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What is a Shadow Belief?

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Break Through The Shadow

To really understand what breakthrough shadow coaching is about, it helps to understand a little more about shadow beliefs!

A term originally coined by Swiss psychologist Carl Jung, and later adopted by thought leaders such as Deepak Chopra, Marianne Williamson and Debbie Ford, a shadow belief is an unconscious limiting belief that influences our entire lives – telling us what we can and cannot do and drives all of our behaviors. They are these negative beliefs hidden from our conscious view and are they are the biggest culprits robbing us from having what we most want in our life!

Shadow Beliefs Keep that Inner Critic Fueled!

If you have that inner critic running from morning until night, it’s likely your limiting beliefs that sound something like this:

“I’m stupid”

“I’m not good enough”

“I’m unlovable”

“Why bother because I’m going to fail”                                                              

“It’s too hard”

“It’s more important to be needed than focus on me”

“I have to be the good girl”

Yup, I've heard those thoughts in my head!

Shadow beliefs are formed early in life, under the age of 10. Usually what happens is that we were faced with a situation or circumstance we simply didn’t know how to handle or process and we came to a decision or a conclusion. That decision or conclusion – especially if it was a negative one created a shadow belief about ourselves or the world around us.

Once that shadow belief was formed, it was stored away in our unconscious operating system, telling us what we could or could not have or achieve in our life. And here’s the crazy part - we might even draw in the exact circumstances we’re trying to avoid because that’s how the shadow works – it keeps showing up until we’ve brought our shadows into our awareness and shifted our perspective.

Let me give you an example of the shadow at work. While you were sitting at your desk at work, your co-worker came over to you and asked you for some help. You knew you were too busy, but couldn’t say no. Why? Well, that limiting belief in your head told you that it was more important to be needed than taking care of yourself. You didn’t realize it was a limiting belief, you just told yourself you’d find time for yourself later – which you never do.

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As you reflect back on your childhood, you realize that your mom was always doing the same thing. Taking care of everyone and never herself. She even told you that you had to say yes to helping your friend with the bake sale because you might get left out the next time. She told you that it didn’t matter that you were tired, it was more important to be needed. Now, up until this moment, you forgot about that incident. You stuffed it away, never even realizing how it might resurface in your future.

Shadow Beliefs can benefit us in some way, but if they are keeping us from living the life we most want, then they are limiting.

Our natural instinct when we discover a belief too is to push it away, but like the beach ball being pushed under water, our shadow beliefs tend to fly back in our face. So, what do we do? Yes . . . we break through our shadows and bring them into the light. The goal is not to push them away, but to make us aware of our beliefs, stop judging them and shift our conscious beliefs.

So, instead of hating this part of yourself, you can learn to recognize your limiting belief and start to shift it to a more conscious and balanced belief. Instead of saying yes next time, you might instead decide to say no, but offer to help again when you have more time. You don’t have to feel guilty, you don’t have to apologize – you can simply embrace your new belief that it’s ok to take care of yourself and your work first. It frees you from being tied down to your outdated beliefs and helps you build confidence and self esteem.

Ultimately, making peace with your shadow beliefs is the key to living that happy and fulfilled life you’ve been looking for.

The process of uncovering and making peace with our shadow beliefs doesn’t have to be difficult. It can be fun – like a treasure hunt where we find the missing pieces that complete our life. Join me in making peace with your shadow today!