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Archive for September 2009

Can Society Judgements Increase the Individual’s Shadow?

17/09/2009 by Piercarla Garusi.

I have been watching recently the very powerful new movie from Debbie Ford with Debbie Ford, Deepak Chopra, Marianne Williamson and many others great teachers on the Shadow Effect. If you haven’t watched it, please do watch it, it is for the future of humanity. And these are some of the thoughts I have been thinking after watching it and from my work supporting people suffering from social anxiety, expatriates and others.In the movie they mention that the individual’s shadow begins in childhood with feeling bad about some parts of ourselves. Shadow comes out in various ways, also with being judgemental about others; but is it possible that shadow will increase in adulthood with others’ judgements -and judgements can come from society, peers and, maybe with the best intentions, friends and family- ? This is what I will try to reflect on here.

I believe if a person has low self-esteem or they do not approve of themselves, maybe they are insecure of who they are, their values or behaviours or they have negative subconscious programming – this insecurity is part of their childhood shadow - and they are looking for outside approval, then what ‘others think of them’ - and so society judgements - might cause them to increase their shadow. Or if they have beliefs that in order for example to be successful they have to behave in a certain way, this will cause them further shadow.

I believe no matter which society we reside in the world there is always present, in some form or another, judgements or criticism; judgements to be in a certain way, to behave in a certain way, to have certain values, behaviours, etc. and if a person does not have them, they might be automatically - which means coming from the subconscious- criticized.

I often see the trends of society going with what is ‘cool’, and so if some parts of the individual are not aligned with what is ‘cool’ in that society and the individual suffers from low self-esteem, then this might cause him/her further shadow. He/she will suppress more parts of himself/herself just to feel accepted by others and so he/she will deny who he/she is.

I see societal judgements come out also in the form of sarcasm or ‘humour’; some people use ‘humour’ to belittle somebody else, they laugh at somebody else: it is all judgement anyway and it is part of the shadow of the one who is laughing or belittling. I see this sometimes with people who have problems with public speaking; they tell me that somebody has laughed at them before; it is never justified to laugh at somebody, no matter what. If we laugh at somebody, we are simply projecting our stuff which we need to take care of.

Something needs to be said about the collective shadow, as they mention in the movie. There might be behaviours, beliefs, values/non-values in that society which are not quite ok, but are accepted or justified in that society; they are part of their collective shadow and need to be taken care of.

Also something needs to be said about starting a business. If a person wants to start a business and they do not know how, they might ask for advice; advices given are sometimes of the kind: look at the market, follow the trends; and so people might suppress their dreams, suppress what they would really love to do and create in the world. It is paramount that they learn about the Spiritual Laws so that they can create whatever brings them most joy.

In my work supporting people who suffer from social anxiety I see the number of people suffering from social anxiety is increasing continuously worldwide; why is that? Maybe the first reason is that people want approval. Many people do not approve of themselves, maybe even beat themselves up the whole time. Society is trying to tell people there is something wrong with them unless they are like everybody else. And if they want approval, society will programme them with their judgements and they will increase their individual shadow. The solution is to connect with who you are, love yourselves and, no matter what society is telling you, do what feels right for you.

For foreigners there might be a further issue to deal with if in the host country cultural integration is meant to become ‘like them’. If foreign nationals are not aware or prepared with cross cultural mechanisms and if they are not strong in who they are, then cross cultural pressure might cause them further shadow; it might cause them to suppress who they are just to be accepted or successful in the foreign culture. It is really key for a foreigner to be strong in themselves, learn about cross cultural mechanisms and also the Spiritual laws to be able to shift reality.

Piercarla Garusi is the founder of PG Coaching. She offers a deeper way of coaching that is values based. She is committed to helping people re-connect with who they truly are that will enable them to heal and live lives of well-being, peace, meaning, joy, abundance - and to help bring about healing in the human family. For more information please visit www.pgcoaching.co.uk.Piercarla also believes in the power of art to bring about positive change and a shift in consciousness. Her works transcend time bringing you an aesthetic sense to your core. They are available online as prints and greeting cards. Visit the www.piercarla-paintings.co.uk site.

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Do You Suffer from Depression, Anxiety or Social Anxiety? Here is What Might Be Preventing the Healing.

06/09/2009 by Piercarla Garusi.

Feeling anxious, socially anxious, stressed, depressed can be extremely painful and limiting to our life. It might cause us not to feel comfortable in ourselves, not to be ourselves or live our values, not to do what we would like, not to have the job we would like, not to live the life we would like. And now with the current economical situation, we find ourselves dealing with very stressful issues which can cause us a lot of anxiety.

But the thing is, we are not given a manual at birth which tells us what we can do when we do not feel good, or when life does not quite work as we would like to. We always do the best we can at all time with what we know; if we knew better, we would do better. When we feel anxious, stressed, socially anxious, depressed, etc. we find ourselves with feelings we do not like and we do not quite know how to deal with them. But once we know what to do, we feel empowered. And it is paramount to learn to be gentle with ourselves, and give ourselves time in the process of learning and healing.

In my work I have realized that there are a few things we commonly do or face that might be preventing our healing; here are a few of them.

The very first thing unfortunately we still face is the stigma still associated with mental health; this both in workplace environments as well as in social situations. People do not understand yet that not feeling well is exactly the same than having for example a cold. And people can be very judgemental and bullying, and sometimes the judgement or bullying comes in the way they call it ‘humour’. This makes people feel even worse and the healing process more difficult. Why? Because we normally feel bad about ourselves or ashamed when somebody criticizes or judges us; and this is immediately followed by beating ourselves up.

If we beat ourselves up we are not going to heal; we are never going to heal something by beating it up with a stick. And so we need first to find ways to become what I call ‘waterproof’ to outside judgements and then let go of beating ourselves up. The reasons why we beat ourselves up are mainly subconscious, we do it automatically; so it is necessary to do a process to become aware of them, and then let them go. Then it is paramount to learn to love ourselves. Love (with the capital ‘L’) in my opinion is the only healing force in the Universe - I will explain below where I believe healing comes from -, and by giving ourselves approval, we reconnect with it. Letting go of beating ourselves up and giving ourselves approval is in my opinion a fundamental step to healing.

Our beliefs might also be preventing the healing. Limiting beliefs on healing are for example: thinking there is something wrong with us, thinking we need to be fixed, thinking we have a problem and we need to solve it, thinking healing is down to us.

Another thing which hinders the healing is trying to figure things out to find a solution. But figuring things out never works: it actually keeps the problem there and might create even more of it. Why? This is because of metaphysics. The mind is only creative and what we hold in mind is what we get. If we focus on the problem, the only thing we get is the problem. I am sure you have experienced an ‘a-ha’ moment when you had an intuition about something and perhaps this happened when you were doing something completely different. That’s an example. The solution does not come from what we consider the mind; it comes from somewhere else, what is called universal intelligence, in the form of an intuition.

We perhaps think we need to figure things out to find a solution to our problem so that once we have the solution we will be fine, but this is the same as saying we are the source of our healing. I believe healing does not come from us, it comes from the Universe, God, Consciousness or Source Energy or however you wish to call it. An example of this is when we cut our finger with a piece of paper; we know it will heal and we let it heal, we do not try to think with the mind which cell is going to heal with which other cell. We just allow healing to happen.

Another thing that might be preventing the healing is what we think our problem –anxiety, stress, social anxiety, depression- is. In my experience, anxiety, social anxiety, depression, are simply caused by un-resourceful patterns of thinking, mainly subconscious, and kept in place by limiting beliefs.

To summarize the points I have just made: let go of beating yourself up, give yourself approval, let go of trying to figure things out and when the conscious mind is out of the way, we allow healing to begin taking place.

Piercarla Garusi is the founder of PG Coaching and PG ArtWorks. Piercarla believes through art and spiritual enhancement, this is the way to true happiness and peace. All of her coaching is a deeper way of coaching and it is values based. The PG ArtWorks transcend time bringing you an aesthetic sense to your core. She is committed to helping people re-connect with who they truly are that will enable them to heal and live lives of well being, peace, meaning, joy, abundance - and to help bring about healing in the human family. For more information please visit her websites http://www.pgcoaching.co.uk and http://www.piercarla-paintings.co.uk.

P.S.: Some of the points outlined above are from a technique which I always recommend; you can find more information here http://www.releasetechnique.com.

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