The Shadow - our untapped potential

Carl Jung describes the shadow as the dark, unlit part of the ego, the place where all the elements of our character that we cannot own reside. It is the unconscious dumping ground for all those characteristics of our personality that we disown. These include what we perceive to be our worst aspects, along with some of our finest qualities. These disowned parts are extremely valuable and cannot be disregarded. Until we undertake the task of accepting and honoring the shadow within us, we cannot be balanced or whole, for what is hidden never goes away, but merely - and often painfully - turns up in unexpected places. The reclaiming of what is hidden in the shadow is the most important experience of our lives.

The shadow is usually projected onto other people - think about those you admire the most, or those you despise - what qualities do you see within them that are most attractive/repulsive? Often times these qualities are simply a projection of what lies unconsciously in our own shadow.

These suppressed aspects of our being can consume an enormous amount of our energy - as we work to see the shadow for what it is and bring these qualities into the light of consciousness, we can reclaim our energy and become more whole.

For a richer understanding of the shadow and all its aspects, I highly recommend the book "Owning Your Own Shadow" by Robert A Johnson.

Nutrition

If you only ever buy one book on nutrition and cooking, make it "Nourishing Traditions" by Sally Fallon. It has everything you need to know about nourishing yourself and your family with wholesome traditional foods cooked using traditional health-promoting methods. See www.westonaprice.org/modernfood/dirty-secrets.html for an article written by Sally. You can visit www.similibooks.com to order the book.

Another great book is "Changing Habits Changing Lives" by Cyndi O'Meara - see www.changinghabits.com.au.

Even if you make just one positive change per week to your eating habits, over time this will make a huge difference to your health and wellbeing.

My general rules of thumb are:

1) The 80/20 rule - if 80 percent of what you eat is good wholesome nourishing food, then have a little fun with the other 20 percent. Being fanatical about having the 'perfect' diet can be just as unhealthy as eating badly. At the same time, if you want your body to function at its best, you must provide it with nourishing top-quality fuel.

2) The closer food is to its natural state, the better it is for you. With every food, ask yourself, is this refined/processed/made by a machine/full of artificial everythings? Or did it come out of the earth/off a tree/close to its natural state? Whole foods have a life energy, as does food cooked with love and care.

Pointing the bone

When someone is diagnosed by a medical doctor with a life-threatening condition, the trauma of this diagnosis can sometimes be seen as akin to the aboriginal custom of ‘pointing the bone’. In aboriginal culture, if the bone is pointed at a person, that person’s belief that they will die is so strong that the person can indeed sicken and die quite rapidly, sometimes within a day or so. Similarly with a negative medical diagnosis, often the words of a doctor’s diagnosis will penetrate the patient’s belief system deeply and serve to further solidify the problem.

If a doctor says “you have cancer and you have 6 weeks to live” – how do we know this is true? There are many stories of people who have been given a terminal diagnosis of cancer or some other illness, who have lived to tell the tale. I quote from one such person who says the following:

“…. after a prognosis of ‘six weeks to live’, I embarked upon a journey which to this day, some 37 years later, continues. My sojourn in hospital was actually highly educational because the experience taught me a number of things, the most important of those was to be self-activating. However, it also taught me something else, …. the resolution within myself never to accept at face value whatever negative medical prognosis was given. ……. nobody can tell you that you are going to die just because you have a serious illness. They are not God. ”

Ian Gawler, author of ‘You Can Conquer Cancer’, underwent a mid-thigh amputation at age 25 for osteogenic sarcoma. However the cancer spread until Gawler had visible bony lumps of about 2cm in diameter growing from his chest. He was given only two or three weeks to live. This was in 1978. 29 years later, Ian Gawler is alive and well today, with no trace of cancer, and now runs healing retreats for cancer patients in Victoria. See http://www.gawler.org/html/s01_home/home.asp for more information.

“Is cancer what you eat, or is it what’s eating you?”

These principles apply not just to cancer but to any disease.