Acceptance of our shadow PART 2

Firstly, I apologize for the late post. Secondly, we need to remind ourselves where we left the discussion last time.

One always has a devil lurking behind us. This devil we have accepted to call the shadow. The shadow represents our fear, sadness and everything we have repressed throughout our life. This repression explodes and creates uncomfortable sensations, that we have categorized as psychological disorders in our modern terminology.
We left the discussion at what happens when we ignore the shadow. Its the same as when a baby is ignored. It starts to cry and seeks our attention. The attention seeking is what creates the uncomfortable symptomatic we experience, such as depression, anxiety, panic and much more. How can we care for the baby? How can we love, what hurts us? This is what we are going to look at.

The baby, which seeks attention

There is one term called Misopedia. This means the hatred of one's own child and children in general. This condition can be developed after the birth of the child. When the baby constantly cries and deprives the parent of any sleep. One thinks of the child as a thing, which deprived us of our dreams, goals, freedom, and everything, which has to do with our individuality. The child has nothing to do with our unhappiness, rather it seeks innocent attention and love. Absolutely the same can be said about our shadow. We give birth to it and we ignore it. Thus, it becomes louder and louder until it finally devours us whole. We become the angry slave, who is afraid of going out, speaking to people or flying on airplanes. Aggression bursts, depression episodes, bipolarity, everything is allowed by us and the shadow. It starts to control our actions and thoughts and we give to them.
Let's go back to the baby. It cries and cries and cries. We get angry and start to do everything possible to calm it down. We make funny faces, we give it food, we play with it. The crying stops for a second and as soon as we stop it continues. What are we supposed to do?
The child is meant to cry. This is how it achieves everything it wants. From toys to attention to not going to school today. If we allow it, if we give into it, the crying just becomes more efficient. Thus, what is meant to be, should be let to be. If the child cries, accept it. Look it into its eyes and show your acceptance. CRY AS MUCH AS YOU WANT, I will simply love you... - Say to the child in your inner voice. Sooner or later, the child learns, that crying achieves nothing. It stops and learns to work with you, rather against you. The child becomes our friend.

The shadow is the child

Let's look at an imaginary case. Person X has an anxiety disorder, which is mainly focused on agoraphobia and social anxiety. The friends of person X invite him to the cinema. Anxious thoughts go through his head as he hears the offer.
The shadows start to whisper in his ear:
-If you go to the cinema you are going to die. Stay at home. Don't go, you will need to interact with people. The cinema is dark and scary. You are going to have an anxiety attack if you go and embarrass yourself in front of everybody. You are sick and this kind of stuff is only for the healthy people. So stay at home, let's watch a movie alone. Let's play. Let's stay.

And so person X says to his friends, that he would gladly go, but has some job to do and is not able to attend. The shadow won. Nothing of the above happens and so person X says: - I am so glad I didn't go. I was right to stay at home.
The shadow learns, that it can achieve everything now, simply by crying and whispering its won opinion. In the future person X stops going outside altogether. The world is dangerous, people are dangerous. So now person X stays at home every day at watches Game Of Thrones, plays games and after a while develops depression. He becomes a slave in his own body, mind, and home. Person X was defeated...

How to win the battle with the invisible enemy?

Let's assume now, that person X is a really enlightened person and one of his friends tells him:

• My friend, I understand your problem but don't fight it, simply accept it.

This sentence echoes through the head of our protagonist and his willpower activates, remembers and promises to act in the future with on this premise. The next day his friends ask him if he wants to come to the mountain with them. The shadow creeps up to his shoulder and starts to sing its song in his ear:
-A mountain is a dangerous place, there are surely people who will want to harm you. Don't go. Stay here. Don't emberass yourself by ruining your friends' holiday. You will not succeed. You will just fail. Stay at home. Watch Game of Thrones, play some games, do nothing. There is no way you can fail there. Stay home. Stay here.

Person X recognizes, that this is the shadow, who whispers. He remembers the words of his friend and simply breathes in and out accepting everything the shadow said. He lets the shadow be the shadow but does not identify with it, so he decides to go to the mountain. And so he goes.
Coming back from there was not easy. The shadow screamed the whole time. It was unhappy and made everything possible to show its unhappiness. Shaky legs, breathlessness, worries, obsessive thoughts, anxiety attacks. But this did not let our protagonist down. He accepted those symptoms because he knew that they were not his, but the shadows.
This scenario repeated a few times and the shadow grew tired. Everything it did was pointless. So it made a decision.
-From now on, I will be your guard. I will tell you if I see something wrong and give you the power to act when needed. Until then my body, I will simply stay asleep.
And so the shadow was accepted, and so the shadow became small. It stood by the shoulder of person X until the end of his times. Looking curiously upon the world and the people it once feared. It became wise and only spoke when it was absolutely necessary.

Thus the shadow was accepted.
Thus the story ends.
And the conclusion, dear viewer is:

Do not fight it, accept it.

Yours truly,

Monstroz.

Thank you for reading.

Sources:
(1) From the Manga "Vagabond" by Takehiko Inoue. ( I highly recommend it, one of the most philosophical mangas i have ever read)
(2) https://www.pexels.com/photo/curtain-hands-indoors-light-626164/
(3) https://www.pexels.com/photo/adult-affection-baby-casual-236164/