The Shadow Self: Why You Sabotage Your Success

A reflection on shadow work, the fear of being seen, and the radical practice that ends self-sabotage.

Welcome

We are all hiding dark truths and bright dreams and living a life where nothing is what it seems. When we pull back the blinds what do we find? Mystery unraveling, a bright light shining and the question, is there anything we could have done different?

Welcome to the Magic is Key blog, your online temple that guides you to the magic within. I am Pipaluk and for as long as I can remember I have been exploring the human connection to the divine and how making that connection conscious can shape all of our lives for the better.

In this post:

• The real reason you sabotage your success (it's not what most self-help teaches, and it's not your fault)
• Why success can feel more dangerous than failure, and what that has to do with the shadow self
• How to actually end self-sabotage using radical discernment paired with radical acceptance
• The difference between fear that's protecting you from real danger and fear that's keeping you small
• What to do when you're stuck beneath a glass ceiling and don't know your next move
• Where cognitive science and mystery traditions agree on how we shape the future, and how to use both
• The third option most people miss: how a professional container can move you past the patterns you can't see alone

The month of love, and of shadows

May has just begun. This month is known as a month of love and it is also the Mental Health Awareness month. Today I am exploring The Shadow Self and Why You Sabotage Your Success.

What I have been noticing is that all people who participate in life in a creative way will fail and those who participate the most will fail most often. It is a numbers game. The more you do, the more you fail and the more you ultimately succeed.

Here comes the moment where I will share something with you that will make it very clear that you are not on your typical self-help spiritual website selling a simple product and solution. You have come to a place with a real person reflection on the real human experience in the unlimited attempt to offer you something that is a gem of inspiration and reflective thought, that takes you further in life and impacts you in a good way.

For all the people we see succeeding, there are many people who are failing. We live in a world of shadows and light and the failures often remain hidden because these are not the stories that sell and they are not the stories we want to see. Unless it is a giant falling from the top of a mountain, like a great celebrity, politician or CEO, we don't want to know of all the people who are trying hard and failing. That person might be us.

What the shadow self actually is

It is part of what we might call the collective shadow if we allow Carl Jung to inspire our explorations. On a personal level it gets even more interesting. What are the parts of yourself that you do not accept? In these shadowed corners of our consciousness we will not only find dark things, we will also find our most vulnerable dreams.

As a child we may have learned to hide our tears and as adults we may wish for nothing more than be able to cry them and feel that deep emotional release and relaxation that follows.

We harbor dreams of being on stage, of dancing in the rain, of wearing bright colors, of traveling to the edge of the world and each dream, when it surfaces ever so little, is accompanied by a pounding heart, driven by a mind that fears how life as we know it will end if we let ourselves make conscious that dream and start living it.

So, what are the self-sabotage root causes?

We sabotage our success not because we are bad people, but because success can sometimes feel more scary than failure. Unless you are famous or known, failure is something shoved under a rug as quickly as possible. Whereas success in many endeavors makes us more seen, more likely to be remembered and celebrated. This puts us into a position where we are more likely to be judged and condemned, criticized and questioned. It also increases the weight of the responsibility that we carry and do we not already carry enough?

What's more is that we are all like rock climbers. The journey through the mountains is our life. And we all carry a line of safety that is of a length specific to our person. Some people have a very long line and many hooks that allows them to scale a steep cliff edge and still feel safe and secure. When they drop, they are held and supported. For others that line is short and it doesn't take long before they start feeling unsafe.

However we might define success, there is a point where going further is a step into the unknown. Here we are in uncharted terrain and there are neither hooks nor safety lines to catch us. Our team, if we have one, is far behind. From this perspective it makes perfect sense why we sabotage our success: We want to stay safe and reduce our risk of getting harmed. One of the greatest perceived risks is the path into the unknown.

The lesson? Don't beat yourself up for sabotaging your success. You are only trying to keep yourself safe.

The astrological weather right now

As of May 6th, we are moving through Pluto retrograde in the sign of Aquarius. Here we find an invitation to alchemize old pain that is surfacing and face truths we have been avoiding. We might be feeling resistance to change, even if that change is necessary. The big question we can sit with is whether the future we have committed ourselves to is actually ours, or one that we inherited or absorbed from the collective. The gaze is inward and the awareness needed is around where our relationship to power, control, endings and rebirth are asking for transformation.

By the way, these astrological questions are great as journaling prompts. Sit down and write freely. At first it might be random words and staccato sentences, and if you keep writing, a pattern will evolve and out of that a red thread of understanding around some of the big themes that move your life yet have been kept hidden from your consciousness. Remember, knowledge is power and self-knowledge is self-empowerment.

How to end the sabotage of your success

So how do we end the sabotage of our success? The answer is deceptively simple and potentially complex in its execution: Radical discernment paired with radical acceptance of feeling afraid and unsafe.

Let's break it down.

Why the word radical? The word comes from the Latin word radix, meaning root. In early medical use, a radical cure was one that addressed the root of the disease rather than the symptoms. A radical change was one that went all the way down to the foundation. Radical discernment rises up from the depths of what is truth and radical acceptance reaches to the depths of who we are.

Discernment is vital for on our road to success, however we might define that and knowing that our definition of this is bound to change over time, we want to stay in one piece and if we do break apart, we want to do so in a way where we can put ourselves back together again. We must be able to discern whether a risk is worth taking. There may be times when we feel afraid and unsafe because the situation actually is one where these feelings are externally justified. And very often we feel afraid and unsafe, in the context of our path to success, because the justification of these powerful emotions is purely internal.

When the latter is the case we must take the next step forward, we must keep trying, we must find a way to be confident even in the thickest of fogs.

The constant we can turn to

It is in times when all is uncertain that there is one constant we can turn to: Our relationship to the divine. We may call it God or Mystery or a myriad of other names, but the underlying effect of the relationship is the same. By fostering a deep connection to and working with the Great Mystery, the Creative Energy of All, we feel ourselves part of something far greater than our single person.

When we learn to work with that relationship, we make conscious a process that we are always actively engaged with, whether we realize it or not, which is predicting the future.

In cognitive science this is known as predictive processing and in mystery traditions this is more commonly referred to as divination. To reduce prediction error, science and mystery traditions find commonality in agreeing that we can do so either by increasing our knowledge through learning or taking action.

This translates into when you find yourself getting uncomfortable or stuck beneath a glass ceiling, there is always something you can do. Learn more, about yourself and the landscape you are in, and take action, even if it is just in the form of the tiniest next step, so that you can get to know the uncharted terrain by acting within it.

A third way: a professional container

There is one third option to stop yourself from sabotaging your success: Find a professional container that witnesses and supports you on your journey while giving you the wisdom you most need to move forward. It is a 6 month container for the woman ready to stop hiding the most real parts of herself and finally live them.

This is something I offer in the form of an Apprenticeship. It is tailored to your specific needs, which we explore in a free Compass Call. Once we have our bearings we set sail on the path of becoming the person you always wanted to be.

Book your free Compass Call - let's find your next step together.