help

[slash112]

^ I agree, mostly.

However, you can very healthily free yourself from everything/anything. But it's freedom IN everything.

[blossomingtree]

Originally Posted by Greenslade

Hi Richard

I've spent most of my Life with mental health issues, I'm borderline schizophrenic and didn't have the best of beginnings to Life, which left me with all kinds of issues to resolve. I've also worked in mental health and seen things that'll haunt me for a long time to come. I also struggle with reality some days, feeling totally disassociated with everything and everyone around me. Anyways...

I don't think you ever truly 'master' your dark side and most people don't even want to acknowledge it, being less-than-perfection is one thing but admitting there's a balance to 'the Light' side of ourselves is something else. I have a friend who is bi-polar and she manages to cope with it rather than master it, and although it's disconcerting for the first time the people around her have become used to it. Acceptance and acknowledgement seems to be the key, most are never quite the same again and fighting it only means there's more to fight against. When you accept and acknowledge your dark side - whatever that is - as part of you it puts an end to the conflict inside yourself.

As with many metal health conditions somehow you find coping mechanisms, like recognising any warning signs and dealing with them as they happen as best you can. The other option isn't always pretty. My wife had a stroke a few years back and the blood supply to parts of her brain were cut off, that caused those parts to die. What we did is use the neuroplasticity of the brain to 'retrain' it, what happens is the brain creates new pathways and new ways for the signals to get around.

My own dark side is very much 'still here' and because of it I've done things I'm not proud of, but I've found a deep inner peace and come to terms with myself and what I'm capable of. The good thing about banging your head against a brick wall is that it feels great when you stop. My own reality is very much 'on the fringes' still but that gives me a whole different perspective, and it's much more fun. My dark side isn't scary, I find it a haven in a world that has no place for me. After having spent so much time coming to terms with it, what triggers it is the legacy of the primordial survival instincts. While that may seem a strange thing for a 'Spiritual person' to admit to we all have those instincts regardless. You can't run away from yourself.

Hallucinations are often the images of the subconscious made conscious or the conscious mind trying to escape a reality it simply can't deal with, real or not they can often tell you things about yourself. Come time - when you begin to stop fighting with yourself you can start working with your hallucinations. I've worked with my own and other people's hallucinations and what they seem to be is the subconscious sending 'messages' to the conscious mind in the way it happens with dreams and the sleeping mind. Hallucinations can also be psychic in nature and it might well be that what is mistaken for hallucinations the connection to an alternate reality or a Spirit connection such as clairvoyance.

If you want to understand more I'd suggest you have a look at the work Carl Jung did, he seems to be one of the foremost experts and he practised what he preached - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HcWOUV77m24
Alan Watts is a very well respected Spiritual person so for him to talk of Jung kind of 'validates' Jung within Spirituality. If you prefer something of a more Spiritual flavour Teal Swan is worth checking out -
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2s8I3yq-Kmo


Good luck out there.

Thanks for sharing GS.

BT

Originally Posted by SeekerOfKnowledge

Free yourself of your shadow? Wouldn't that mean to free yourself of a part of yourself?
I am not a master at all, but I would say: Accept your shadow as a part of yourself. Embrace it. Love it, unconditionally. So that you can love yourself as the whole you.

Not free yourself of a part of yourself but free yourself of your perceptions and fear of it. And yes, Love it unconditionally because the alternative is to not like parts of yourself very much and that causes psychological problems.

Originally Posted by blossomingtree

Thanks for sharing GS.

BT

Thank you, BT. It puts a whole new slant on the 'Spiritual Journey'.

help

relax. over come on you. be optimo,
it's good for you 24/7, and it speaks
out success from the very you. optimo
you and whatever is brought up your
optimo too makes the very you
successfull. why not relax for a
couple of catch.

i e optimo
catches up

i e optimo got two good step foots

i e better optimo
than not much

[dryad]

Originally Posted by Eden Workshops

Hello.

I am frankly in need of help, I am a mature Chrisitian mystic, I have experienced three powerful extnesions of consciousnesss into the depths of my own unconscious mind and now my soul is very very real to me, I have freed myself from my shadow on two seperate occasion, the last about a year ago with the help of my psychiatrist who acted as my confessor, after this I attained a valid enlightenment, but I also suffer from bi polar disorder, I developed a psychosis which damaged my brain and recently I spent 5 weeks hallucinating strongly while in a mental illness unit, I used to look for signs from my God but now I am concerned in case they are just hallucinations, I have a psychitarist, but she knows nothing about the unconscious mind, she only thinks of the physical brain. I need help from the rarest of people, a master, someone who has freed themselves from their own shadow, can anyone help please?

Thank you

Richard

Hi Richard. I might be able to help you. What do you want help with?

Shadow is a complicated topic and your divisions are not the way they should be. Freedom from shadow is achieved by acceptance to create a balance and harmony through one self. Not two. Also you can't throw everything that is not light into the shadow. It doesn't work that way.

What do you understand enlightenment to be? For me it is only one of three fields of development needed. Sounds like you may have a somewhat similar view?