Have you ever felt like you’re not confident enough? Are you interested in boosting your self-confidence? If the answer is yes, this article is for you. The secret lies in tapping into your subconscious mind and understanding that that powerful layer underneath. Being aware of certain automatic movements and behaviors plays a significant role in reprogramming your mind to succeed.

You stop being a spectator of your own life the moment you start being intentional about automatic behaviors that govern your life. Know the reactions and patterns of your unconscious will enable you to choose different ones. Although facing your subconscious has the power to set you free, often times people choose to ignore or deny what is going on in their minds simply because it seems easier.

What is it exactly that we are trying to avoid?

In Jungian psychology, the “shadow” or “shadow-self” refers to the unconscious part of our personality that is often times hard to admit to. More often than not our shadow is responsible for a lot of the complications we try to deal with in life. So what is it exactly?

It contains

• emotions that your conscious mind buried or that remained unconscious for some reason

• things we were not supposed to know, things that were considered inappropriate, wrong or of no value by our families

• memories of being hurt

• wounds that never healed, traumas we never dealt with

• feelings we would not like to admit to having

• things we were judged for and therefore feel ashamed of or things we consider dangerous

Such a great list, isn’t it? The good news is your shadow-self also a source of great power, love and strength you are not aware of. Your shadow contains elements that are very specific to you as an individual as well as ones that are universal. Although it is created by shame and guilt, your feelings and attitudes towards your shadow depend on your surroundings and your experiences as a child.

These two things are certain though: whatever is hidden in there is a false image and hiding it will not change the fact that it’s there. Hidden desires, instincts and urges turn into aggression, shame, helplessness, incapacity and hate, and these feelings are responsible for having low self-esteem. You lack confidence and struggle with low self-esteem because you have trouble remembering who you really are as a person.

These energies make us feel anger, pain, guilt or fear. Often times we project these feelings and blame others for the way we feel and that can make the other person’s subconscious project their shadows and that’s when hell breaks loose. What these conflicts are really about is hatred - self-hatred, to be exact. It doesn’t matter if we “win” or “lose” the battle we think we’re having with someone else, our shadow will destroy us.

Our shadow is the opposite of what we want to become. On the inside, we are the person we reject on the outside. When you are aware of your shadow and you can truly identify your feelings and attitudes towards it, what you’ll see is jealousy - you are jealous of your shadow for it has everything you’re lacking.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying you would want to be your shadow-self, what I’m saying is your shadow-self would never try to hide your real feelings. So what we can learn from that is we must be aware of who we really are and we must accept that whatever we’re feeling is valid. You don’t have to become your shadow, just accept the fact that you have a dark side, it’s part of being human.

You’re lying to yourself if you really think you never manipulate or lie to another person, or you can love and accept everybody, and you are always kind, helpful and understanding. No one can do that. Just think about a person that really annoys you and ask yourself this:

“What does that person have that I don’t? What is it really that they allow themselves to do or feel and I don’t? What makes them free and me a captive?”

If you are completely honest with yourself, you can uncover your hidden desires that are your greatest virtues as well. You can find a piece of you that you once had and, for some reason, decided to hide. These are usually things are families decided to bury and made us hide them, too. But if you can find these elements in you, you’ll be stronger and more confident than ever.

• self-confidence self-esteem shadow subcoscious

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