SHADOW AVOIDANCE and the Happiness Gurus, Prosperity Preachers and False (Feel Good) Prophets.

Introduction
Social media and seemingly everyone around us are busy creating airbrushed perceptions of positivity, happiness and fulfillment.

These days social media, such as Instagram are jammed with influencer posts about positive vibes, telling us not to allow negative energy or thoughts get to us, about surrounding our self with just supportive, positive people.

Instead of facing their own darkness, and surrendering to their humanness, many people start to follow the latest “feel good” New Age fad they find. The so called gurus, prosperity preachers, and law of attraction pushers use the ‘feel positive all the time’ ploy so that people can block anything negative that doesn’t fit in with the teachings to keep people hooked. Hooked on buying their books, programs, products. How can you criticize something that makes you feel good?. It’s so easy to get drawn into this way of thinking because the promised joy and happiness is so attractive…but it’s not realistic.

This is not only unrealistic, but also a recipe for never growing or truly learning who you are.

History
In the domain of psychology, Carl Jung created the Archetypes model, a concept wherein he believed our unconscious minds are fragmented or structured into different “selves” in an attempt to organize how we experience different things in life. Two of Jung’s major Archetypes are The Persona (what we would like to be and how we wish to be seen by the world) and The Shadow.

The Shadow Self is an archetype that forms part of the unconscious mind and is composed of repressed ideas, instincts, impulses, weaknesses, desires, perversions and embarrassing fears. This archetype is often described as the darker side of the psyche, representing wildness, chaos and the unknown. Jung believed that these latent dispositions are present in all of us, in many instances forming a strong source of creative energy.

The dark shadow traits, in the corners of our unconscious minds, never become adequately integrated into most people’s conscious minds because they never recognize their shadow self (due to their psychological ‘defense mechanisms‘). And so they continue on accumulating dark desires, motivations and fears.

The unchecked shadow can become a dark behavioral driver fuelled by negative emotions. Hence the need to identify, integrate and learn how to manage our Selves and the emotional energy that drives them.

Today
If you attempt to transcend or avoid difficult experiences, you can remain emotionally stunted. Like it or not, the ugly parts of our humanity are where growth can occur. People practice avoiding dealing with personal or psychological issues are said to be engaged in "spiritual bypassing." This is a defense mechanism to wall off unpleasant emotions and protect the ego. Spiritual seekers of all types easily fall into the trap of spiritual bypassing. It is spirituality's shadow.

Shadow avoidance shields us from the truth, it disconnects us from our feelings, and helps us avoid the big picture. It is more about checking out than checking in—and the difference is so subtle that we usually don't even know we are doing it.

There is a shadow side to almost every positive thing we can do for ourselves, including self-development and spiritual practice.

Shadow avoidance is more common than one may think, considering the popularity and expansion of spiritual philosophies (particularly Eastern spirituality) in recent decades filtering into the mainstream.

Some distorted behaviorisms of shadow avoidance include emotional numbing, detachment, spaciness, negation of the self, repression of emotions (particularly anger), exaggerated “positive thinking,” a devotion to health fads and special diets, tolerance for bad behavior, weak boundaries, unbalanced emotional development, lack of moral compass, rejection of the mainstream worldview, self-judgement, and delusions of “higher” grandeur (the false notion of having reached or reaching “enlightenment”).

The quick-fix, pain-numbing fashion prevalent at the moment negates truly entering into the cave of facing and working through our pain. The collective lack of willingness to seek deeper terrain is simply masking our raw and wild, primal self. The escape of spiritual bypassing has the toxic by-product of feeding the desire for pleasure to avoid our pain. Plastic fast-food spiritual fads like “manifesting,” “tantra,” and the like have become common norms and filled up the vacuum left by the slow disintegration of mainstream religions.

There is a place for positivity, but most of the time it is used an avoidance tool, which is dangerous.

Emotions can serve as flags indicating an opportunity for us to learn. Challenge, sorrow, change, discomfort, conflict, hatred, depression, and anxiety are paths to growth and change. We can explore and accept the parts of ourselves we are urged by others to keep tucked away. Painful or uncomfortable experiences enable us to grow past our current emotional and spiritual states.

All of us, at times, get stuck in a pattern of negative emotions. Sometimes we need an unbiased third party to help us see what we are running from or challenge us to face what we are unwilling to feel. Friends and loved ones can’t do it for us; we have too many emotional ties.

Doing this difficult work with a trained Neuro Coach, can lead to lasting change, personal growth. It takes real courage to stop pretending you have it all together and face your shadow, your sadness, that side of you that contains all the parts of yourself that you don't want to admit to having. It is at first an unconscious side. It is only by becoming totally aware of our various Selves that we can recognize, acknowledge and work with our shadow.

The path of individuation asks for total integration of all facets of the self. We shouldn't diminish what we are experiencing by undertaking fake positivity. Uncovering and understanding the self is a lifelong journey that demands rejection of the mask of positivity. How can you be yourself if you do not know that self? The path of individuation is through self-knowledge.

From the traditional symbols of light and darkness, the shadow emerges as the embodiment of the dark side of human nature. It is only through structured, guided effort that most people can become truly self-aware and recognize their shadow and how to manage it.

Before we can move past an unsuitable, misplaced behavioral driver we have to re-experience it—see it in action, listen to it, acknowledge it -so we can find a more suitable replacement.