Language of Love with Dr. Laura Berman - Why You Need to Befriend Your Shadow Side

Episode Date: August 22, 2022

Today on “The Language of Love,” I am doing a “Bites” episode! These are my quick, informative little episodes that I created for those times when you don’t have time to listen to a whole podcast but you need a little boost and inspiration during your day. For this “Bite,” I am talking about something that I think is so, so important: Befriending your own shadow. All of us have a shadow. And this shadow doesn’t have to be a negative thing. Our darkness is what can help us to reveal our light. Our wounds can be our way of healing the world. But if we aren’t aware of our shadows, if we don’t embrace and befriend our shadow sides, guess what happens? That shadow side is what drives the bus. As they say in recovery, ‘our secrets keep us sick,’ but I would take that one step further and say it’s the secrets we keep from ourselves that keep us sick. If there are parts of you that you find shameful or unlovable, and you try to hide them away and ignore them, that only gives them more power. That gives your shadow side an insidious environment of shame and fear in which to grow. When we befriend our shadow side, we take back some of its power. We put our whole selves back in the driver’s seat, instead of letting fear and shame drive the bus. But, that being said, befriending your shadow side is not just about taking back control. I truly believe our shadows are here to serve us. I know this might be difficult to accept or even consider, but if you look deeply within and ask yourself how that shadow side has served you in your life, you might be shocked to see that there was a true purpose and even a protective energy in this shadow side. Listen to this “Bite” to get my take on how we can begin to befriend our shadow and why it is so important to do so! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hey, I'm sex, love and relationship therapist, Dr. Laura Berman. And for the last 30 years, I've been helping people just like you learn to love and be loved better. Welcome to the Language of Love Bites, where I tackle your most asked questions and requested topics. These episodes are designed to be fun, quick and to the point. It's time we all become fluent in the language of love. So what does it really mean to be friends with your shadows? You hear me talking about that a lot. It is so important. First of all, what are your shadows? Your shadows, and every single one of us has plenty of them, okay? There's nothing wrong with our shadows, right? The reason the shadows are there is because of light. That's how shadows

work, right? Our shadows are literally on the flip side of our gifts. They're the underbelly of our gifts. They are the wounds underneath our gifts, right? So, if you have a history of being neglected or hyper-criticized or experienced trauma or have low self-worth or get triggered under certain circumstances or in reaction to certain things, those are examples acting from your wounds is basically when we get into trouble. Our wounds are not the problem. Our triggers are not the problem. We all have those. The problem is when we are not aware of those triggers, that we're not working to be conscious of them, that we're unconscious in our interactions with people. So when I talk about being friends with your shadows, what I'm talking about is that

not that you're perfect and you don't have any shadows, God forbid, because if you didn't have shadows, you wouldn't have light, you wouldn't have gifts, right? But that you are unaware of those shadows, that you aren't looking at those wounds, that you aren't addressing them and healing them so that those hurt, broken, painful parts of yourself are driving the bus in your interactions. And that's what it means not to be friends with your shadows. And that's why I'm always saying, I don't want to be friends with or work with or partner with anyone who isn't friends with their shadows. Because if you are not, then you are actually rather dangerous. I don't mean you're going to go out and kill someone or hurt someone physically. I mean, you're emotionally

dangerous because you're going to do things out of fear, out of anger, out of trigger that are hurtful, that are sabotaging, that are dysfunctional. And it's very unpredictable. It's very unstable. and it's very unconscious. And when you live that way, your life is a hot mess a lot of the time, which is fine. There's nothing wrong with that. But from the other person's, from my perspective, she who doesn't want to be friends with anyone who isn't friends with their shadows, it's hard to be friends with someone who isn't friends with their own shadows because they're totally unconscious and unaware. These are the people that you end up having to take care of emotionally when you're hurting emotionally, right? Or even when you're not. These are people

who react in really dysfunctional and destructive patterns and are totally unwilling to look at it or unaware. And so when I say that you are friends with your shadows, it does not mean that you fixed everything and that nothing in your life affects you anymore. Okay. You're not living in a monastery, probably up on a mountaintop. You're a human being. From morning hockey with a cup of coffee to Timbits and road trips, Tim's and Canadian Tire have always gone together. Now it's official. You can now earn Canadian Tire money at Tim's. Link your Triangle Rewards and Tim's Rewards accounts to earn twice with every Tim's run. Terms and conditions apply.

Visit timhordens.ca slash triangle for details. What it is to be friends with your shadows is to excavate them, to know the source of them, to have become friends with those parts of yourself that feel hurt, broken, discarded, disenfranchised, marginalized, criticized, so that when those things bubble up to the surface, you're aware of it. They don't take you over and you know how to work with yourself. You've done your own healing work. You've looked at those wounds with the support of a healer or a coach or a therapist. My two favorite forms of really working with your shadows is somatic experiencing, that kind of therapy.

So you can Google that and find practitioners in your area that do somatic experiencing. From morning hockey with a cup of coffee to Timbits and road trips, Tim's and Canadian Tire have always gone together. Now it's official. You can now earn Canadian Tire money at Tim's. Link your Triangle Rewards and Tim's Rewards accounts

to earn twice with every Tim's run. Terms and conditions apply. Visit timhordens.ca slash triangle for details. And also inner child work. That's basically can be anything from shamanic healing to inner child therapy to imago therapy. But basically all of these have one thing in common. They help you get conscious of your unconscious triggers and wounds. They help you excavate with support those places in you that maybe you've never wanted to see or that you're not comfortable seeing. and you learn to befriend, to nurture, and to start healing those parts of yourself that are

most wounded. That's what it means to be friends with your shadow. When you are friends with your shadows, not only are you a lot more attractive to other people emotionally, relationally, romantically, work-wise, in every way, but your life is so much better. You are in the driver's your essential self, your true self is driving the bus. You are conscious. You are aware. You're able to manifest more clearly. You're able to communicate more clearly. You're able to live with a lot less regret over what just came out of your mouth or the decisions you made in anger or in rejection or whatever else. And you're a much better friend and a much better partner and a much happier, and more integrated human being. And that's what these times are really calling on us

in love, in life, to really befriend ourselves. That's where true self-worth starts to really be discovered. All right. I hope that gives you a running start on becoming friends with your shadows. And if you have questions or other things you want me to address, I'm always here to help you learn to love and be loved better. I went to the doctor Said I'm crazy for your love Wrote me a prescription But there's no cure for a cry