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Superachievers and Our Shadow: Unleashing the Source of Our Superpowers

Updated: Sep 13

INTRODUCTION


Welcome to my blog series which dives deeply into Transformative life Coaching.


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Please see the bottom of this blog post for my education and training. I have trained in Transformation Life Coaching in London, United Kingdom. I believe so much in the deep power that coaching has to transform you and your organisation that I have had, and continue to have, a number of Transformative Life Coaches myself. I have experienced deep shifts in my way of BEing and therefore DO-ing. I am a full time Transformative Life Coach.


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Transformative Life Coaching ​(TLC) is all about creating an expanded way of BEing, which will create potentially epic outcomes for you and your business.


The shadow effect is seen pervasively in every aspect of our lives: It’s in our thoughts, behaviours and interactions with others. It is in every decision we make. We don’t shine light on our darkness as we are scared to face our shadow sides. We need to open the box: It can radically change our lives. Carl Jung said that "Knowing your own darkness is the best method for dealing with the darkness of other people." If we have enough courage to look inside, we will see the world in a new light and open our hearts with courage. This will tackle the fear that has been holding us back and allow us to realise our full potential, unleash our passions, and realise our dreams.


In this blog post I answer the following:

  • What is the shadow?

  • Where does it come from?

  • What is the relevance of the shadow to superachievers?

  • How does it hold us back?

  • What do we do about the shadow?

  • How may it supercharge us?

I recommend two books on this subject: The first is the Bible on the shadow; the second book addresses the effects of lacking integrity and authenticity on the mind and body: 'The Shadow Effect: Illuminating the Hidden Power of Your True Self' by legendary contemporary authors of transformation Marianne Williamson, Debbie Ford, and Deepak Chopra; 'When The Body Says No: The Cost of Hidden Stress' by my only addiction Dr Gabor Maté (if I ever buy another pet they will be named Gabor as I need Gabor in my life at all times!)


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Are you ready to integrate your shadow? Your secret source of energy, creativity, abundance, and joy?

What is the shadow?

Carl Jung said “The shadow is what we hide, repress or deny.”


The shadow is the sum of the parts of you that you suppressed and rejected. The self-judgment. These are all the parts of you that you are shaming and rejecting. You need to learn to accept and love those parts of you. They need more love than the other parts. It is easy to love your wounded inner child. But you need to learn to love your shadow, as initially the shadow will only get that love from you, until you coax it into the light, so you need self awareness and self-compassion.


Robert Louis Stephenson wrote in the famous The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde "Man is not truly one, but truly two."


Carl Jung and the Shadow; the Duality of Man; and the The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde by Robert Louis Stephenson. The Academy of Ideas - Integrating the Hidden power of Your Dark Side. Part 1: The Development of the Shadow.


Ursula K Le Guin said "To light a candle is to cast a shadow."

Where does the shadow come from?

The shadow is the sum of the traits that were initially shunned, shamed, ridiculed or met with punishment by society, family, or peers. We stuff them away.


Dr Gabor Maté says "People have two needs, attachment and authenticity. When authenticity threatens attachment, attachment trumps authenticity." This is trauma. Trauma comes from the Greek word for 'wound'. It is what we suffered alone as children. It results from the rupture of the two competing needs of attachment and authenticity. Attachment always wins for survival reasons. So we are doubly-bound: We become enslaved to attachment, while hiding our true selves in the shadows. Many of the wounds we have carried with us since childhood stem from skewed internal belief systems deeply ingrained in us. We leave authenticity behind in our cradle in favour of validation and survival through attachment. Dr Gabor Maté says "Almost from the beginning of life we see a tension between the complementary needs for security and for autonomy. Development requires a gradual and age appropriate shift from security needs toward the drive for autonomy, from attachment to individuation. Neither is ever completely lost, and neither is meant to predominate at the expense of the other. With an increased capacity for self-regulation in adulthood comes also a heightened need for autonomy - for the freedom to make genuine choices. Whatever undermines autonomy will be experienced as a source of stress. Stress is magnified whenever the power to respond effectively to the social or physical environment is lacking or when the tested animal or human being feels helpless, without meaningful choices - in other words, when autonomy is undermined... To minimise the stress from threatened relationships, a person may give up some part of his autonomy. However, this is not a formula for health, since the loss of autonomy is itself a cause of stress... The surrender of autonomy raises the stress level, even if on the surface it appears to be necessary for the sake of “security” in a relationship, and even if we subjectively feel relief when we gain “security” in this manner. If I chronically repress my emotional needs in order to make myself “acceptable” to other people, I increase my risks of having to pay the price in the form of illness.... There is an important distinction between an inherent characteristic, rooted in an individual without regard to his environment, and a response to the environment, a pattern of behaviours developed to ensure survival. What we see as indelible traits may be no more than habitual defensive techniques, unconsciously adopted. People often identify with these habituated patterns, believing them to be an indispensable part of the self. They may even harbour self-loathing for certain traits — for example, when a person describes herself as “a control freak.” In reality, there is no innate human inclination to be controlling. What there is in a “controlling” personality is deep anxiety."


Dr Gabor Maté continues "Parenting, in short, is a dance of the generations. Whatever affected one generation but has not been fully resolved will be passed on to the next. Lance Morrow, a journalist and writer, succinctly expressed the multigenerational nature of stress in his book Heart, a wrenching and beautiful account of his

encounters with mortality, thrust upon him by near-fatal heart disease: “The generations are boxes within boxes: Inside my mother’s violence you find another box, which contains my grandfather’s violence, and inside that box (I suspect but do not know), you would find another box with some such black, secret energy - stories within stories, receding in time... Blame becomes a meaningless concept if one understands how family history stretches back through the generations. “Recognition of this quickly dispels any disposition to see the parent as villain,” wrote John Bowlby, the British psychiatrist whose work threw scientific light on the decisive importance of attachment in infancy and childhood. Whom do we accuse?”


Dr Gabor Maté explains "Much of what we call personality is not a fixed set of traits, only coping mechanisms a person acquired in childhood.... The higher the level of economic development, it seems, the more anaesthetised we have become to our emotional realities... Emotional repression is also a coping style rather than a personality trait set in stone... Emotions interpret the world for us. They have a signal function, telling us about our internal states as they are affected by input from the outside. Emotions are responses to present stimuli as filtered through the memory of past experience, and they anticipate the future based on our perception of the past."


Dr Gabor Maté asks us "Do I live my life according to my own deepest truths, or in order to fulfil someone else’s expectations? How much of what I have believed and done is actually my own and how much has been in service to a self-image I originally created in the belief it was necessary to please my parents?"


Dr Gabor Maté writes "For those habituated to high levels of internal stress since early childhood, it is the absence of stress that creates unease, evoking boredom and a sense of meaninglessness. People may become addicted to their own stress hormones, adrenaline and cortisol, Hans Selye observed. To such persons stress feels desirable, while the absence of it feels like something to be avoided."


He concludes "We would heal, it is essential to begin the painfully incremental task of reversing the biology of belief we adopted very early in life. Whatever external treatment is administered, the healing agent lies within."

What is the relevance of the shadow to superachievers?

As explained in my previous blog post according to the Wall Street Journal, a study of 400 people has shown that 75 percent of us overachievers have suffered childhood trauma: This is not widely known. Addicts are an extreme example of the divided self: Divided into inner critic, wounded child, the shadow, and the fragile ego. So you have ditched the inner critic, healed the inner child and expanded your intuitive adult self to longer be fragile. That fantastic: But what do we do about your shadow? Wholeness always overcomes separation. You are not fully healed until the split self has been transformed.


Dr Gabor Maté writes "Morrie learned at a young age that his “value” depended on his ability to serve the needs of others. That same message, taken to heart by many people early in life, is heavily reinforced by the prevailing ethic in our society. All too frequently, people are given the sense that they are valued only for their utilitarian contribution and are expendable if they lose their economic worth."


When you are a superachiever you have an energy like no other: You are magnetic. R Biddy said "There will be people who love the idea of you but lack the maturity to handle the reality of you.' Until you and they look inside, those people include you.


Superachievers are addicted to validation and success: They are workaholics. The stronger the light the greater the shadow. So superachievers have a bigger shadow, but also the potential of a far greater light..


Debbie Ford writes “Every one of us has constructed an ego-based identity in which we have assigned ourselves an acceptable role that eventually smothers our full self-expression. Rather than being who we really are, we become a characterisation of the person we think we ‘should’ be.”


But from trauma comes transformation. As Debbie Ford writes “Sometimes, we forget that we ever wanted anything different from what we have. The repetitiveness of our toxic memory can lure us into years of accepting more of the same and wasting away in a mediocre existence that fails to meet even our own expectations... Like the lotus flower that is born out of mud, we must honour the darkest parts of ourselves and the most painful of our life’s experiences, because they are what allow us to birth our most beautiful self. We need the messy, muddy past, the muck of our human life—the combination of every hurt, wound, loss, and unfulfilled desire blended with every joy, success, and blessing to give us the wisdom, the perspective, and the drive to step into the most magnificent expression of ourselves. This is the gift of the shadow.” You receive the gift when you accept your Self and become whole.


Marianne Williamson writes “Your character defects are not where you’re bad, but where you’re wounded. But no matter who or what caused the wound, it’s yours now and you’re responsible for it. The only person who can bring it up and release it is you. Ultimately, it doesn’t matter where you got your character defects anyway. They’re yours now. You can’t live with a sign around your neck saying, ‘It’s not my fault. My parents were difficult.’ Your only way out of your conundrum is to take total responsibility for those defects.” As Rumi said “The wound is the place where the Light enters you.”


As superachievers we have been accumulating emotional debt to the past. That’s what burying emotions alive does. Childhood is the learning ground for shame, negativity, inferiority, and resentment as it was secretly deposited and then remains hidden in the shadow. You did nothing wrong. Make peace with this debt now and you will be healed by turning a negative into a positive as the psyche will remember and be prepared without feeling that emotion. Don’t recycle the negative emotions once you have healed them. These echoes of healing just torment you. We don’t need to protect ourselves from a childhood that has long gone. Like running from a real lion without being afraid. That’s the positive: You become detached and protected. Negativity is sticky. It’s a survival mechanism. But it isn’t you. Enjoy the lightness of being. That’s how children are naturally until the shadow teaches projection - be carefree. Become detached.

How does it hold us back?

There is collective unconsciousness: This is the place of judgement, conflict, and hate. No-one wins in the blame game. Collective consciousness is the answer but the unconscious limits it and holds it back and yet has the potential to propel it forwards.


Debbie Ford writes beautifully on this "We continue to succumb to our lower impulses, sabotage our own desires and neglect our future in an attempt to hide our discontent, we put on a happy face, muster our best 'everything is fine look', and continue acting out in ways that undermine our Self-esteem and defeat our best laid plans. In the course of raising our children, and chasing success, answers to the very questions that will help us grow allude us. Sometimes we forget that we even ever wanted anything different from what we have. The repetitiveness of our toxic memory can lure us into years of accepting more of the same, and wasting away in a mediocre existence that fails to meet even our own expectations. Unfortunately this method of survival strips us of the ability to live the life that we were meant to live. The emotional pain that surfaces as a part of everyday life has us wish away our past, and become resigned about our future. We become victims of the past and hopeless about what's to come. Cynical and skeptical, we fall pray to judgement, opting to point our finger at others, rather than look inside for the answers to our woes. The robotic nature of our egocentric self rises up to help us overcome our rising feelings of insecurity and shame by protesting our innocence and proclaiming our differences. Rather than taking the time to pierce the veil between who we think we are and who we really want to be we allow the illusional life that exists in our minds to be in control. The problem with this approach to life is that it prevents us from discovering our true Self and it endangers the areas of our lives that are most important to us. When we are busy protecting ourselves from the demons that lurk in the dark we miss out on feeling joyful, connected to those we love, intent on hiding the darker half of our human nature we fail to reach our full potential and experience the depth and richness of our lives. We were born whole, yet most of us are living as partial human beings. We are meant to discover our authentic nature. The state of BEing in which we are inspired by ourselves, turned on, lit up, and excited about who we are. We are meant to overcome adversity and manifest the greatest version of our own individual soul. Not a version of a Self that is birthed out of fantasy. Big blown out fantasies about our lives stem from the pain of our unrealised potential. But true dreams are a reality which we are willing to work for, fight for, stay up late for. This is a future that is within our reach. And there is only one thing that can rob us of that future and that is our shadow. Our dark side, our secrets, our repressed feelings and our hidden impulses. The great Swiss psychologist Carl Jung tells us that our shadow is the person that we would rather not be. Our own shadow can be seen in the person in our family that we judge the most, the celebrity who causes us to shake our heads in disgust. If we understand this correctly we come to the startling and sometimes sobering realisation that our own shadow is everything that annoys or disgusts us about other people or about ourselves. With that wisdom in hand we begin to see that our shadow is all that we try to hide from those we love and all that we don't want other people to find out about us. Our shadow is made up of the thoughts, emotions, and impulses that we find too painful, embarrassing or distasteful to accept. So instead of dealing with them we repress them, seal them away in a part of our psyche so that we won't have to feel the burden and shame they carry with them. Our shadow filled with rhetoric and a hypocritical set of rules that we can never adhere to leads us to glorify some and demonise others. It began with the teacher that called us 'stupid', the bully who taunted us, or the first love who ever abandoned us. We have all hidden away and repressed pain-filled shame-filled moments and over time these emotions harden into our shadow. These are the unexpressed fears, the horrifying shame, the gnawing guilt. these are all the issues of the past that we have never faced. Our shadow can accumulate over years of denial. As the shadow takes shape we begin to lose access to a fundamental part of our true nature, our greatness, our compassion and our authenticity get buried beneath the parts of ourselves that we have disconnected from. Then our shadow gains the upper hand. It can trick us into believing that we are too unworthy, incapable, unlovable to be the superstar of our own life. It is our dark side, the repressed and disown aspects of our personality that cuts us off from our true Self. The fact is that anything that we have hidden away or denied out of shame and fear holds the key to unlock a Self that we feel proud of. A Self thats inspires us, a Self that is propelled into action. by great vision and purpose, rather than one thats is created out of our limitations and the unhealed wounds of our past. This is why we must explore our shadow. This is why we must unveil and reclaim our whole Self, our true Self. This is why we must look within to examine the underpinnings of our life Hidden here is the blueprint, a template, a vision of our authentic Self."


Dr Gabor Maté writes "What we want and demand from the world needs to conform to our present needs, not to unconscious, unsatisfied needs from childhood. If distinctions between past and present blur, we will perceive loss or the threat of loss where none exists; and the awareness of those genuine needs that do require satisfaction, rather than their repression for the sake of gaining the acceptance or approval of others. Stress occurs in the absence of these criteria, and it leads to the disruption of homeostasis. Chronic disruption results in ill health."


We are dualistic in nature as human beings as part of our human conditioning and experience. Deepak Chopra writes “The conflict between who we are and who we want to be is at the core of the human struggle. Duality, in fact, lies at the very centre of the human experience. Life and death, good and evil, hope and resignation coexist in every person and exert their force in every facet of our lives. If we know courage, it is because we have also experienced fear; if we can recognise honesty, it is because we have encountered deceit. And yet most of us deny or ignore our dualistic nature.”


Plato wrote in Republic "There is in every one of us, even those who seem to be the most moderate, a type of desire that is terrible, wild and lawless."


Friedrich Nietzsche described in Thus Spoke Zarathustra "Fear of wild animals - that has been bred into the human being for the longest time, including the animal that he harbours within and fears: Zarathustra calls it the beast within."


When we divide the world into good and evil, which is a cosmic joke, we each contribute to the collective conflict and drama that is so omnipresent in the world right now and between people at every level by judging.


We are part of the whole. There is no need to label anyone as right or wrong in the joke that is drama. It misses so much. The holistic view also releases a deep intuitive knowing. Duality is like believing in the devil. What if everything fits into a single scheme such as consciousness? It is infinite and all powerful that unfolds into myriad forms. Information is shared by every part of the whole. Ultimately there are no words at all. BEing is far from passive. It is a silent intelligence inside every cell of your body. The consciousness found everywhere is inexpressible and far exceeds the human mind. That’s why it’s overwhelming when you tap into it. Beauty, love, bliss, visions are all greater than the human mind. Thats why we need to expand our consciousness.


Resentment is soul suicide. Dr Gabor Maté writes "Strong convictions do not necessarily signal a powerful sense of self: very often quite the opposite. Intensely held beliefs may be no more than a person’s unconscious effort to build a sense of self to fill what, underneath, is experienced as a vacuum."

Projection is the subconscious projection onto others of what we do not accept in our self. Dr Gabor Maté says "Shame is the deepest of the “negative emotions,” a feeling we will do almost anything to avoid. Unfortunately, our abiding fear of shame impairs our ability to see reality." Projection is one finger pointed that way, but that leaves three fingers pointing back at yourself. Psychoanalyst Molly Tuby says that we can glimpse our shadow in our exaggerated feelings about others, in negative feedback from others who serve as our mirrors, when we have the same negative effect on different people, in our impulsive acts, in situations where we feel humiliated, and in our exaggerated anger about other people's flaws. Other tell-tale signs that you are projecting are that you are more triggered than just aware, you are in awe of others to the point of hero worship, you feel revulsion to the point of enmity - and that they last two change rapidly, you are certain that you know another's mind and motives, you repeat the same story about different people, your triggering is disproportionate compared to other people, you find your self looking for traps/proof that the behaviour you wish to accuse someone of. Everyone is using projection as a way of not looking inwards. For example f you have feelings of infidelity you project them on others. If you have feelings of shame you project them on others: Etc. etc. It’s a way of saying "I’m okay but you are not" and when really the first step should be "I’m not okay". There is no reason to label anyone as not okay. Everyone has the condition until they look at their shadow. Blame disguises your feeling that you are at fault and should be ashamed of your self. Blame disguises your feeling that you are a weak child that needs taking care of when that’s a universal condition. We are all victims of victims. The clue to projection is negativity. If someone is being negative, they are projecting on you instead of looking inwards. We have a collective responsibility to look within instead of blaming. Everyone has the condition until they look inside. Thats why it's called a 'Blame culture'. We all need to stop being the cause of war. It is our violence, hidden and denied as our shadow that leads to drama, conflict and war. The violence of the world is on each of us. J. Krishnamurti wrote “Inside you is the cause of every war. It is your violence, hidden and denied, that leads to wars of every kind, whether it is war inside your home, against others in society, or between nations.” We are sharing in a shared self and contributing to the collective unconscious. Denial is powerful. The shadow is secretive. We all need to stop holding up negativity. It represents a deep sense of inferiority in ourselves. Just before we create negativity we feel what we don’t want to feel. That’s how we know. Lao Tzu said "When people see some things as beautiful, other things become ugly. When people see some things as good, other things become bad." Carl Jung said "If you hate a person, you hate something in him that is part of your Self. What isn't part of our Selves doesn't disturb us."


Edward Edinger said "Confronting the shadow means to stop blaming others." Carl Jung dais *Everyone carries a shadow, and the less embodied in the individual's conscious life, the blacker and denser it is."


When you are unhappy with something only you can make yourself happy. One needs to be able to give oneself a free pass to make mistakes on our journey. Any spiritual or compassionate approach would incorporate this. Then you can’t fail. Love that radical self compassion. You can only fail if you stop or are stopped.


Carl Jung said "The best political, social, and spiritual work we can do is to withdraw the projection of our shadow on others."


Neville Goddard said "To protest against anything which happens to us is to protest against the law of our being and our ruler ship over our own destiny."


Carl Jung said "We carry our past with us, to wit, the primitive and inferior man with his desires and emotions, and it is only with an enormous effort that we can detach ourselves from this burden. If it comes to a neurosis, we invariably have to deal with a considerably intensified shadow. And if such a person wants to be cured it is necessary to find a way in which his conscious personality and his shadow can live together."


Marianne Williamson writes “Our power to override their destructive intensity lies in our ability to love with as much conviction as they show in hate. Hating with conviction, they draw forth more hatred; when we love with greater conviction, we will draw forth more love.”

What do we do about the shadow?

The key to dealing with the shadow is integration not incarceration. Shadow work is about three words: allow, accept, embrace. We need to make it conscious, heal it and integrate it.


The shadow should not be ignored, denied, repressed, feared, fought, or caged - that is what we have been doing our whole lives. We have to learn to uncover, face, understand, accept, and love our shadow, integrate the shadow and become 'whole'. Then we can transcend it and become truly self-aware and limitless: Self-actualisation. Sophocles said "A human being is only breath and shadow." Breath represents the present, higher Self: We need both the shadow and the higher Self to be whole.


The Academy of Ideas - Part 2: The Integration of the Shadow; Accepting the Shadow.


Carl Jung said "In each of us there is another whom we do not know." This applies to the shadow and the higher Self.


Your joy is your sorrow unmasked.


95 percent of us life an unexamined life. We are asleep, acting from our unconscious conditioned minds.


What do we do about projections? The answer is self-inquiry, own the projection, accept your shadow, then integrate it. Ask your self is it true what you feel is negative in others? Can you absolutely believe it is true? When have you been like that? If you get annoyed its something that you have suppressed in your self.


Carl Rogers said "The curious paradox is that when I accept myself just as I am, then I can change."


Debbie Ford writes “Although ignoring or repressing our dark side is the norm, the sobering truth is that running from the shadow only intensifies its power. Denying it only leads to more pain, suffering, regret, and resignation. If we fail to take responsibility and extract the wisdom that has been hidden beneath the surface of our conscious minds, the shadow will take charge.”


Deepak Chopra writes “When we expose our dark side, we understand how our personal history dictates the way we treat those around us—and how we treat ourselves. This is why it’s imperative that we unmask it and understand it. To do this, we must uncover what we’ve hidden and befriend the very impulses and characteristics that we abhor.”


As Deepak Chopra writes “Only in the presence of an unwavering commitment to facing our demons does the doorway to self-discovery open.”


We all fear judgement. As part of becoming our higher Self we need to let go of external validation as a source of joy. This is even more acute for superachievers as for us being attached through being approved of is a matter of life and death. As Deepak Chopra writes "Judgement is guilt wearing a moral mask to disguise its pain." No-one should judge. “ As Wilson Kanadi wrote "Those who judge will never understand, and those who understand will never judge.” As Debbie Ford writes “When we hold on to our resentments toward ourselves or anyone else, we bind ourselves to the very thing that has caused us pain by a cord stronger than steel. As my dear friend Brent BecVar shares, refusing to forgive those who have hurt us ‘is like being a drowning person whose head is being held under water by someone else. At some point you realise that you have to be the one who fights your way back to the surface.’“ She continues “Whatever we judge or condemn in another is ultimately a disowned or rejected part of ourselves. When we are in the midst of projection, it appears as though we are seeing the other person, but in reality we are seeing a hidden aspect of ourselves.”


"We have been conditioned to fear the shadow side of life and the shadow side of ourselves. When we catch ourselves thinking a dark thought or acting out in a behaviour that we feel is unacceptable, we run, just like a groundhog, back into our hole and hide, hoping, praying, it will disappear before we venture out again. Why do we do this? Because we are afraid that no matter how hard we try, we will never be able to escape from this part of ourselves. And although ignoring or repressing our dark side is the norm, the sobering truth is that running from the shadow only intensifies its power. Denying it only leads to more pain, suffering, regret, and resignation. If we fail to take responsibility and extract the wisdom that has been hidden beneath the surface of our conscious minds, the shadow will take charge, and instead of us being able to have control over it, the shadow winds up having control over us, triggering the shadow effect. Our dark side then starts making our decisions for us, stripping us of our right to make conscious choices whether it’s what food we will eat, how much money we will spend, or what addiction we will succumb to. Our shadow incites us to act out in ways we never imagined we could and to waste our vital energy on bad habits and repetitive behaviours."


Osho Gita said "Accept your Self as you are. And that is the most difficult thing in the world, because it goes against all your training, education, your culture." That is why Dr Gabor Maté says in his lecture about the 5 levels of compassion that we must been seen with total compassion by another, for this acceptance to commence. And after that we must be patient and realise that acceptance is a lifelong journey - we wont get 100 percent of the way there overnight, and getting less than 100 percent is a challenge for overachievers.


As Deepak Chopra writes "The first step in defeating the shadow is to abandon all notions of defeating it. The dark side of human nature thrives on war, struggle, and conflict. As soon as you talk about ‘winning,’ you have lost already... We can't fight darkness with darkness. We have to find compassion, and embrace the darkness inside of us in order to understand it and, ultimately, to transcend it... Higher consciousness is the answer—the only lasting answer—to the dark side of human nature... It sounds strange, but feelings have feelings. Being part of you, they know when they are unwanted. Fear cooperates by hiding; anger cooperates by pretending it doesn’t exist. That’s more than half the problem. How can you heal an unwanted feeling when it’s trying not to cooperate? You can’t. Until you make peace with negative feelings, they will persist. The way to deal with negativity is to acknowledge it. Nothing more is needed.”


Integrity stems from the Latin word 'integer' which means whole and complete. So integrity requires an inner sense of 'wholeness' and consistency of character. If you want to liberate yourself accept yourself. Carl Jung said "There is no light without shadow and no psychic wholeness without imperfection. To round itself out, life calls not for perfection but for completeness; and for this the "thorn in the flesh" is needed, the suffering of defects without which there is no progress and no ascent."


Compassion is the antidote to the shame that needs healing. Marianne Williamson writes “The shadow does not leave when it is attacked; it heals when it is forgiven. We do not take off our shadowy mask in the presence of someone who blames us, but rather in the presence of someone who says through words or behaviour, ‘I know this is not who you are.’ We miraculously heal in the presence of someone who believes in our light even when we are lost in our darkness. And when we learn to see others in the light of their true being, whether they are showing us that light or not, then we have the power to work that miracle for them... We heal when we feel forgiven. We heal in the presence of compassion. If you really want someone to change, the miracle lies in your ability to see how perfect they already are.” Be the person that sees the divine in another. That is what I do in TLC - I create a space where we can have a conversation from higher Self to higher Self with total compassion.


If we asked the shadow what it needs it would say space to show its vulnerability, but what it really needs is compassion and love.

How may the shadow supercharge us?

Debbie Ford writes “Heroes are only as strong as their villains.”


Carl Jung said "The shadow is ninety percent pure gold." The shadow is an amazing repository of gifts in our selves.How do we integrate these parts as a great resource? He continued "To confront a person with his shadow is to show him his own light


Facing the shadow is essential to our awakening. As Debbie Ford says "Poet and author Robert Bly describes the shadow as an invisible bag that each of us carries around on our back. As we’re growing up, we put in the bag every aspect of ourselves that is not acceptable to our families and friends. Bly believes we spend the first few decades of our life filling up our bag, and then the rest of our life trying to retrieve everything we’ve hidden away.” As Confucius wrote “We have two lives, and the second begins when we realise we only have one.”


Debbie Ford writes “We possess every human characteristic and emotion, whether active or dormant, whether conscious or unconscious. There is nothing we can conceive of that we are not. We are everything—that which we consider good and that which we consider bad. How could we know courage if we have never known fear? How could we know happiness if we never experienced sadness? How could we know light if we never knew dark?” As superachievers we have known the depths of darkness: This allows our light to shine like a supernova.


Deepak Chopra writes “You get the emotions you think you deserve.” When we can start to believe that we deserve joy, love, fulfillments and peace, we will access them.


Our shadow is our source of limiting beliefs in our Selves. Limiting beliefs are what hold us back in work and in life. These must be addressed if we are to realise our true potential.


Debbie Ford writes“Only when we stop pretending to be something we are not—when we no longer feel the need to hide or overcompensate for either our weaknesses or our gifts—will we know the freedom of expressing our authentic self and have the ability to make choices that are based on the life we truly desire to live... I believe that the shadow is one of the greatest gifts available to us. Carl Jung called it a ‘sparring partner’; it is the opponent within us that exposes our flaws and sharpens our skills. It is the teacher, the trainer, and the guide that supports us in uncovering our true magnificence. The shadow is not a problem to be solved or an enemy to be conquered but a fertile field to be cultivated. When we dig our hands into its rich soil, we will discover the potent seeds of the people we most desire to be.” In Transformative Life Coaching (TLC) you will learn that by BEing the acorn you will grow into the mighty oak, as acorns do, if you are prepared to face the dirt of the soil in which we grow.


Only by choosing to BE our authentic integrated selves, which involves embodying and integrating our wounded inner child that so needs love, our shadow that so needs compassion, and our adult assertive fearless self will we become the light that we, our loved ones, our connections and the world so desperately needs. As Debbie Ford writes “It’s ironic that to find the courage to lead an authentic life, you will have to go into the dark rooms of your most inauthentic self. You have to confront the very parts of yourself that you fear most to find what you have been looking for, because the mechanism that drives you to conceal your darkness is the same mechanism that has you hide your light. What you’ve been hiding from can actually give you what you’ve been trying hard to achieve... To be a whole human being, we have to acknowledge the existence of all our feelings, human qualities, and experiences and value not just the parts of ourselves that our ego has deemed acceptable, but everything that we have deemed wrong or bad. If we are willing to allow our dark side to be a part of the whole of who we are, we will find it comes equipped with all the power, skill, intelligence, and force needed to do great things in the world.”


When we learn to let go of our numbing fantasies of validation, fame and recognition can we begin to realise our dreams. Debbie Ford writes “Big, blown-out fantasies about our lives stem from the pain of our unrealised potential, but true dreams are a reality we are willing to work for, fight for, stay up late for—this is a future that is within our reach... Why do we have access to so much wisdom yet fail to have the strength and courage to act upon our good intentions by making powerful choices? Why do we continue to act out in ways that go against our value system and all that we stand for? […] It is because of our unexamined life, our darker self, our shadow self where our unclaimed power lies hidden. It is here, in this least likely place, that we will find the key to unlock our strength, our happiness, and our ability to live out our dreams.”


For superachievers our greatest fear may even be our own light: Marianne Williamson writes in A Return to Love: Reflections on the Principles of "A Course in Miracles "Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, 'Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous?' Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It's not just in some of us; it's in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others."


Deepak Chopra writes “You are not in the world. The world is in you.” When you become who you truly are you can no longer identify with darkness - there is no more division at the source. You are at peace. You have self knowledge. You are not in the world, the world is in you. You can perform intense action with detachment. The best time is the present. You are equanimous. Your desires manifest easily. You are not invested in any outcome. You know how to surrender. You see the reality of God in everything. You don’t fight the shadow you transcend it. Never underestimate the cycle breaker. Not only did they stand up to years of generational trauma but they stood up and broke the cycle. They are powerful, they are strong, they are brave.


Carl Jung said "We do not become enlightened by imagining figures of light, but by.making the darkness conscious... Our greatest treasure is that which is hidden within our own subconscious. It is that dark, unused part of our Self that is in fact the light of consciousness itself." This is a psychological rebirth. Edward Whitmont said "When there is an impasse, and sterile time in our lives - despite an adequate ego development - we must look to the dark hitherto unacceptable side which has been at our conscious disposal."


If we can collectively replace shame with compassion then perhaps we can collectively heal the wounds that we have all been inflicted, moving from limiting beliefs to freedom and expanded consciousness. When we become truly authentic, this means that we are aligned to our purpose and passions: This is where real magic and true miracles happen. So now you know, what are you waiting for?..

Conclusion

Your transformative journey is your certificate to the work that you are to do. That is what I offer with TLC. If you don’t address the shadow you are putting a ceiling on your capabilities. You unconsciously hold your self back. This is where the next level of success is going to come from. You don’t feel worthy of success. You are scared of your own potential. That’s how it shows up for you. That makes you contracted and leads to self-sabotage. You need to lose the shame of the human condition, as we all have it, and lose the shame of the higher Self in you. Success is a by-product of divinely guided work. You just need to feel worthy of who you are right now in this moment, realise that conflict is simply a projection from others of their failure to accept their own shadow and look inside themselves, accept your own Higher Self and all its parts (inner child, shadow, and adult Self), thus becoming detached from your fears, and become whole.


Namaste.


Sending you love, light, and blessings brothers.


Olly



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“Transformative life coaching uniquely creates and holds the space for you to see your self afresh, with clarity, and step into new ways of BEing, which will transform how you perceive and intuitively create your world. My work is to guide you to raise your own conscious awareness to the level that you want to achieve.”





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I have a Bachelor's degree in Natural Sciences from Trinity College, Cambridge; a Master's Degree in Philosophy from Trinity College, Cambridge; a PhD Doctorate in Scientific Research from University College London (UCL); a Medical Degree (MD/MBBS) from The Royal Free Hospital School of Medicine, London and have been a doctor and reconstructive trauma and cancer surgeon in London for 20 years. I have a number of other higher qualifications in science and surgery. I have published over 50 peer reviewed PubMed cited scientific journal articles, have been an associate editor and frequent scientific faculty member, and am the author of several scientific books. I have been awarded my Diploma in Transformative Life Coaching in London, which has International Coaching Federation (ICF) Accreditation, as well as the UK Association for Coaching (AC), and the European Mentoring and Coaching Council (EMCC). I have been on my own transformative journey full time for over five years and I am ready to be your guide to you finding out who you really are and how the world works.




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