In this for the healing DMSI v3.1 A

[mat422]

Things have gotten heavy for me. I'm reading a book about shadow work. I think DMSI might have led me to it. The thing I really like about the book so far is it's the authors own experience. This isn't some book written by some guru that wanted to make a quick buck. It's her own experience and how despite all the positive thinking, affirmations, visualizations, hypnosis, etc. it helped but didn't make her feel whole. Her experience mirrors mine, I've always felt there was some piece of the puzzle I was missing and I think this is it.

I think there's a lot in me I refuse to see or outright ignore. I think part of that is fear if I acknowledge it then that's who I am. But whether I acknowledge it or not, it's there. So it's better to bring things to light and learn and forgive myself than trying to keep denying it. Carl Jung said "I'd rather be whole than good". For my whole life I've been trying to be good, trying to erase the negative aspects of myself and be this perfect person. It's caused me a lot of suffering. It's never been about striving for excellence, it's always been about running away from the parts of myself I disliked and disowned. DMSI has been bringing me face to face with these things to release them. It sounds easy and straightforward but in my experience there was always this gap or inability to own up to the fact that these parts were me. There was a lack of emotional release, despite heavy logical thought processes about what caused it and how to stop it.

Sounds like you're reading, "Dark Side of the Light Chasers." If so, great book. Read it during a pretty dark period of my life. It helped.

Yup that's the one. I really like the idea of shadow work. I think the positive thought movement hurt more people than it helped to be honest.

The shadow work stuff is valuable. I was looking at it along with Inner Bonding which I guess is similar in that it's finding those core wounded feelings, learning to feel and accept them and heal them.

I haven't specifically done shadow work stuff, but i've read a bit about it and can see the value in it.

Yeah it's similar. I've been around a lot of these self help techniques but in the end I've learned it's less about the technique and more about accepting yourself. So they all have some overlap. What I like about shadow work is it doesn't really have some formal structure of what to do. It's more like you just go into your own mind ask questions and explore yourself. There's no right or wrong or failure or whatever you might get trying to get other techniques to work.