite, Satanists, etc.) has been going on for a very long time and involves multiple timelines. If you’re reading this, trust that you’ve chosen to come to this exact time to play a role during the end game, and the new beginning for humanity.

While reading this post, my advice for you is to use your discernment and do your own research, rather than take everything you watch and read to be the truth – this includes my words.

I am merely sharing with you the highest truth that is available to me at this time, after long hours of research and tuning inward.

The Time Has Come

Back in February, weeks before the lockdown in the United States occurred, I was in an unusually long and heavy psilocybin mushroom journey that foreshadowed what was to come – much of it didn’t make sense at the time because uncovering the agenda of Deep State was simply never my focus in life.

During the journey, I saw a giant light grid being formed by awakened leaders around the world; each was standing tall in their own pillar of light and holding their unique frequency of consciousness, truth, love, and liberation. This grid then activated what looked like a new earth grid inside of earth, shifting Gaia and the entire humanity into a different timeline where sovereignty reigns.

I was given the message over and over,

“The time has come. Be the message.”

Truthfully, I am not the type of person who invests time reading about ascension or galactic channelings, as I realized years ago a large percentage of the new age spirituality and plant medicine community has been hijacked by a lower consciousness, which is why there are many distortions such as scarcity mindset, emasculation of masculinity, as well as surface understanding and over-application of “love and light.” So the visions caught me by surprise.

In the next few months as the dominoes began to fall, the purpose of the visions is becoming clearer and clear, hence the birth of this post.

In order for me to share what it takes to win this war of consciousness, I’ll first address how Deep State has maintained its control over humanity.

The Matrix Has You, Neo

This one particular timeline of our current reality goes beyond what many spiritual seekers believe to be an illusion.

Our very culture is a fabricated and socially engineered existence created by Deep State to maintain a generally accepted storyline to enslave humanity, through distorting our ability to discern what’s artificial and what’s real, while children are being trafficked and sacrificed, and the puppets of Deep State (high level officials, celebrities, etc.) are committing crimes against humanity.

Symbolism and giving away clues to their plan are all part of the game Deep State plays. In fact, many Hollywood movies such as The Matrix, V for Vendetta have pretty much dropped the major clues.

Many know the harmful effects caused by GMO, vaccines, Big Pharma, fluoride in water, etc. What they don’t realize is that there’s a far more sinister agenda behind what many believe to be corporate greed.

Every industry within this Matrix has been planted and infiltrated by Deep State to maintain its control – food, health, medical, entertainment, money, politics, education, etc.

When we consume genetically modified foods that are toxic to our bodies and cells, drink fluorinated (a neurotoxin) water that calcifies our pineal gland, mindlessly tune into Hollywood movies or news that are full of hidden dark symbols and lies that hypnotize our minds, and surround ourselves with wifi, cellphone and towers that are disruptive to our brainwaves, we become an unconscious participant in their game.

In short, our bodies and minds have been greatly altered, our emotions manipulated, and our consciousness hijacked so that we are susceptible to what Deep State wants us to think, feel, and do.

Many are not only unable to discern lies from truth, but also depend on this false matrix so much that the mere suggestion of questioning the mainstream media narrative is enough to trigger cognitive dissonance or anger, because a part of their identify has been threatened.

This is the reason why the moment Google labels anything a conspiracy theory, people either dismiss it, or are triggered by the person who’s had the nerve to bring it up. That in itself is a conditioned response planted by Deep State so no one questions what they are being told, while they carry out their bigger agenda in the dark.

Divide and Conquer and Communism 

Currently, a socialist regime is being rolled out in most countries in our world by Deep State, with the intention to create a one world government, or the New World Order.

One of the signature moves of socialism/communism is divide and conquer by naming a group of citizens “common enemy” of the society. This “common enemy” group then becomes a label of hate and everything that is wrong with the society, whilst other members of the society are free to “cancel” them.

I am the granddaughter of a woman who was canceled (persecuted) by Communists in China during the Cultural Revolution that started in 1966, which resulted in tens of millions of deaths and lasting famine in its ten year duration. The social justice warriors back then were called Red Guards.

The Red Guards of China were youths and school kids – brainwashed and recruited by the government to carry out acts of what they believed to be justice, using tactics such as public shaming, property destruction, gaslighting, virtual signaling, and physical assault/torture of other human beings.

If you look closely at how division is being played out in our society today, you will recognize it in a heartbeat.

Essentially, the idea is to turn citizens against and police each other, so that we defeat ourselves with minimal effort on their part. It also divides us psychological and emotionally, which greatly weakens us, as human beings are social animals that thrive when we bond with each other.

A divided population is much easier to manipulate and control.

Information War

Those who control information, control our perspective. And each of us creates our reality from our perspective.

The excessive distortions and censorship, and character assassination of experts who dare to challenge the main stream narrative are all part of the information war we are in right now.

Some light research will help you find out that almost all mainstream media is controlled by 6 companies, owned by a few billionaires of the world.

On an energetic level, information is spelled in-formation, which means what we consume then forms our bodies and cells.

Each word carries a specific charge, and all words are spells (spell-ing).

What we are experiencing goes beyond politics. There is (dark) magic involved.

Watch out when a narrative, chant or image is being repeated over and over by the masses, it’s almost always a sign a spell has been cast.

When the masses fall under a spell, they will make choices and take actions believing it’s coming from their free will, when it isn’t.

Breaking out of a spell requires a shift in consciousness and frequency, which is presented in the solutions below.

What Is the Solution Then?

The long term solution requires us to address all fronts – physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual. It requires the human race to work together as a team to detoxify and upgrade our bodies, communities and institutions, so that all have access to clean water, organic fresh foods, conscious education, and healthcare that is not sick care in disguise.

This will obviously take time. Since our entire history has been manufactured, we are here to remember, and rewrite everything about who we are, what we desire to create in this world, and how we can leave this planet a better place for our children and their children.

These are some of the short term solutions I have received:

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Conspirituality and the Medicine Journey w/ Rak Razam

Dylan Charles at Waking Times

THE SHAMANIC VIEW OF MENTAL HEALTH

By Jonathon Davis on Wednesday October 9th, 2019

UPLIFT CONNECT

A Holistic Approach

In November 2014, the peak psychology body in the UK, the British Psychological Association, released its new flagship report Understanding Psychosis and Schizophrenia. It was a watershed moment in the mainstream treatment of mental illness, containing statements such as:

“Hearing voices or feeling paranoia are common experiences which can often be a reaction to trauma, abuse, or deprivation. Calling them symptoms of mental illness, psychosis, or schizophrenia is only one way of thinking about them, with advantages and disadvantages.” 

- The British Psychological Association: Understanding Psychosis and Schizophrenia.

With mental health problems reaching epidemic proportions in the UK and throughout the western world, this document reads as no less than an admission that the current model of mental health treatment gap has failed, and is a cry for help to anyone with an approach that may be useful. There are indeed a great many cultures who have, and still carry, a deeper understanding of mental illness. While these perspectives don’t fit within the boundaries of rational reductionism, this has little relevance to their efficacy.

“From American Indian shamanism* to esoteric Judaism, this concept has dominated for millennia. As it has now become clear, western civilization Is unique in history in it’s failure to recognize each human being as a subtle energy system in constant relationship to a vast sea of energies in the surrounding cosmos.”  
 - Dr. Edward Mann, Sociologist

Ancient indigenous Shamanic practice

What is the Shamanic View of Mental Health?

Broadly speaking, any form of awareness around mental health that includes spiritual, mystic and/or mythic considerations could be included in a shamanic view of mental health. This ranges from ancient indigenous shamanic practices to yogic methods involving kundalini awakening, through to Jungian and transpersonal psychology (which draw heavily from ancient cultures). Jung, for example, characterised schizophrenia and psychosis as a natural healing process.

“When conscious life is characterised by one-sidedness and false attitudes, primordial healing images are activated – one might say instinctively – and come to light in the dreams of individuals and the visions of artists… Schizophrenia is a condition in which the dream takes the place of reality.”    
 – Carl Jung

Another foundation stone of this perspective is the phrase made famous by Joseph Campbell, “The schizophrenic is drowning in the same waters in which the mystic swims with delight” (an idea borrowed from Jungian psychiatrist RD Laing). There has been a long history throughout human culture of people having mystical experiences, and then becoming “weller than well” as Dr. John Weir Perry put it. The key here is that in these instances the person completed a process that western medicine would have labelled as sickness and then medicated. They instead passed through it and went on to lead lives without relapse into ‘psychosis’, living a more fulfilled existence than if they had never gone through their temporary break with consensus reality. Throughout history there have been examples of people who have gone on to use their visionary insights, newly found drive and focus to create great social reform for the benefit of all.

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