Soulburn.fit Podcast

Exploring The Unseen Self: From Suppression To Integration

• Nicholas • Season 1 • Episode 4

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We explore the shadow as the unseen self and map a path from suppression to integration using the illuminative explorer archetype. We use mirrors, triggers, and shame as signals and end with four prompts to spark real, written reflection.

• defining the shadow as the unseen self
• suppression versus repression and why it matters
• the illuminative explorer and “what I witness, I free”
• awareness as alchemy and the role of curiosity
• mirrors, triggers, jealousy, guilt, shame as invitations
• shame as a signal for alignment, not a verdict
• integration as awareness plus acceptance plus action
• four journaling prompts for practical shadow work

Come to Soul Burn Sanctum, my free online community, and do Shadow and Light Level One; link is in the description


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SPEAKER_00:

Welcome to the Soul Burn Dot Fit Podcast. In the last two episodes, I introduce you to the four elements from the progressive model of the elements Earth, Wind, Fire, Water. Today we go into the shadows. The seeker who dares to look down instead of up begins the real journey. What is the shadow? The shadow is the unseen self. All that lives below your awareness. Subconscious. Every judgment you hold about others reveals an unclaimed aspect of you. Suppressed emotions become projection. Unowned power becomes fear. The shadow is not the enemy. It's the half of you that's tired of being ignored. Ask yourself right now What emotion or truth do you suppress the most? Is it anger? Sadness? Desire? Vulnerability? What is it? Why do we hide our emotions? Why like why do we lose touch with different parts of ourselves? Like how how do I not know who I am? I just being feels like knowing who I am should be implicit. Of course I know who I am. I'm me. But from childhood, we learn which traits are acceptable and which ones to bury. We wear masks, strong, kind, confident, while our real feelings stay underground. The greater the repression, the stronger the inner resistance. And I just want to make a quick clarification because growing up I always used to be confused as to like what's the difference between suppressing and repressing an emotion. But basically the difference, at least in the way that I interpreted it, is that suppressing the emotion is where suppressing it is like resisting the urge to express it. Repressing it is almost like pretending you don't feel it, like literally pushing it down within yourself. No, I'm good, I'm fine, I'm fine. That's repression, and that is obviously like really harmful. So that leads me back to what I just said, which is that the greater the repression, the stronger the resistance. What we refuse to face grows roots beneath us? Ask yourself right now, which version of you have you been trying to protect? And at what cost? Is it the child version of you, or is it the teen part of you? Like, is there a dreamer? Is there a child with wonder? Like, is there a certain aspect of yourself that you are protecting? And if you're okay, maybe you don't think you're protecting, but that you're hiding away, or that you're denying, or that you're refusing to acknowledge. Denial is we lie to ourselves, we tell ourselves that that's not how I feel, because that feeling is uncomfortable. I don't want to feel that way. But if that's truly how you feel, then you need to express it. But, anyways, okay, I'm getting ahead of myself. We're we're just exploring right now. I do want to move on to the explorer's path, though. I do want to introduce you to an archetype, the illuminative explorer. Okay, they are the explorer that carries a lantern, not a sword. So when we're exploring our shadows, it can be easy to get defensive and put up walls and actually blind yourself to the realities that you are beneath the surface of your consciousness. They approach the dark with curiosity, not condemnation. Okay, your shadow is not something to be ashamed of or feel guilty about, it's aspects of you that are to be integrated and brought back. Okay, the illuminative explorer's motto, what I witness, I free. So when we do this discovery, this self-discovery, and if you go to Soul Burn Sanctum right now, which is my free online community, uh link is in the description, and you can do Shadow and Light level one. Now it needs to be updated because I've honestly like refined and changed so many things in recent history, but the principles still apply, and like the actual information is more or less the same. So go there and do that next. Go through the shadow and light workbooks and see what you can discover. But, anyways, let's return back to the illuminative explorer. What I witness, I free. Whenever you're doing shadow work in particular, that is the archetype that I want you to approach it with, at least initially, when you first start doing shadow work, go into it. You are the illuminative explorer, you are just literally the okay. Listen, when I was a kid, I played Minecraft, and basically, if you had a map in Minecraft, then the map starts blank, and basically, wherever you go, it basically fills out the map for that area. You have the whole map right in front of you right now. When you were doing shadow work initially, like at level one, which is there's levels to it, the level one awareness. I want you to be the illuminative explorer. Okay, literally just carry torches with you, and everywhere you walk beneath your consciousness, I want you to place, I want you to light up the path, the illuminative explorer. What I witness, I free, what I witness, I illuminate. Okay, awareness is alchemy. Seeing transforms. Do not fear the dark, become light that can walk within it. Okay, if you could sit beside your shadow tonight, what would it need to hear? Let's just take a moment and address the mirror. The shadow reveals itself through reflection, triggers jealousy, guilt, shame. Each one says, Look here. There's something you haven't accepted yet. And mirrors don't lie, they show what light can't reach. The things you dislike in others are invitations to meet yourself. Triggers, jealousy, guilt, shame, all these things that bother you and cause you to feel certain type of ways and think certain type of ways about yourself and your life, and that affect your beliefs and and cast a dark filter over everything that you see. What light is hidden within that? Ask yourself this who or what in your life triggers you the most, and what hidden truth might it reflect? I don't want to like get too far off point, so I don't really want to give you a bunch of examples, but let's just look at shame real quick. Let me just break down shame before I get into integration real quick. If you look at shame, I've dealt with shame big time, as probably you have too, maybe. Um shame, you can feel shame for different reasons, so don't think this example is going to necessarily apply to you. But this is just kind of like this mirror moment in action, okay? So you feel this shame, shame, shame, and then you look into the shame and then you see the clarity within the shame that the shame is actually trying to tell you that this thing that you're repeatedly doing is not working, it's not who you are. You have values and morals, and this is not in alignment, and you know who you are, and this is not in alignment with that person. That shame is actually an indication for you to change your ways, and again, it's different in different circumstances. This is just my particular experience in this one particular scenario. But do you see how, like, that shame was always there? I was always feeling the same shame. It's just until I went inside the shame to look at it, I didn't see the message it was trying to deliver me to. It just felt ugly. So, who or what in your life triggers you the most? Ask yourself that question and truly reflect and write it down, and then ask yourself what hidden truth might this reflect? Now let's move on to integration. I know this is getting kind of long. I'm gonna try and wrap things up nice and neat here for you, okay? Reclaiming the lost self. The goal here is not perfection, but wholeness. Wholeness starting from integration. Integration is awareness with acceptance with action. Okay, so right now we're just on awareness, we're just trying to get awareness. In the near future, I will give you some tips on how to accept these aspects of yourself. But that is the next piece after you have this newfound awareness, is you have to learn to accept because the reason you lost these parts of yourself is because you did not accept them. You have to understand that these aspects of your psyche you did not accept when they presented when you were younger. You expressed them, people made you feel some type of way about it. Maybe you were judged for it, maybe you were hated, maybe you were physically assaulted for it, who knows? And so you repressed it, you denied, and you disowned those aspects of your psyche. So we have to actually accept those parts of yourself. You have to accept parts of yourself that are very difficult, very difficult to process, okay? Um, but these are just some of the steps that we work towards, okay? Integration is awareness, meeting acceptance, meeting forward intentional action. When you own the parts you've buried, energy returns to the system. Light expands not by denying darkness, but by embracing it. I want you to also repeat after me. Nothing within me is unworthy of love. Nothing within me is unworthy of love. Healing begins the moment you stop pretending you're only light. You have a shadow, you have parts of you that are so buried deep inside you that you're not even aware that you don't know that part of you anymore. Like, no matter how much work you've done, like I've been doing this work for a long time, and I the more I figure out about myself, the more I realize I really do not know myself. So I plead to you to to come do some of this work with me. Come into the shadows with me. Let's illuminate the shadow within and without, and that is light, which I'll talk about in the next episode. But just to finish off here, I have some props for you that I want you to go through. What part of you do you keep hidden from the world? Or if that feels too intense, then what is a part of you that you keep hidden from the world? Think about that deeply. Reflect, then ask yourself, where in your life do you act in ways you later regret? And what deeper need hides there? Where in your life do you act in ways that you later regret? And what deeper need hides there? If your shadow could speak, what would it ask of you right now? What truth have you been avoiding because it might change everything? Answer those four questions on paper. I don't care if you already wrote it on your phone. Go get a piece of paper and a pen or a pencil, sharpen that pencil, and write these answers down and think about your answers. Metacognition, okay? Think about how you're thinking about your answers and then think deeper about your answers, okay? I want you to really do these questions justice. What parts of you do you keep hidden from the world? Where in your life do you act in ways that you later regret? And what deeper need hides there? If your shadow could speak, what would it ask of you right now? And what truth have you been avoiding because it might change everything? Every seeker must pass through the dark to earn their light. The shadows you fear are not punishments, they are invitations. Carry your lantern with humility. Look without judgment, listen to what hurts, because only by meeting the darkness within can you learn to illuminate the world without.