EP 044 The Shadow Work Revolution: Unlock Authentic Transformation for Entrepreneurs

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Carl Young's Shadow work is the
most powerful transformation tool

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this self-help industry does not
want you to know about right now.

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As you're listening to this, there are
millions of people doing affirmations

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and doing vision boards and all
the positive thinking exercises.

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Who will be exactly where they
are today, five years from now?

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Yeah.

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Why I'm glad you asked, because
they're avoiding the one thing

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that actually starts to create
transformation, and that is facing

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the part of themselves that they've
been running from their entire lives.

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Jung called this shadow work, and
it's the difference between people who

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change their lives and the people who
just change their Instagram captions.

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What I'm about to share will make
you a little bit uncomfortable.

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And that's good because that my
friends, is where the real work begins.

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Your success, DNA podcast, your success.

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Is in your DNA.

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What is up?

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What is up?

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What the hell is up?

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My fellow success secrets.

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Welcome back to another episode
of Your success, DNA, the podcast

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designed for my aspiring entrepreneurs
and nine to five escapees and

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success driven folks out there.

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Each episode delivers a little
mindset shifts and habit upgrades,

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all mixed with a dose of rebellion.

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All designed to help you break free of
convention, design a life, and maybe

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even a business that's aligned with your
version of success, not mine, not Joe

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Schmoe's, not your bosses, maybe not even
your parents, but your version of success.

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And if you know someone who's out there
dreaming of ditching the norm and still

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makes time for little self-help, a
little personal development, then go

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ahead and forward this episode to them.

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Would you.

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So we're gonna talk about the shadow
work revolution and why generic

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self-help is keeping you stuck.

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So we're gonna talk about three
things in this episode as always.

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First, I'm going to expose why
92% of the people who try to

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change themselves completely fail.

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Big red X up on the screen here.

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It has nothing to do with
willpower, and it certainly has

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nothing to do with motivation.

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Many of you are way motivated,
just can't get your shit done.

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It's all because you're trying to
build a new life on top of a crumbling

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foundation, on top of a foundation
that you've always refused to examine.

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And maybe it's not you, maybe
some other folks out there.

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Maybe it's someone you
know very personally.

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Second, you're gonna discover Carl
Young's revolutionary concept.

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Of the shadow, the parts of yourself
that you've denied, you've rejected,

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you've tucked away over in the corner.

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And why integrating these aspects
is what Jung called the apprentice

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piece of real transformation.

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Okay.

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And then third, I'm gonna walk you
through the three stages of authentic

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change that most self-help gurus.

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We'll never teach you because it requires
that you get a little uncomfortable.

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It requires that you face your
contradictions and it requires

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that you stop pretending that
you're someone you're not.

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Okay?

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And here's the truth, and I think it's
gonna shatter a few illusions out there.

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The reason that you are not where you want
to be is not because you lack strategy.

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It's not because you don't have the
right habits, and it's not because you

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don't have the right mindset techniques.

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No, eh, another big red
X up on the screen there.

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It's because you're trying to
transform while you're keeping the

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most important parts of yourself
locked away down in the basement.

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Yeah, it rubs the lotion on.

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No, I'm sorry.

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Some of you know the movie reference, but
let me tell you about two people I know

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who both wanted to change their lives.

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We're gonna call them
Sarah and Mike, right?

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The names have been changed
to protect the innocent here.

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Sarah was obsessed with
personal development.

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She had a morning routine that
would, let's be honest, make

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Tony Robbins very jealous.

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Meditation.

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Journaling journal,
affirmations, visualization.

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I mean, she had this whole shebang
going on every single morning.

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She read every book that was out there.

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She attended every seminar that came
to her town, actually traveled outta

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town for quite a few of them and could
quote just about every guru that you

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and I would recognize the names of.

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But after three years of this same
routine, she was still stuck in the same

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patterns, in the same relationships,
and with the same frustrations.

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Mike, let's talk about Mike.

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Mike on the other hand, he did
something a little different.

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He started asking uncomfortable questions.

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Why did he always choose partners
that he found emotionally unavailable?

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Why did he sabotage himself every
damn time he got close to success?

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And why did he present
this confident facade?

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He still felt like a fraud.

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Yeah.

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Some of you're feeling
me on this one, right?

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I, I, I've been there.

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Instead of trying to positive think
his way outta these patterns, Mike

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did what Carl Young would call shadow
work, and we've talked about this

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on a couple of recent episodes here.

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Go back and check those out.

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He started examining the parts
of himself that he's been trying

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to hide his neediness, his anger.

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His fear of abandonment, his secret
belief that he was not worthy of love.

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Here's what happened, Sarah.

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Sarah is still doing her morning
routine and God love her.

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You keep going at it.

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Sarah and Sarah's still wondering
why nothing is changing.

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Well, nothing major is changing.

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She feels good about it.

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Mike, on the other hand, Mike completely
transformed his life by facing

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head on what he had been avoiding.

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The difference.

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Sarah was trying to build a new
identity on top of a crumbling

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or unexamined foundation.

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Mike.

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Mike was willing to dig around down
in the darkness in the basement

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and see what it was that was really
holding up his emotional house.

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So.

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Lemme walk you through what shadow work
actually means and how you can do it.

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Because it's not just
psychological theory here.

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It's the missing piece that makes all
other personal development tactics work.

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Okay?

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So you've, if you've tried all the things
out there and you're still stumbling

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and bumbling and falling and trying
to figure out, why is it not working

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for me, this might be the missing link
to your personal development chain.

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First, let's understand what
we're dealing with here.

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Carl Young, one of the most
influential psychologists in history,

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discovered something profound
during his own personal crisis.

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In his middle ages.

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In his groundbreaking work,
Aon Young revealed that every

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single person has what he called.

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A shadow, right?

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He says With air quotes, and this is all
the parts of your personality that have

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been rejected, have been denied and have
been, like I said earlier, hidden away.

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'cause they don't quite fit with your
idealized self-image with who you feel

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you want to be or are your shadow.

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Now, let's not get this confused.

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It's not evil.

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It's not your dark side.

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It's not like, you know,
Luke, you are my son.

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No, it's none of that dramatic stuff.

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It's simply a collection of traits
of emotions, and perhaps even

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impulses that you have learned that
are unacceptable either to yourself.

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To your family, to your loved
ones, to your children, to your

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spouse or society as a whole.

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Maybe for example, you learned that
anger is bad, so you buried your

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capacity for righteous in indignation.

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Maybe you learned that being vulnerable.

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Was a weakness.

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So you hid your need for human connection.

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Maybe you learned that ambition
is selfish, so you suppressed your

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drive to achieve amazing things.

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Here's a crucial insight.

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These rejected parts of you who
you are, they don't disappear

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just because you rejected them.

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No, they go underground and they start to
steer your life from the shadows, right?

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They show up as things like
self-sabotage or relationship patterns.

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Why do I always pick this kind of person?

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And all those mysterious ways that
you keep getting in your own way.

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Young identified three stages.

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Of what he called individuation.

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Now this is the process of
becoming who you really are, so

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let's go through those stages.

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Stage one is confronting the
shadow Seems pretty obvious young

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called this the apprentice piece
because it is the foundational

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work that makes everything else.

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Possible this means honestly examining
your traits that you've pro quite probably

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disowned, disavowed, or just shoved off On
the side we're talking about things like

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the anger you suppressed, the neediness
that you've hidden, the selfishness

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that you've, that you have denied
the weaknesses, that you are covering

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up with strengths and the strengths
that you're hiding behind weaknesses.

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And here's how to start.

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First, you're gonna wanna pay attention
to what it is that triggers you in

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other people, because Jung said that
quite, quite often what we can't

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stand in others is quite often what
we can't stand about ourselves.

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The people who are too aggressive.

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Well, they might have disowned
their own assertiveness.

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All those people that are too
needy, they might have rejected

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their own need for connection.

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Stage two.

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Stage two involves integrating what
young called the enema and the animus.

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This is the unconscious feminine
and the unconscious masculine

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aspects of your personality.

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This isn't about gender.

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Don't get me wrong here.

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This is about psychological wholeness,
both sides, ladies and gentlemen.

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Especially you gentlemen.

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For many men out there, this means
developing a capacity for your intuition,

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your emotion, and your receptivity.

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For many women, this means
embracing your assertiveness,

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your logic, and your independence.

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Honest, assertiveness,
logic, and independence.

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Not that not.

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Not some of the ugly stuff
we've seen out there.

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Okay.

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You know what I'm talking about, but it's
different for everyone because we all

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have unique aspects that we've suppressed.

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Now.

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Stage three is integration of the
self, not the ego self that you've been

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presenting all out there to the world.

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But we're talking about that deeper self
that encompasses all of who you are.

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Every single little aspect, every
page of the book that is you.

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This is what Abraham Maslow called
self-actualization, becoming Fully

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who you were meant to be Fort,
and all this isn't about perfect.

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This is about authenticity.

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Uh, there's a word we've all
heard, banty it around online with

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all the gurus out there, right?

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Okay, so now here's how you
actually do all this work.

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Start with what young
called active imagination.

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When you notice a strong
emotional reaction.

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Anger, jealousy, fear,
shame, whatever it might be.

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Instead of pushing it away or repelling
from it or acting it out, sit with it.

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Ask, what is it trying to tell you?

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What need is it really expressing?

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And what, or, here's another one.

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What part of you.

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Is it really protecting practice,
what I call shadow journaling?

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And I talked about this a couple
episodes ago as well, so we'll go

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into it a little bit more here.

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Write about the traits that you most
dislike in other people, not what you

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love, what you most dislike, and then
honestly, ask yourself this question,

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how might this trait exist within me?

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You have to be honest.

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It's not always, not
always gonna be pretty.

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When have I acted in this way?

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What would it look like if I completely
owned this aspect of myself instead

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of projecting it out onto others?

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Yeah.

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And then answer the
questions, write it down.

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It's just you and your journal so you
can go ahead and be completely honest.

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Here's another thing.

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I want you to pay
attention to your dreams.

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Young believed that dreams were messages
from your unconscious, showing us

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parts of ourselves that we just were
not seeing during our conscious time.

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Keep a dream journal and look for
recurring themes or characters

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that might represent those disowned
aspects of your personality.

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I started doing this way back, oh
gosh, it would've been the nineties,

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and I used to keep a journal and it's
really hard to sit there and write.

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When you're groggy, you know that moment
when you first wake up and you're like,

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oh my God, I know if I don't write this
down now, I'll never remember it later on.

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So here's what I did, and
you can do this differently.

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Back then, we didn't have iPhones,
so I had a little mini one of those

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miniature, uh, tape recorders.

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So if I would wake up in the middle of
the night, I would just hit record and

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just kind of googly speak into the mic.

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It.

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And then write it a conscious
aspect, enlightening thing.

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Usually probably at the ready every
single moment, you could just press

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record right there on the voice
recorder and speak into it, and then

245
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come back and journal it later on.

246
00:11:08,813 --> 00:11:11,839
Okay, so what you're gonna wanna do here
though, is you're gonna wanna notice.

247
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Your patterns.

248
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Where are you repeatedly getting stuck?

249
00:11:15,343 --> 00:11:17,065
Not just in your dreams,
but everything else?

250
00:11:17,117 --> 00:11:22,152
What situations trigger the same reactions
in you over and over and over again?

251
00:11:22,386 --> 00:11:25,073
These patterns are often your shadow.

252
00:11:25,126 --> 00:11:26,352
Trying to get your attention.

253
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Go, Hey.

254
00:11:27,152 --> 00:11:28,639
You might wanna pay attention right here.

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Okay.

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So as the poet, who is it?

257
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Robert Bly.

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He described it in a little
book on the human shadow.

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This work isn't about eliminating
the aspects that you're trying

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to tuck away into the shadows.

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It's about reclaiming the
energy that they contain.

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It's a part of you and you're, you're
taking energy to push it away, and

263
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it has energy in and of itself.

264
00:11:49,265 --> 00:11:51,065
Let's go ahead and
reclaim all that energy.

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You don't have to, you
can stop pushing it away.

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So you're gonna reclaim that energy
and then you're gonna reclaim the

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energy that the actual aspect has.

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Modern approaches like internal
family Systems therapy have validated

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Young's insights into this, and
we can, that we all contain.

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These multiple parts and the
healing of it happens through

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integration, not elimination.

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Now, not as many of you know, I
am not a licensed psychotherapist

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or any of that noise.

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I'm just a guy who's lived 60 plus years
on this big blue spinning globe, and

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I'm just sharing my whisked wisdom here.

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The goal here overall.

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Isn't to become your shadow.

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00:12:25,491 --> 00:12:28,308
You don't want to go from living in
your home, your mental and physical

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and spiritual home to living down in
your mental and spiritual and physical.

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Basements right in the shadows.

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But what you can do is use it as
fuel for positives change instead of

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just letting it leak out as passive
aggression, as failed relationships,

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as failed business opportunities.

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When you acknowledge your neediness.

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You can ask for what you want directly
instead of having to manipulate others

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into giving it to you indirectly.

287
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I was married to one of those, oh my God.

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This is the very kind of deep
transformation ma transformational work,

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uh, that we explore every week in the
Unleash Your Success DNA newsletter.

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It's for people who are tired of that
surface level self-help scratching

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the surface that really want that.

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Real work and they're ready for it so
they can become actually who they are.

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Each issue delivers mindset shifts
and more habit upgrades and still

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mixed with my usual dose of rebellion.

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All designed to help you break
free from convention so that you

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can build a life aligned with.

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00:13:24,100 --> 00:13:27,700
Who you are, your authentic self,
no fluff, no toxic positivity,

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just uncomfortable truths that
could actually set you free.

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Go ahead and sign up over at your
success DNA and we'll, we'll get into

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00:13:34,247 --> 00:13:36,230
that inside the, the newsletter there.

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Here's why I think this matters
for you and for many of my

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00:13:39,830 --> 00:13:41,239
listeners at a deeper level.

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We are living in a culture
that seems completely terrified

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of psychological complexity.

305
00:13:48,143 --> 00:13:49,995
We want answers to be simple.

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We want fixes to be quick, and we want
truths to be calming and comfortable.

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Well, I'm sorry.

308
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Answers aren't always simple.

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Fixes aren't always quick, and sometimes
real truth is very uncomfortable

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because humans aren't simple.

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We're literally walking contradictions.

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We contain multitudes.

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We have the capacity for
creation and destruction.

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We hate and we love.

315
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We have courage and we have fear.

316
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We are selfish.

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We are generous all at the same time,
and all in various varying degrees

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at different times in our life.

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00:14:21,682 --> 00:14:25,517
Unlike Martin Seligman's positive
psychological movement, which focuses

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on amplifying strengths and positive
emotions, Young's approach recognizes that

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00:14:30,265 --> 00:14:34,752
the self-help industry has convinced us
that the goal is to eliminate the negative

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00:14:34,752 --> 00:14:36,865
parts and to amplify the positive ones.

323
00:14:37,021 --> 00:14:41,039
But I think this creates what young
called the one-sided personality.

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Unfortunately, just one-sided
personality is brittle.

325
00:14:44,265 --> 00:14:49,117
It's very inauthentic, and it's
ultimately unsustainable over time,

326
00:14:49,326 --> 00:14:50,526
and many of you have experienced that.

327
00:14:50,552 --> 00:14:52,352
I know I did a couple of times in my life.

328
00:14:52,378 --> 00:14:55,195
Real transformation is
not about being perfect.

329
00:14:55,378 --> 00:14:56,891
It's about becoming whole.

330
00:14:57,121 --> 00:15:02,026
Being who you are, it's about integrating
all the aspects of who you are into

331
00:15:02,182 --> 00:15:04,347
a coherent, authentic identity.

332
00:15:04,582 --> 00:15:04,921
Okay?

333
00:15:05,156 --> 00:15:08,339
Now we're not talking about all that
dark, ugly stuff that is socially

334
00:15:08,495 --> 00:15:10,295
just completely wrong for your.

335
00:15:10,539 --> 00:15:15,078
For humankind and yourself, we're talking
about the good stuff, but you sometimes

336
00:15:15,078 --> 00:15:18,965
you've have to rustle around in what some
folks might call the bad stuff to pull

337
00:15:18,965 --> 00:15:20,399
it out and turn it into a good thing.

338
00:15:20,399 --> 00:15:23,347
I like I talk about all the
time, losing my daughter was a

339
00:15:23,347 --> 00:15:24,756
terrible thing to have happen.

340
00:15:25,095 --> 00:15:26,086
She was only 18 months old.

341
00:15:26,139 --> 00:15:31,904
However, I have found blessings tucked
inside of that if I would've not addressed

342
00:15:31,956 --> 00:15:33,860
that part, that shadow part of me.

343
00:15:34,226 --> 00:15:36,260
I wouldn't be as happy as I am today.

344
00:15:36,339 --> 00:15:39,417
This connects with a much larger
paradigm shift that I think is

345
00:15:39,417 --> 00:15:40,773
happening in psychology itself.

346
00:15:40,930 --> 00:15:45,339
We're moving away from the medical
model that sees psychological distress

347
00:15:45,573 --> 00:15:47,452
as a pathology to be eliminated.

348
00:15:47,921 --> 00:15:51,886
I think we're moving towards, at least
in the circles I travel in, we're moving

349
00:15:51,886 --> 00:15:57,260
towards a more holistic understanding
that sees our struggles as information

350
00:15:57,469 --> 00:16:02,582
and it's information about what needs
attention in our lives, in our minds, in

351
00:16:02,582 --> 00:16:05,321
our hearts, in our souls, in our bodies.

352
00:16:05,452 --> 00:16:05,791
Okay.

353
00:16:06,130 --> 00:16:09,782
Your anxiety might be telling you
that you are not living according

354
00:16:09,782 --> 00:16:11,660
to your own deeply held values.

355
00:16:11,843 --> 00:16:15,652
Your anger could be showing you
that you have boundaries that people

356
00:16:15,652 --> 00:16:19,069
keep violating, and you need to
stand up for yourself and stop that.

357
00:16:19,356 --> 00:16:23,269
Your depression might be signaling
that you've lost connection to what

358
00:16:23,426 --> 00:16:25,382
seems to give your life meaning.

359
00:16:25,865 --> 00:16:27,430
I don't know if you need a pill or not.

360
00:16:27,482 --> 00:16:31,343
I can't make that determination, but
I can say it might be that you need to

361
00:16:31,343 --> 00:16:32,986
find that connection and bring it back.

362
00:16:33,169 --> 00:16:35,595
The goal isn't to eliminate your shadow.

363
00:16:35,700 --> 00:16:37,969
It's not to dope it up and dumb it down.

364
00:16:38,152 --> 00:16:42,221
It's to dance with it and to dance
with it consciously instead of

365
00:16:42,221 --> 00:16:44,543
letting it control you unconsciously.

366
00:16:44,752 --> 00:16:48,273
When you do this kind of work,
something truly remarkable happens.

367
00:16:48,513 --> 00:16:50,443
It doesn't always happen
instantly, but it does happen.

368
00:16:50,652 --> 00:16:53,417
You stop being at war with yourself.

369
00:16:53,495 --> 00:16:57,669
You stop exhausting yourself trying
to maintain that perfect image.

370
00:16:58,304 --> 00:17:02,034
You develop what young called
psychological resilience, and

371
00:17:02,034 --> 00:17:05,060
that is the ability to handle
whatever life throws at you.

372
00:17:05,321 --> 00:17:07,069
We all know it's gonna throw shit at you.

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00:17:07,121 --> 00:17:10,800
You'll be able to handle whatever
life throws at you because you are no

374
00:17:10,800 --> 00:17:13,721
longer afraid of your own reactions.

375
00:17:14,008 --> 00:17:17,608
When you're less afraid of your
own reactions, you are far less

376
00:17:17,608 --> 00:17:19,591
afraid of everyone else's reactions.

377
00:17:19,773 --> 00:17:22,408
So all that said, here's your
Whiskered wisdom for this week.

378
00:17:22,773 --> 00:17:25,534
You, my friend, cannot heal
what you refuse to feel.

379
00:17:26,282 --> 00:17:30,195
You can't integrate what you won't
take the damn time to acknowledge.

380
00:17:30,378 --> 00:17:31,317
The research is clear.

381
00:17:31,526 --> 00:17:34,917
People who do shadow work, who
honestly examine and integrate their

382
00:17:34,917 --> 00:17:39,221
disowned aspects, they report higher
levels of life satisfaction, higher

383
00:17:39,221 --> 00:17:43,317
levels of better relationships, and a
greater resilience than any of those

384
00:17:43,317 --> 00:17:47,908
folks that are out there focused only
on positive psychology techniques.

385
00:17:47,908 --> 00:17:49,395
And I've got books of those over here.

386
00:17:49,604 --> 00:17:50,234
I'm not saying they don't work.

387
00:17:50,726 --> 00:17:51,873
I'm not saying they don't have a place.

388
00:17:52,134 --> 00:17:56,726
I'm saying you can't have one without
the other to integrate yourself fully.

389
00:17:56,934 --> 00:17:58,969
So here's your specific
action for this week.

390
00:17:59,178 --> 00:18:02,960
Choose one person who really
seems to irritate you, right?

391
00:18:02,960 --> 00:18:06,352
Just like sandpaper that I just
kind of gRED you the wrong way

392
00:18:06,586 --> 00:18:07,943
and instead of judging them.

393
00:18:08,173 --> 00:18:11,747
I want you to ask yourself this
question, what quality in this

394
00:18:11,747 --> 00:18:14,226
person am I rejecting in myself?

395
00:18:14,382 --> 00:18:18,608
Then spend a little time journaling
about how that quality might actually

396
00:18:18,608 --> 00:18:22,730
serve you if you owned it consciously
and let it flow through you.

397
00:18:22,965 --> 00:18:24,634
This isn't about becoming
someone you're not.

398
00:18:24,986 --> 00:18:29,226
It's about reclaiming the parts of
yourself you've been too damn afraid to

399
00:18:29,226 --> 00:18:33,452
even acknowledge, and that my friends
is where real transformation truly.

400
00:18:33,669 --> 00:18:36,852
Begins, listen, the world doesn't
need another version of you

401
00:18:37,086 --> 00:18:38,730
that you think you should be.

402
00:18:38,913 --> 00:18:39,147
No.

403
00:18:39,200 --> 00:18:43,165
It needs the full, complex,
contradictory, beautiful shit.

404
00:18:43,217 --> 00:18:46,739
Time mess of who you really
are, who you actually are.

405
00:18:46,921 --> 00:18:49,921
Warts and all shadow
work is not comfortable.

406
00:18:50,104 --> 00:18:53,573
Sometimes it's fun, often not so
much, but it's not comfortable.

407
00:18:53,704 --> 00:18:55,013
It's not Instagram worthy.

408
00:18:55,513 --> 00:18:56,660
God, I hope not.

409
00:18:56,739 --> 00:18:59,373
It won't fit on a motivational
poster, which is probably why

410
00:18:59,373 --> 00:19:00,469
you can't go out and buy one.

411
00:19:00,547 --> 00:19:03,782
But it's the difference between
people who change their lives and

412
00:19:03,782 --> 00:19:07,252
people who just rearranged the
furniture in their mental house.

413
00:19:07,408 --> 00:19:09,939
You have everything
you need inside of you.

414
00:19:10,130 --> 00:19:14,147
Right now, including the parts that
you've been trying to hide, dust them off.

415
00:19:14,330 --> 00:19:15,478
Stop running around.

416
00:19:15,660 --> 00:19:19,965
Stop running away from yourself and
start running toward the fullness of who

417
00:19:19,965 --> 00:19:22,730
you are capable of being and becoming.

418
00:19:22,834 --> 00:19:24,634
Your shadow is not your enemy.

419
00:19:24,843 --> 00:19:27,543
It's not the dark side
that you're trying to hide.

420
00:19:28,065 --> 00:19:31,013
It's your ally awaiting
to be acknowledged.

421
00:19:31,039 --> 00:19:34,795
It's half of your power that you've
been hiding away, and when you finally

422
00:19:34,795 --> 00:19:38,265
turn toward it, instead of away
from it, that my friends, is when

423
00:19:38,265 --> 00:19:40,247
some real magic can start to happen.

424
00:19:40,508 --> 00:19:42,700
In the meantime, I'm gonna
leave you as I always do, think

425
00:19:42,700 --> 00:19:44,265
successfully and take action.