by Ada Porat | Feb 22, 2017 | Conscious living, Emotional healing, Self-awareness
Deep beneath the social masks and happy faces we present to the outer world, lurks a hidden shadow: an angry, wounded, fragmented or isolated part of us that we tend to bury or ignore. Integrating the shadow is essential for a balanced life.
The shadow compounds all the dark impulses—hatred, aggression, sadism, selfishness, jealousy, resentment, sexual transgression—that are not socially acceptable and thus hidden out of sight. The name originated with Carl Jung, but its basic origin came from Freud’s insight that our psyches are dualistic, sharply divided between the conscious and unconscious. Socially accepted norms require that we suppress our unconscious side, but what hides in the shadows will attempt to come out.
Whatever qualities we dare not face within ourselves, we tend to project out onto others. Everyone carries a shadow, and the less it is integrated in a person’s conscious life, the blacker and denser it is. The work of becoming spiritually conscious requires us to face and integrate the shadow, or else it will sabotage our best intentions.
Put another way, one does not become enlightened by imagining light, but by making the darkness conscious so it can be integrated. Rampant shadow projection is a hallmark behavior of the spiritually unconscious.
The shadow always wants to be heard – when ignored, it turns ever more mean and nasty. Resisting the shadow simply solidifies it, causing suffering. This arrogant behavior causes pain and suffering in anybody who has suffered because of the shadow’s cruelty, either in themselves or others.
And herein lies a great gift. Whenever the shadow projections out there trigger an emotional response in us, it means that there is a need for forgiveness, healing and acceptance. This emotional charge is a dead giveaway that we need to do some healing within ourselves so we can become neutral to the shadow projections out there.
In other words, we’re able to recognize the shadow projections out there because the same potential exists within each of us, whether we act on them or not. Most of us are uncomfortable with this truth, which causes us to further suppress and project our own shadow. In truth, the enemy is not out there but in each of us.
The enemy is in the White House, but the enemy is also Muslim; the enemy is a Jew, the enemy is a terrorist or a non-documented immigrant; the enemy is the person we choose to blame for our own situation, and the refugee from whose needs we recoil… the enemy is in all of them, and also in you and me. In truth, the enemy is really not an enemy at all. It is but a dark reflection of the shadow that resides in each of us and gets projected out there onto whomever we choose to judge and condemn. This enemy is an orphan, cast out of our consciousness and wandering the dark alleys of our collective unconscious as the shadow.
We cannot fight the shadow with more shadow, for that simply escalates issues and increases suffering on all sides. Instead, we need to heal the shadow by bringing the light of consciousness to it. The wounds in consciousness can only be healed through consciousness.
Bringing shadow material into consciousness drains its dark power, and can even recover valuable resources from it. The greatest power comes from having accepted our shadow parts and integrated them as components of ourselves.
The shadow can be a source of emotional richness and vitality; and integrating these orphaned aspects of our being can lead to restoring personal wholeness and leading more authentic life. We start this process by recognizing the shadow existing in us, forgiving ourselves for our fear and aversion of it, acknowledging it for what it is, and learning to use its powerful energies in productive ways.
In their book, Romancing the Shadow, authors Connie Zwieg, Ph.D. and Steve Wolf, Ph.D. share effective ways of decoding the messages of the shadow in daily life to deepen one’s consciousness, imagination, and soul.
Integrating the shadow takes honesty and courage, but the rewards are immense. First, the suffering stops. This is the surest sign that we have chosen the right path again: the unnecessary suffering stops.
More importantly, new possibilities emerge everywhere in life. Author David Richo calls this work “shadow dancing” in his book, Shadow Dance: Liberating the Power and Creativity of Your Dark Side. Changing our relationship with the shadow allows us to discover a critical shift in our viewpoint: Where everything seemed sterile and barren and there seemed no possible answers before, now everything seems possible.
How to manage the shadow currently rampaging through society? A few things come to mind.
- Become part of the solution. Instead of cursing the darkness, align with the light by consciously changing your tribal attitudes, words, and actions. Refuse to dehumanize others based on their race, religion or background. Recognize that the world’s wrongs have their seeds in you and me as well. The potential for good or evil exists in each one of us. Once we begin to acknowledge that in ourselves, the shadow immediately begins to diminish.
- Recognize opportunities for healing, change and growth. See the rampaging shadow out there for what it is: an opportunity for each of us to heal. Now is the time for true shadow work to begin. The spiritually unconscious cannot do this work; it needs to start with you and me. When we take responsibility for the work of forgiveness and healing in our own lives, we will find the courage to start doing so on a larger scale. That is how we heal the world; not with bigger weapon systems, more name-calling or hatred.
- Strengthen your commitment to higher goals, vision and values. Nurture your core values, your soul and your spirituality. Meditate, spend time in nature, do energy work to set your soul free, and cultivate an attitude of gratitude.
- Learn how to practice detachment. Do your very best to continuously release thoughts of resistance and attachment, for they are simply sides of the same coin. The Sedona Method has a wonderful phrase to summarize this process: “Embrace that which you resist, and surrender that to which you cling.” Detachment frees you from anxiety so your inner space can be peace.
- Remain in the Now. The past is over and no amount of worry can change it; the future is not here yet; so stay in the present moment. This moment is a golden opportunity to grow in consciousness. Choose to see every event of your life as a gift from heaven, sent your way with the sole purpose of enlightening you.
- Stay open to the possibilities. During turbulent times, the ego works overtime to find some security. In the process, we often settle for the safe rather than the good. When you have faith in a Higher Power and stay open to all the possibilities in the Field (even those you have not yet conceived of), you are making space for optimal outcomes to show up.
- Keep learning. Perhaps you cannot change all the things out there that trouble you. But you can learn something new each day that will help you outgrow the limitations of tribal thinking and become the highest expression of yourself. What will you learn today? Tomorrow? Next month? It is the accumulation of small changes over time, that feed the evolution of your consciousness.
- Stay involved. When faced with the shadow and all the cognitive dissonance it creates, it can be tempting to hide your light. You may want to play it safe, go into denial and avoid conflict. I’m here to tell you that you were created for bigger things! You are on this planet at this time because at some level, you recognized the potential for growth, change and fulfillment offered by the very things you call challenging in your life right now. This is not the time to find excuses for remaining passive, or to wait for heaven to come and rescue us. We are the ones that we’ve been waiting for! So muster your courage, stand tall, breathe in faith and let your light shine, for you are meant to be here now! Become an instrument of change and healing, and your own fulfillment will follow.
Finally, remember that shadow is aligned with the ego and never wins in the end!
About the author
©Copyright Ada Porat. For more information, visit https://adaporat.com. This article may be freely distributed in whole or in part, provided there is no charge for it and this notice is attached.
by Ada Porat | Feb 3, 2017 | Conscious living, Decision-making, Self-awareness
Cognitive dissonance is the discomfort of self-image colliding with reality. Such collisions are inevitable, as self-image tends to be based on values – what is most important to you – while reality tends to be created around behavioral choices, expectations and commitments in the world around us.
Psychologist Leon Festinger coined the term ‘cognitive dissonance’ to describe the uncomfortable tension we feel when we experience conflicting thoughts or beliefs (cognitions) within ourselves, or when we encounter behavior that is opposed to our beliefs.
For example, if someone believes that they are not racist, but then discriminates against another based on race, this confronts the discriminator with the discomfort of facing that their behavior is in fact racist. To escape this discomfort, the discriminator may rationalize their behavior on some other grounds, no matter how obtuse, but which allows them to hold on to their otherwise discredited belief.
Not everyone feels cognitive dissonance to the same degree. People with a higher need for consistency and certainty in their lives usually feel the effects of cognitive dissonance more than those who have a lesser need for such consistency.
To release the tension between two opposing cognitions, we can take one of three actions:
- Justify our behavior by changing the conflicting cognition;
- Ignore the dissonance by diverting our attention to new issues; or
- Minimize the dissonance by changing our behavior.
While cognitive dissonance happens to all of us, it is HOW we respond, that determines whether we evolve through expanded understanding or whether we devolve into a reactionary, limiting stance.
Unconscious strategies can serve as temporary coping mechanisms, but will not result in optimal long-term solutions. To optimally resolve cognitive dissonance, we need to take conscious action.
Unconscious Coping Strategies
Some unconscious strategies often used to cope with cognitive dissonance, include:
- Avoidance– avoiding information that leads to dissonance by avoiding discussion of emotionally charged topics.
- Distortion– deleting or distorting facts and beliefs to reduce dissonance.
- Distraction – distract oneself from uncomfortable issues by focusing on other issues.
- Confirmation– exercising selective bias by embracing information that confirms or bolsters one’s own cognitions while ignoring other, verifiable facts.
- Reassurance– looking for reassurance from others that one’s cognitions are correct and OK.
- Re-valuation– changing the importance of existing or new cognitions to reduce inner dissonance.
Cognitive dissonance is a formidable adversary that can destroy good judgment. But this is something we must overcome as individuals if we wish to grow and mature.
A huge part of combating cognitive dissonance is learning how to navigate from outdated worldviews and limiting belief systems to updated ones where we expand our understanding and grow in maturity. That transition takes effort, but the alternative is worse – delusion and stagnation.
Healthy Coping Strategies
Here are seven healthy strategies for overcoming cognitive dissonance in ways that empower and lead to personal growth:
The first step in overcoming cognitive dissonance is to go deeper; questioning our own values, motives, desires and expectations. We may not have answers to the dissonant issues yet, but cognitive dissonance offers us a chance to review our own principles. When we do so honestly, we can release those that no longer serve us, update our outdated frames of reference, and recommit to our core values. This willingness to question ourselves as well as the dissonance outside of us, forms the foundation for personal growth.
- Comfort vs. Accomplishment
Human beings are absurdly insecure. We tend to cling to comfort and avoid discomfort to feel safe and secure. Ironically, comfort is the enemy of accomplishment. It’s at the edge of our comfort zone where true growth is achieved: the place where we question our cultural conditioning, beliefs and ideas. When we muster the courage question our own tightly-held beliefs, we stretch our comfort zone until we become more adaptable and fluid in our living.
In a world of rampant anti-intellectualism and mindless trolls hell-bent on attacking the Other, we can find personal freedom by recognizing that we need not change another’s belief systems in order to feel safe. In fact, it takes all kinds to make a world, and the sum of diversity is richer than the individual aspects that comprise it. When we recognize that we do not gain stature by chopping off another’s legs, we become more tolerant of the endless variety of belief systems that make up society.
Personal freedom lies in recognizing that we are limitless souls experiencing life in a dualistic Universe. When we recognize the uniqueness of each soul sharing this human experience, we find the equanimity to celebrate the uniqueness of each life, no matter how different, without the need to judge or change them. It also frees us to celebrate and develop our unique gifts and talents as a gift to ourselves, the world and our Creator.
- Harness Dissonance for Growth
We can learn to harness our cognitive dissonance as a tool for growth instead of seeing it as a threat to comfort. Indeed, a rough road often leads to greatness. One of the ways to turn perceived threats into opportunities, is to ask ourselves about a challenge, “How can this be useful?” Rather than resist the challenge, we can look for ways to use it as a stepping stone for growth.
Humor and joy are powerful tools to help us escape the intensity of cognitive dissonance. Anthropologist Joseph Campbell said, “Find a place inside where there’s joy, and the joy will burn out the pain.” When we learn to poke fun at our own fears and failings, it sets us free to find joy. Comedians use this principle well by ridiculing the very things which others take too seriously. Robert Frost quipped, “Forgive, O Lord, my little jokes on Thee, and I’ll forgive Thy great big joke on me.”
- Get Off The Hamster Wheel
There’s an awful dread that comes with knowing that we are fallible, prone-to-mistakes, and imperfect mortal beings; but there is also a kind of awe-inspiring beauty to it. The idea that we can learn from our mistakes; that we can transform pain into knowledge, anger into courage, and loss into love, is at the heart of the soul’s journey.
To fully participate in this journey, we need to actively participate in shedding the habits and limiting beliefs that have kept us running on the hamster wheel of life without any point of arrival. The change that needs to happen is not outside of us; it starts within. As Gandhi said, we need to BE the change we wish to see in the world. The more we use the discomfort of cognitive dissonance as a sharpening stone to hone our core values, beliefs and truths, the more we will experience inner peace, regardless of the outer challenges we face.
Conclusion
The choice to courageously deal with obstacles is at the heart of personal growth work. Cognitive dissonance can actually help us mature.
As dissonance arises, we can face it head-on. We can work at getting a clear sense of what has changed in our environment and how best to respond. We can recommit to our truth and values despite the dissonance it evokes, and determine to hold our space as unique souls until the tide turns.
About the author
©Copyright Ada Porat. For more information, visit https://adaporat.com. This article may be freely distributed in whole or in part, provided there is no charge for it and this notice is attached.
by Ada Porat | Dec 20, 2016 | Change bad habits, Conscious living, Mindfulness, Self-awareness
The power of our minds can be harnessed to empower us. It can also sabotage our best intentions. Here are seven lies we commonly tell ourselves to indulge or to hide the truth from ourselves. To live our best lives, it is essential to recognize these self-sabotage patterns and evict them to make more empowering choices.
I wish I could do _______, but I can’t.
‘I can’t’ almost always means ‘I don’t want to.’ We hide behind ‘I can’t’ to pretend the choice isn’t really ours. In the short run, it may feel beneficial because we can avoid owning our preferences and pretend that we have no choice in the matter. But it comes at a significant cost! By habitually hiding behind ‘I can’t’ we disempower ourselves across all areas of our lives. What we really need to say is ‘I don’t want to’ instead of ‘I can’t.’ It is more honest and restores our sense of personal power and choice.
I deserve this dessert….
Or this dress… or this outcome… or… whatever. This is one I hear often! Lying to ourselves by pretending that we deserve what we lust for, lets us indulge in momentary comforts. The problem is, once the momentary gratification wears off, we’re back to facing the original, unpleasant feelings. I have seen people overeat by saying they deserve to indulge after a long day at a job they hate or working with people they loathe. They use food as a reward even though it wrecks their health; and this is the epitome of self-sabotage cloaked in righteous garb. Nobody deserves to wake up feeling awful about their choices. By addressing core issues, every person has the power to restore a sense of well-being to life.
Another related, insidious phrase that people use is ‘I need,’ as in, ‘I need that new dress’ or ‘I need you to listen to me.’ If you’re alive and surviving without it right now, then you clearly don’t need it. This habit may sound insignificant, but it is dishonest. Changing ‘I need’ to ‘I want’ is incredibly freeing. Whereas ‘I need’ sets you up to believe you’ll be hurt if you don’t get something, ‘I want’ gives you freedom.”
I’m definitely right.
This is one of the most damaging lies we can tell ourselves, according to social psychologist Carol Tavris, Ph.D., coauthor of Mistakes Were Made (But Not by Me): Why We Justify Foolish Beliefs, Bad Decisions, and Hurtful Acts. It’s called the basic bias—the idea that everyone else is biased, but we’re not. The belief that you know best and that you’ve got all the facts prevents you from even listening to evidence that you’re wrong—that your memory may be wrong, your perception inaccurate or your explanation faulty. It’s inherently self-damaging because it keeps you stuck in the limitations of what you think you know. It also makes you a miserable person to be with, so watch for this lie!
I have no willpower.
You do have some willpower. We all do, even though laboratory tests have shown that willpower is finite – after people used self-control for some tasks, they had less of it for subsequent tasks (that’s why it’s not a good idea to quit smoking, start a stressful job, and go on a diet on the same day!) Researchers have found that willpower, like a muscle, can be built up over time through regular training. Moreover, it has spillover benefits: If you decided to straighten your posture every time you thought about it for two weeks, you will not only improve your posture, but you’ll also experience all-around improvement in self-empowerment in completely unrelated areas!
I’ll never get over it.
In The Emotional Life Of Your Brain, author and neuroscientist Richard J. Davidson states that we’re not necessarily conscious of just how rapidly we recover from adversity. You’ve probably heard of psychologist Dan Gilbert’s research showing how people who’ve been paralyzed are about as happy a year after the accident as they were before; likewise, lottery winners were found to be no happier a year after their big win.
By allowing yourself to simply feel the negative emotions of major setbacks and trusting nature’s ability to heal, you’ll discover that negative emotions actually have a finite lifespan and tend to abate over time. While there is substantial variability in how long each person may need to grieve their losses, it is a good rule of thumb to start looking for some sense of forward motion after about six months. If not, you may benefit from professional help.
Researchers have found that people who are slower to recover from stressful events in fact have brains that are wired differently. Fortunately, we can change our brains activity patterns with mindfulness meditation, which boosts activity in the pre-frontal cortex. Studies have shown how this practice over time weakens the negative chain of associations that keep us obsessing about setbacks.
I don’t judge others.
Sure, you do! Research into how humans categorize and perceive others, shows that we all make spontaneous trait inferences about others within less than a second after meeting them! These findings are remarkably consistent across the globe, as people instantly judge each other on two main qualities: warmth and competence. People who are judged as competent but cold (such as a wealthy tycoon) elicit envy or hostility. People who are perceived as warm but incompetent (such as elderly people) bring out feelings of pity. Here’s the kicker: all judgment is ultimately self-judgment. When we size people up, we’re judging them with our conscious mind – and we are ultimately judging ourselves because we’re trying to figure out how we fit in.
If only I had a million dollars, I’d fulfill my dream of _____.
This little self-deluding bomb? It’s disproved every time we see an attorney who aspires to own a restaurant and goes to cooking school at night, or a mom who build an Etsy business while her kids take their afternoon nap. Somehow, we are so certain — so absolutely certain — that we can’t take the leap without a certain financial guarantee or windfall. We totally delude and block ourselves with this lie! Instead, why not take a step closer to your dreams from where you are at right now, and make the commitment to gradually transition to what you really want to do with the rest of your life. It is only too late if you don’t start now!
by Ada Porat | Nov 14, 2016 | Change bad habits, Conscious living, Environment, Mindfulness, Peace
For eons, people have been struggling with the concept of time. It permeates our language and influences our outlook on life. After all, time is money, time is of the essence and time flies, right!
And so, we struggle for control over time: we measure time, stretch time, lose time, kill time, and still never have enough time! It’s not surprising we feel this way. The pace of life today is far more frenetic than it was even just a generation ago.
In the struggle to control time, we’ve grown so out of touch with the natural world that it doesn’t seem to matter whether it’s day or night, hot or cold, summer or winter. We control the climate at home, in the car and at the office. We create artificial environments to extend our days. We eat food with little regard for its season or source.
These artificial life choices further separate us from the rhythms and cycles of nature, desensitizing us to nature’s seasonal indicators of passing time. When we stare into the cold screens of our electronic gadgets, we disconnect from the natural world around us and forget our origins.
In the words of author Michael McCarthy, “We need constant reminding that we have only been operators of computers for a single generation… but we were farmers for 500 generations, and before that hunter-gatherers for perhaps 50,000 or more, living with the natural world as part of it as we evolved.”
If we want inner peace, we need to learn how to coexist peacefully with the inevitable march of time instead of trying to control it. We need to synchronize with time at all levels. The sixteenth-century Chinese poet Liu Wenmin put it this way:
“To be able to be unhurried when hurried;
To be able not to slack off when relaxed;
To be able not to be frightened
And at a loss for what to do,
When frightened and at a loss;
This is the learning that returns us
To our natural state and transforms our lives.”
Time moves on whether we are hurtling through life or savoring it. We can – indeed we must – learn to remain still and calm amid the torrent of commitments, not allowing our overscheduled lives to rob us of the time we need to recalibrate and connect to the natural world, ourselves, and each other.
The simple act of spending time in nature is one such solution that has many healing properties. In Japan, this healing process is known as “shinrin-yoku” or forest bathing. Scientific studies confirm that spending time in nature can lead to decreased stress hormone production, lower heart rate and blood pressure, elevate mood and strengthen the immune system.
If you’ve ever had the opportunity to return to the same place season after season, you’d recall the private pleasure of reconnecting to a special place each time you returned: becoming aware of the height of the tide, the direction of the wind, the time of sunrise and sunset, and the phase of the moon. Having a place in nature to return to allows us to reconnect where we’d left off, much like picking up an old friendship.
Sometimes we encounter the power and beauty of the natural world in one startling moment: observing the grandeur of a rainbow after a storm, or seeing the beauty of some tiny creature up close. These are magical moments when all sense of time stops and we’re caught up in the wonder of the present moment.
To connect to nature is to reconnect to our own origins. Stepping out of our man-made schedules and obligations – even if just for a few moments – to look at the clouds, smell the air, feel the breeze on our skin, helps us reconnect to the eternal nature of creation and find peace.
About the author
©Copyright Ada Porat. For more information, visit https://adaporat.com. This article may be freely distributed in whole or in part, provided there is no charge for it and this notice is attached.
by Ada Porat | Oct 20, 2016 | Gratitude, Healthy boundaries
Human beings are strange and miraculous creatures. From our first moment in life we hurtle toward uniqueness and individuation. We seek it out individuation at all cost, yet this sense of individuation comes at a price: for every door we step through, any number of others are closed. We become who we are at the expense of who we are not.
Recognizing there is a cost to every path we choose and coming to terms with that, is not easy. Before we reach acceptance, we often resent the circumstances of our lives; we resist the limitations on our path and focus on what is lacking. We define ourselves by what we are not, and this leads to envy, resentment, anger and bitterness.
Once we accept the process and price of individuation, we can turn toward gratitude instead. We give thanks for the miracle of life and all it has brought us. We are humbled by blessings and double our efforts to build upon it, using our lives as vehicles to enrich the tapestry of humanity.
We learn to accept our brilliance with humility and to forgive our shortcomings with grace. We learn to respect our dreams, acknowledge our fears and measure ourselves against a simple standard: how we conduct ourselves to leave a living legacy for generations that will follow. Instead of envying what others have, we celebrate in them the gifts and blessings not present in ourselves, because we know their unique gifts are not threats to be envied, but gifts that offer wholeness and diversity to our world.
At times, we may look back and think our lives have turned out to be less than we dreamed of. We may even stumble or fall along life’s path. This is not a crime. The crime is in refusing to get up and continue, or failing to embrace others who have fallen in their own way.
We will probably never be as good or worthy as we wish to be. Yet if we can forgive ourselves for our failures, we find grace to forgive others theirs. Ultimately, it sets us free to make the most with what we have.
When I think of the life I have been blessed with, I am humbled beyond words. I could never have imagined this life at the start. Its unique unfolding is a miracle, a treasure of unexpected grace. Though I am not what I once thought I should be, I am more than I might have hoped for. The landscape of my life fills me with immense gratitude.
Today, I know that I will never be a wealthy philanthropist who can eradicate poverty and disease on a national scale, or a mother surrounded by extended family, or even a mystic leading a life of pure spiritual consciousness unencumbered by the cares of the world.
But I do know that I am blessed. I am privileged to touch and transform many lives one by one; my path allows me to offer nurturing and love to all my relations, human or otherwise; and I get to walk between the worlds of spirit and earth, nature and society, where I can help restore health, harmony and hope.
I am honored to play a part in healing the world we live in by making the most of the gifts and opportunities I do have. It is my way of giving thanks for the miracle of life.
About the author
©Copyright Ada Porat. For more information, visit https://adaporat.com. This article may be freely distributed in whole or in part, provided there is no charge for it and this notice is attached.
