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142. Unlocking Your Full Potential: The Power of Shadow Work for Personal Growth
78 Plays3 months ago
In this episode of the Spiritual Fitness Podcast, Eric Bigger dives into the transformative power of shadow work and its profound impact on personal growth and success. He explains how embracing the suppressed or ignored parts of yourself can unlock untapped potential and lead to greater authenticity, internal peace, and fulfillment. Drawing from his coaching experiences, Eric shares real-life examples of how confronting your shadow side—whether it's fear, anger, or hidden desires—can be the key to overcoming inner conflicts and achieving true success. By focusing on themes like self-acceptance and vulnerability, Eric offers listeners practical tools to begin their own shadow work journey, empowering them to create a life of greater authenticity and deeper personal connection.
Also in this episode:
- Embracing your shadow side is crucial for achieving authentic personal growth and success.
- Shadow work involves acknowledging suppressed parts of yourself to unleash your full potential.
- Addressing personal fears and hidden vulnerabilities leads to greater self-acceptance and internal peace.
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Transcript
Introduction to Spiritual Fitness Podcast
00:00:05
Speaker
Welcome to the Spiritual Fitness Podcast. I'm your host, Eric Bigger, and each week we will explore powerful practices, inspiring stories, and expert insights to guide you on your path to holistic health. By blending spirituality and physical wellness, we support you in strengthening your body and soul. Whether you're a seasoned spiritual seeker or just beginning your journey, the Spiritual Fitness Podcast is here to help you unlock your inner potential and live your most vibrant, purposeful life.
00:00:35
Speaker
It's Miracle Season.
00:00:40
Speaker
Spiritual Fitness, Spiritual Fitness Podcast. I'm back again another episode and I'm your host, Eric Bigger.
What is Shadow Work?
00:00:47
Speaker
And today we're going to talk about the role of shadow work in your personal growth and success in life.
00:00:56
Speaker
So do anybody know what shadow work is? The only one guessing shadow work is the part of yourself that you neglect, you avoid, you hide in, or you suppress because it's uncomfortable to look at the shadow side of yourself that you don't want to look at. For one, you don't want to be judged. For two, you don't want to believe that you're in that way. And for three, it's where all your power is, but yet you don't know.
Do Successful Leaders Fear Emotions?
00:01:25
Speaker
So in my line of work, in my line of coaching and business, I work with a lot of high end CEOs and entrepreneurs. My clientele is more of the it person of the industry. And so the patterns I've picked up on with powerful leaders, entrepreneurs, CEOs, is that they're really great at showing up for what they love to do. They're great at executing. They know how to make waves and waves of money.
00:01:50
Speaker
However, behind all this success and power and money and fortune, there's something they fear the most. And for some of them, it's their anger. Others, it's their spiritual power and truth. Others, it's the love they really want. So I'm just going to discuss what my shadow side was for years that I neglected from the world and neglected from myself. And I especially neglected from the people who are close to me. Now in his shadow self, you don't have to share with the world, right? You want to keep it in house and you want to be intimate with it and you want to embrace it as if it's your friend because it's part of the full spectrum of who you are. We can't have light and no dark. I can't be all positive and enlightenment and wisdom, but then I'm not sharing my dark masculine or my dark truth or the shadow side of my personality or persona. So for years I hid
00:02:46
Speaker
those parts of me because I was afraid people would judge me and I wouldn't be the person I appear to be. So here it is.
Eric's Personal Shadow Work Journey
00:02:55
Speaker
I'm going to share with you right now some of the things that I was invested in by myself alone or just in life that I was afraid to share. Number one, I used to be highly addicted to porn.
00:03:07
Speaker
I watched a lot of porn growing up. I had all this energy and I need somewhere to put it. So I wasn't on drugs. I didn't drink. I didn't know read, but I was addicted to porn. So that was part of the shadow side of my personality. I was like, oh my God, you addicted to porn? Yes, I was. And honestly, it was really bad and it controlled how I saw a woman, how I thought, and it had a stronghold on me.
00:03:30
Speaker
just like anyone can have like sex or alcohol or drugs or food can have on you or anyone out there. But I was so afraid to embrace that part of me, but that's where I was at those moments in life. Two was I was afraid to ask for help because I was afraid to be interjected. And so when I was young, there were several times I did ask for help from a caretaker or a provider and I didn't get it.
00:03:59
Speaker
Or I was told it was going to happen. It didn't ever happen. So it sent me on this path. I'm like, I'm never asking if for no help. I'm going to do it all by myself. So that's where fear came in of being rejected. So I just didn't ask for help. But me not asking for help allowed me to do a lot of things on my own where I could have just got a ah helping hand and would have probably jumped 10 steps. And you know the porn addiction was also allowing me to Connect with the deeper dark forces of myself not dark meaning bad. It's like why am I so attracted to this genre of life? What is it in me that I'm trying to? High so what I realized from poor addiction was that
00:04:42
Speaker
For me, that was the only way I felt safe in my body when I was afraid as a kid or just growing up. And I realized like, damn, I really get in that phase when I'm having an emotional hard time in life. The emotionally eager and calm and then the poor and calm like, man, it's these kind of have a mirror, kind of like reptilian brain, right? Fight or flight. So when I'm in scarcity or I'm feeling fear, I will always go to that because it would make me feel good because the number one thing we do in life to avoid pain, we go to pleasure.
00:05:12
Speaker
So we always seek pleasure before we seek pain. So I was going to pleasure every time pain was trying to come into my life. I'm like, nope, nope, nope, i'm not going to feel that. So that's where that jumped in.
Suppressed Emotions: Anger and Love
00:05:21
Speaker
Next was, I was afraid to be angry because I wanted people to see me as a good person.
00:05:28
Speaker
you know I wanted people to see me as a positive person, so I didn't feel that I should be angry because I'm the guy that's positive and have all this knowledge. But deep down, I was severely angry at life, at people, at situations, and I neglected that anger for so long. and Honestly, that anger controlled me right and came out in different ways. There's all emotions. There's all energy.
00:05:51
Speaker
And last but not least, another thing that was a part of my shadow frequency for years was when it came to dating and relating love, I was so afraid to express my true feelings. I was afraid to say the word, I love you because I didn't hear those words growing up and I didn't feel love as a child or man growing up. So I hid.
00:06:15
Speaker
behind that and I just gave love to everybody. I could say I love you in a general as aspect, but when it came to intimate love and vulnerable love, I was so afraid. So all these things kept me on the freeway or the highway of crashing and burning in or not living my true life, not living my true self, not being fully authentic. Now look, a lot of these things are not
Coaching Clients on Shadow Self
00:06:41
Speaker
easy to address. A lot of these things are not easy to acknowledge. However, the growth that came with my shadow frequency was that I was allowed to see the full spectrum of who I am and to accept those parts of me and understand what is the root to all of this.
00:06:58
Speaker
What am I trying to fulfill and what avoid I'm trying to feel in these moments? So the benefit of being in your shadow frequency is that like when I'm working with a client, when we get on a Zoom, when we get on a call, I'm telling them, hey, I don't want you to lie. I don't want you to act like something isn't bothering you. Don't bullshit me, right? Give me the truth. Give me the rawness, right? However, I'm also holding a safe space for people to tell me their truth without me judging them.
00:07:27
Speaker
So when I'm in these sessions, people feel comfortable and safe to tell me any and everything because I'm not coming from judgment and I'm not coming from, I'm trying to see who you are. I'm just trying to see what space are you in vibration and energetically based on what you're not allowing yourself to see. Right? So I always tell clients, look, bring the darkness, bring the pain, bring the truth to these sessions. Cause I don't want you to hold onto any darkness or shadow side in you.
00:07:55
Speaker
And then when you leave, it's still running your world because I had a client last week say, well, I can compartmentalize a lot of things. I'm like, okay. So you can compartmentalize you not being angry with your wife about a conversation because you don't like confrontation. Okay, cool. So don't have the conversation.
00:08:18
Speaker
then when you go to work, that energy is still gonna be in you and it will come out of you. And he's like, man, you're right. I say, yeah, it's not about who's right, it's about what's right. It's best that you have the uncomfortable conversation and to embrace your anger as a man in a loving way, not in an aggressive way, to understand this is a real emotion, you're being affected, and you should have the right and feel safe in your nervous system to communicate it. Now look,
00:08:47
Speaker
If you're like me, you spent a lot of years being a people pleaser and making everybody happy, i.e. the client at the time, it might not be as easy for him to be angry because no one's never seen him angry. So to be angry is like, you don't get angry, right? So that's also the challenge of the anger emotion for most people.
00:09:05
Speaker
I'm saying all this to say that when we allow our shadow frequency to come to the light and we put it on the table and we don't have no resistance in our nervous system and we have no fear about what it is and who we are, I'm telling you, you feel so much lighter in your body. I'm like, oh, I don't have to be judged anymore. I don't have to hold on to this. Like I had shame and guilt around porn, right? I had shame and guilt around asking for help because I felt like I was weak.
00:09:36
Speaker
I was so afraid to receive love because I didn't trust it. right All these things was in my shadow frequency. My shadow side that I hid from everybody and I act as if I was okay. I had it figured out. I knew it all. I had the answers. No, I had no answers. I was lost. I was sad. I was broken. I was hurting because I wasn't fully accepting all of me. And this is why I'm telling you guys today, listening. I don't want you to go out in the world and half-tail it and be one way, but then when you get home, you're another way. Or you're constantly trying to wear this mask and play this character that's not even real to your soul and your diamonds. I was that guy.
00:10:18
Speaker
Working with your shadow to grow and have success is because once you put the shadow on a table with the light, you can merge the two and have a full embodied person. That means you're not hiding anything. Imagine if...
00:10:32
Speaker
You told someone, hey, I'm gonna take you out for dinner, meet me ah cheeseca factor at Factory at 7 p.m., right? And then you get there, and you don't really have the money, but then you're acting like you do, and then this person thinks you're gonna take care of the bill, and it's gonna take care of the night, right? And then you stand them up, or you ghost them, or whatever weird stuff. It's because you're not embodying your true self instead of saying, look,
00:11:01
Speaker
I would love to take you to dinner tonight, but honestly, I haven't got paid or I don't have the finances to support you in this moment. Can we rain check? But and I'm really embarrassed to say this, but can we kind of do something like early next week? Maybe not dinner. Maybe can we do lunch?
00:11:20
Speaker
So that conversation alone is allowing that person in that moment to release the fear that the shadow side that they don't want a person to shine light on because they don't want to be judged even if the person judges you still being authentic and you're being truthful so that person is going to respect you more than anything so now what happens is the other person gets a choice to say you know what i appreciate the honesty.
00:11:44
Speaker
Yeah, you know, it's all good. Let's hang out next week. And now that person comes closer to you, right? Because now you're being honest about where you are and you're not acting as if. So that's the power of allowing your shadow to work through you so you can grow and have success. Because honestly, that's the only thing I think is holding 95% of people back. I believe 5% just have lack of direction and guidance.
Societal Norms vs. Authenticity
00:12:11
Speaker
I feel like 95% of people are being held victim or hostage to their shadow side because they're not being their true self. I had a therapist offer better help and he told me 99, oh he said only 1% of the world's population is authentic.
00:12:27
Speaker
because we're not programmed to be our true selves. We're programmed to wear masks, to show up and be this person that's not real, but is real for the benefit of the job, of the relationship. I learned just one thing at the Josh Men's Retreat. Never jeopardize your truth for connection because most of us jeopardize what we truly feel because we want to keep the connection going. However, that connection is not as strong as you think when you're not being truthful.
00:12:56
Speaker
So, to run it back, your shadow frequency you must face. Face it with love, not with fear. And if it takes a long time to open up to others about it, open up to yourself. Get a piece of paper, get a journal, and just write about all the things you feel ashamed of, you feel embarrassed to talk about.
00:13:13
Speaker
you know It could be like, oh, you're 50 years old and you have no savings. Oh, you was married for 18 years and now you divorced your spouse and you feel severely depressed and lonely. But you don't want to tell no one because you're the one that everybody looks up to, you right? Just write it out. And I promise you, like over time, you keep reiterating it. um writing it out and you're building a rapport with it, slowly but surely you're going to feel comfortable to communicate it and articulate it to those you love and who deserve to know that.
00:13:47
Speaker
Because here's the thing, they say, if no one knows, no one knows. And if you're keeping it from everybody, including yourself, you can only go far in life because that shadow f frequency is behind you, controlling what you do and what you won't do. So you hear it here first. I've been in a shadow of a lot of things that I was ashamed of, that I felt embarrassed about, that What's fearful even like for men i want to see tomorrow but sometimes men are so afraid to tell women that. They might can't last long enough in bed right now switch this up but i just wanna be clear and be real because we'll find any and everything.
00:14:29
Speaker
to keep the moment going if we can find a thing to keep the moment going. So basically what I'm saying is we will lie to a woman and hide from what's really going on because we don't want to disapprove or displease her in the bedroom or when it
Embracing the Shadow Side for Freedom
00:14:43
Speaker
comes to relationship. You know, they always say happy wife, happy life. And most men will try to appease their woman and not feel ashamed because they don't want her to judge her. They don't want her to judge them and make them feel inadequate as a man.
00:14:57
Speaker
So we're rather the lie and not tell a truth because we don't want to be embarrassed. That's your shadow side. So with all that being said, the truth is always in the pudding and you, you deserve to speak your truth and to shed light on your shadow frequency because when you do that,
00:15:17
Speaker
all hell breaks loose. You break lease of hell and you get to heaven. You get from under the ground, on top of ground, above yourself where you're in your high vibration. Because you're not having no fear about what the truth is for you. You're not judging yourself for accepting all of you.
00:15:35
Speaker
No one's perfect. You're going to make mistakes. No one has it all figured out. and If you go back and look up the history of people who are at the top, they've been through a lot. A lot of pain, a lot of abuse, a lot of trials and tribulations. and Without challenge, there's no growth. so I say all that to say, if this is you right now listening and you're having something you're hiding from someone,
00:15:57
Speaker
We share it because it's only going to make the relationship and you better. I'll leave you with one more story. So maybe like nine years ago, I was treating a guy client. Great guy. I know he was a Virgo. Really good. Like he'd go to the gym. He would work hard. He was consistent. And I think it was his birthday and I'm like, man, I'll i'll take you out for dinner, man. Like just for your birthday. And he said he wanted to share something with me and I'm like, okay. I said,
00:16:24
Speaker
I've been meaning to tell you, but I just ain't know how to say it. You've been such an impact and role model in my life and you've inspired me in so many ways you don't even know. And he's like, I haven't even shared this with my family because I felt embarrassed. And so he says, just so I'm clear, I just want you to know that I'm gay. I was like, oh, bro, that's fine. Like I said, I knew that, bro, it's obvious. I'm not here judging you for your sexuality. Like you're my client. You're a great person.
00:16:54
Speaker
He's like, oh man, that feels good to know that. Like I thought you was going to disapprove of me. I'm like, nah, I'm not going to disapprove of you because of your sexual orientation. That's what you went to. I'll have nothing to do with that. Then we had a deeper conversation about like how he grew up. I believe you're saying like religious background. and I think like maybe his grandmother or grandfather passed away and he didn't want them to know or something. I think they had asked him and he told them, no, something he was saying. But he said it controlled his life and he hid it from people for years. And he said, I just want to be free. So I felt thankful in that moment.
00:17:27
Speaker
for him to share that with me and had a confidence and faith for me to listen to him and say, look, man, it's all love because I got unconditional support for any and everybody. Like I'm not here to judge. I don't know what people been through. I don't know what's on them. I don't know what's in them. All I know is what I'm here to do.
Why is Authenticity Key to Success?
00:17:41
Speaker
So people, shadow frequency, your shadow side will help you grow and be successful and get you to your highest frequency of certainty, which is authenticity. Did you know that authenticity is more powerful than love?
00:17:57
Speaker
Look it up. Google it. I was amazed by that. So when you allow your shadow to rise, you allow authenticity come through and you allow love to come on you through yourself where you can live a more fulfilling, successful, peaceful, joyful life. So it is.
Call to Action: Engage with the Podcast
00:18:15
Speaker
More downloads to the podcast, Spotify and Google Play, Apple Podcasts, subscribe, share, give me a review, give me some feedback, DM me, let's connect. What did you think about this episode on a shadow frequency or working through your shadow side to get to your best side of life? Shouts out to Ilya.
00:18:36
Speaker
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00:18:51
Speaker
promo code MCZ in all caps to get 50% off. Get your hoodie. Get your beanie. And ah last but not least, if you want to work with me one on one, book a discovery call. Let's talk. Let's chat. Let's see if we align. I promise you, I know I can help you. And I can help you help yourself get out of that shadow frequency that you might be been sitting in for years. And it's okay. We got to love ourselves unconditionally when loose draw.
00:19:19
Speaker
So there it is. We're done. Another episode of spiritual fitness. Be great. Be safe. Love yourself unconditionally and let no one stop you from being your highest and best self. I'm out. Peace.
00:19:33
Speaker
Thank you for joining us on the Spiritual Fitness Podcast. We hope today's episode has inspired you and provided valuable insights for your holistic health journey. By blending spirituality and physical wellness, you can strengthen your body, mind, and soul. If you enjoyed today's episode, please subscribe, rate, and leave a review. Until next time, stay strong, stay inspired, and remember, it's miracle season.