Ok, so I never thought I’d go to my dark side intentionally.

In fact, it’s been my preference to pretend I don’t have a dark side — a so called shadow. Just wanted to think of myself as one of those lucky people who didn’t have the bad angel sitting on my shoulder taunting me.

As Debbie Ford so aptly points out in her new DVD movie The ShadowEffect to have one aspect of soul you have to experience the other aspect, which is its counter balance.

So last night I took a look at both The ShadowEffect movie and then second interactive DVD with exercises. Wow, did I get a lot out of that, and it was so inspiring!

I found the preview trailer for the movie a little dark. So I was so relieved to find that while the movie deals with naming your demons honestly, it does so in an empowering manner that encourages you to deal with and diffuse your shadow side so it doesn’t trip you up.

Personal and Collective Shadows

The film covers both our personal shadows and society’s collective shadow — repressed traits that show up as self-sabotaging behavior like road rage, writing bad checks, drug and alcohol abuse, stealing associates’ ideas, adultery and so forth in individuals. In our larger culture repressed shadow traits show up as war, terrorism, economic injustice, religious scandals, etc.

According to Debbie Ford and spiritual and personal growth experts like Mark Victor Hansen, Marianne Williamson, and Deepak Chopra, any time the shadow is repressed and denied, it eventually finds a way to the surface. The ego can’t hide our faults and flaws forever. A long list of celebrities and famous personalities aptly prove this.

Your Light Shadows

The ShadowEffect is full of great information, and new ways of thinking about our dark side. Debbie Ford also explains that we don’t just repress our shadow impulses, often we repress positive aspects of ourselves because they weren’t acceptable to our families or society. She calls these Light Shadows. Marianne Williamson points out that we’re actually more afraid our greatness than our faults. Fortunately there’s an easy exercise provided that helps you identify the good qualities you’re not embracing.

I loved Deepak Chopra’s light-hearted perspective about the shadow side. He said that Indian culture embraces the belief that the sinner and saint are constantly exchanging notes.

Project Much?

So how do you know what your shadow is? The most obvious answer is to pay attention to what you are projecting onto others. Someone annoys you? Good bet you’ve projected a personality trait you don’t want to own onto the other person. When we get triggered emotionally, we’re often projecting some characteristic onto someone else that we need to take a look at.

This will certainly make you rethink how you see and feel about others. If you enjoy your righteous indignation and kind of like being pissed off by other people’s behavior, this probably isn’t the film for you.

If on the other hand, you’d like to stop being so annoyed by other people and discover what’s triggering you, I highly recommend it. I think this is an especially great endeavor for anyone who is trying to grow personally, progress their business, or improve their relationships and can’t identify what’s holding them back — what their big emotional and energetic blocks are.

Effective and easy exercises = more self compassion

I found the exercises fascinating. Since Debbie Ford has you answer all the questions quickly and intuitively I could easily complete The ShadowEffect work in a couple of hours.

Now I know what I’m dealing with — what I wasn’t admitting about myself, what I wasn’t clear about, and how that limits me from being a full expression of my most radiant self. What a relief!

This enables me to move forward and develop authentic compassion for myself and for others more fully. We’re only human after all. It’s nice to relax about one’s faults and de-thorn them a bit. This will come in handy I’m sure as I bump up against additional shadow traits in the future.