Shadow Life: Freedom from BS in an Unreal World
Shadow Life is an exploration of the human shadow and the hidden side of our personalities. It looks at the masks we wear, where these masks come from, and how we can take them off.
The book explores how we can better manage our relationships with shame, guilt, and trauma in order to remove the Mask that the world has asked us to wear (and that we forgot we were wearing) so we can live an authentic life with less drama, chaos, or BS whilst we’re still around.
This is a book for anybody who is waking up to the truth about themselves, the world, and reality and wants to understand the mechanics of their relationship between themselves and their own ‘stuff’ so they can let go of the past, move into their potential, and live a real, fulfilling life as their undivided self.
Shadow Life is a book about the power of Unconditional Self-Acceptance and the strength, creativity, and energy that comes from unleashing the hidden sides of ourselves in alignment with the truth.
Book Information
- ISBN: 979-8673539767
- Paperback: 232 pages
- Digital eBook: 232 pages
- Published: First Ed. Aug 18, 2020
- Available in: English
- Edition: First Edition
- Publisher: Independent
It’s time to face the Shadow Territory…
A no-nonsense approach to dealing with unresolved shame, guilt, and trauma and learning to live with Unconditional Self-acceptance.
- Reverse Engineer Your Ego
Shadow Life helps you understand the conflict between your Ego (unreal idea of yourself) and the real parts of yourself that have been deemed ‘unacceptable’ and stuffed down into your Shadow Territory. When you understand this relationship, you can understand how to start freeing yourself from unnecessary BS and grow real. - Improve Your Relationship with Shame, Guilt, and Trauma
Shadow Life looks at the fundamental causes behind the masks that we wear and how we can learn to improve our relationships with these things in order to take them off. By drilling down deep into the basics of shame, guilt, and trauma and shifting to a stance of Unconditional Self-Acceptance, you can learn to see clearly and live real. - Own Yourself so that Nobody Else Can
When you embrace the Shadow Life, there’s no need to hide parts of yourself that have been deemed ‘unacceptable’. Instead, you cultivate awareness of these parts, accept them for what they are, and then decide to act on them in a real way. When you take this approach, nobody else can use your Shadow against you and it becomes empowering instead of disempowering. - Find Your Creative Edge
Shadow Life will give you practical examples of finding your Edge and living in a way that pushes you through your BS ideas about yourself into something real. This book will show you that – no matter who you are – you are creative if you just tap into the creativity that’s inside you. - Stop Caring About What Other People Think
The Shadow Life is a life lived without judgement. It has to be this way because the things that send our Shadows into hiding in the first place are the unreal judgements and social programming that stop us being spontaneous and doing what needs to be done. When we see social programming for what it is, we don’t have to use it as a mental block between ourselves and the truth. - Kill Your Unicorns
Understand that when you’re being unreal with yourself and avoid certain parts of who you are, you will project these parts out into the world in order to keep your ego where it is and have these parts remain ‘hidden’. When you do this you’ve created a ‘Unicorn’ which is the first step to having an unhealthy relationship with something. Kill the unicorns and kill the BS in your life (some of it, anyway).
Shadow Life: Freedom from BS in an Unreal World – Preview and Table of Contents
So you know what to expect, here’s a quick overview of the contents:
The first part of the book is just about setting the scene and giving some real context:
Intro – Self-explanatory but tells you the main theme of the book: “Life is short and the opposite of life is bullshit.”
A Brief History of My Own Bullshit – Where I start to explore some of my own ‘stuff’ so that I can demonstrate that I’m just a normal human being who’s learned a lot after being through a lot (not some guru or whatever – not that I wanna be but this is a ‘self-help’ book of sorts).
Post-Kidney Bullshit – Where I look at some stuff I learned after being diagnosed with a chronic illness and how that helped me wake up to my illusions about life.
Shadowdiving – This is where I make it abundantly clear that this book is about me exploring my own dark ‘stuff’ to see what I can learn about me and you can learn about you.
Then we start to dive into the mechanics of this human psyche/experience thing:
Bullshit, Shadows, and Diamonds – There’s an important link between how much BS there seems to be in our world and how little we’re ready to face our own shadow ‘stuff’. Luckily (or not), if we face the shadow stuff, we usually find diamonds down there.
Ego vs Shadow – This is where we start to pick apart the dance between the Ego and the Shadow. If you can understand this and how it operates in your own life then you can start to free yourself. This is one of the most important chapters.
The War for the Self – This unpacks the battle between the Ego and the Shadow in more detail. Essentially, we look at how your real self went into hiding and what you can start to do about it.
The Ego is Unreal – We look at how the Ego is unreal and how treating it as being real causes all kinds of problems in our lives. We look at how this shows up: thinking we’re special, justifying mistakes, trying to be ‘more’ or ‘less’ than human, needing certainty, hiding from the ‘Shadow Territory’ etc.
The Quest for Wholeness – If you’ve read my other books/stuff, you’ll know that, ultimately, it’s all about being WHOLE rather than FRAGMENTED in ourselves. This chapter looks at how we have a constant drive towards wholeness – whether we know it or not – and that when we block it (with Ego) it screws our lives up.
Your Real Face / Your Unreal Face – These chapters explore the relationship you have with yourself and how youc and be more REAL (and why that will make you happier and more accepting of yourself and life).
Unicorns – In the context of this book, ‘Unicorns’ are just illusions that we’ve become attached to in order to keep our Ego where it is and to keep our Shadow ‘stuff’ at bay. We explore the mechanics of this and how to KILL YOUR UNICORNS.
Goals and Purpose – Now that we have a basic understanding of what’s going on inside each of us, we can start to understand the difference between a REAL and UNREAL purpose. This is the start of ACCEPTING what we’ve learned and ACTING on it.
The Edge – If you want to grow real and improve your life then eventually, you’re going to have to face the EDGE: the place where your ideas and Ego meet REALITY. This chapter explains what’s going on when you find that place.
The Voice Behind the Door – This chapter explores what’s ‘behind’ all of the different Ego manifestations (or whatever you wanna call them) in our lives: Belief Systems, Habits, Expectations, Emotions, Scripts, Relationship Dynamics, Fear, Pride, Desire, The Past, The Future, Personality Traits, etc. All of these are either ‘real’ or ‘unreal’ depending on your relationship with your own Shadow (real = ‘good’, btw).
Unholy Trinity: Shame, Guilt, and Trauma – These three unsavoury emotions are the cause of nearly all the problems in our lives. This chapter helps you make sense of them and to figure out what to do with them (so they can stop holding you back from UNCONDITIONAL ACCEPTANCE and blocking your potential).
Controlled Spontaneity / Forced Hesitancy – This helps us to understand a ‘paradoxical’ way of living that helps us to be more real. Essentially, it’s about having a vision but not being so invested in the plan that we become outcome-dependent (i.e. invest our self-worth in results) or develop a scarcity mindset. It’s about dancing with reality, not being trampled on.
Awareness, Acceptance, Action – This sums up a process that will help you to grow real no matter what: Raising Awareness (in this case of your ‘Shadow’ stuff), Accepting what you find, and then Acting on what’s real (not some BS). You can use Awareness -> Acceptance -> Action to get wherever you need to be.
Freedom from BS – The final chapter that wraps it all up and reminds you that the biggest cause of unnecessary BS in your life is yourself!
If you’re on a journey of moving towards accepting yourself and finding purpose in your life then this book will help you get there (as long as you ACT on what you read)!
