By: +David Herron; Date: Thu Dec 30 2021 03:31:49 GMT+0200 (Eastern European Standard Time)
The process of Inner Homeopathy is very much like meditation. Meditation in general, among its effects, helps you to discover something very important about yourself. The hidden part of you which is often described as your shadow self.
The shadow self is hidden from conscious awareness. Your day-day self cannot see your shadow self. There are many reasons for this, for example we often do not want to admit to flaws in ourself. To avoid admitting to flaws our ego may find a way to ignore the flaws and pretend they do not exist. And thus forms a portion of ourself we cannot see, all because our ego does not want to see a portion of our self. But it's important to ponder whether we can have any flaws in the first place? Does our soul have any potential to be flawed? If it is impossible for the soul to be flawed, then is it possible for the flaws our ego perceives in ourself to actually exist? Be that as it may, psychologists have written dozens of books exploring the shadow self.
The process of Inner Homeopathy helps you make visible your core essence. It's widely understood this involves revealing the parts of you that are in shadow, and healing those parts of yourself. There are hundreds of paths for this, Inner Homeopathy is only one of them.
There are approximately two kinds of shadow self we will find. The dark shadow is the part of us which is in pain, and wants to hurt, attack, destroy, maim, etc. The dark shadow is what people usually think of as the shadow self. The golden shadow is the part of us which is bright and beautiful, full of divine spirit and wisdom, etc. Both are parts of us which we have pretended don't exist, which we would rather cut away and toss into the abyss than to admit these parts of us exist.
One finds their shadow through practicing awareness. Awareness practice is essentially the same as meditation and many use the words interchangeably. Awareness is paying attention to where you are, what you're doing, and where you're going (to paraphrase Master Yoda).
Since these parts of us are in shadow this means we have a habit of not seeing these parts of ourself. That's all it is, a habit. We habitually do not see a portion of ourself, making that part of ourself hidden. But perhaps others can see that part of ourself and don't understand how we can live that way. And you may see the shadow of others and be astonished at how they live in their way. Such is the way of being human.
The good thing is that habits can be changed. Awareness practice helps build a new habit of paying attention to where you are, what you're doing, and where you're going. As a habit building practice it means practicing awareness regularly. It's not something you do once and that's it. Instead it's something to practice it over and over and over. This is like learning to play the piano where the first couple years you play scales over and over so that your fingers learn where the notes are.
For years I'd been forgetful about leaving certain things at home when I went out for the day. I'd get to my destination and then wonder where was that thing I meant to bring with me. One day I started saying "Thank You" whenever I remembered something important, and over time I started remembering things more and more often. This was a way I found to change one of my habits. It may help you to be grateful when your awareness practice finds another part of your shadow self, even if it's something really painful. Your habitual not-seeing of your shadow self may include some kind of self judgment that remembering certain things or acting certain ways is very wrong. Letting yourself be punished for finding some of your shadow self will only reinforce the habits that create the shadow. But saying Thank You gives an inner reward which reinforces the new habit.
The purpose for finding your shadow self is to bring it out into the light, and to reexamine it. This is discussed further in these pages on Inner Homeopathy.