Shadow Work Explained And How to Drop the Inner Critic

There are many ways to go about it. 🎉

Incredible video. Thank you 🙏

Content is excellent music is distracting.

Eh not very helpful

So I’m supposed to choose to listen to the “happy voice,” eh? I’ve tried and tried to hear a “happy voice”: and I appear not to HAVE one, and I’m unable to build one.

🤔🥺❤️‍🩹💓🙏🕊️

Thank you for all your work, Dr.David. It is extremely helpful. Listening to your videos automatically calmed me and brought my anxiety down by a lot. I had forgotten how to have a calm nervous system and be my usual fun self. Your videos and teachings are helping me get there. I guess I stopped feeling helpless each time I watch your video and understand that the tools/insight you are sharing are the right guidance to solve my issues. I have a long way to go but this is a hopeful and positive start. I know there is way to no longer feel left behind or feel not good enough and beat myself up over not fulfilling my expectations of myself. I appreciate you. Happy Holidays!

Thank you so much for this. ❤

Whats with the creepy music?

Can you make the same video without the music?

This is the most amazing explanation of shadow. Thank you. ❤

How do u know you are actually choosing happiness if u are used to living in shadow choosing persona… how do u know happiness if u haven’t actually been choosing it

That was helpful but I cannot articulate exactly why :) Thanks.

This channel absolutely deserve more views! your way of explaining things is relaxing🥰🥰

where are the other videos of this series?

I thought you explained this really well, loved the diagram and how you break it down. However I work with complex trauma where clients have dissociated parts, younger older etc, how can this be modified and worked with clients who have dissociated personalities?

Is there any research backing shadow work? If so, could you please cite them because I would love to look further into this

So what you're saying is that depression is a choice?

I love it this video !! I am a therapist and I love your work thank you 🙏

great insights!!!!!!

Popular, successful, attractive people are better, they are loved.
Unpopular, unsuccessful, unattractive people are alone, cold, lonely, unloved.

Wow!!! Anytime we pick up an aspect of another’s persona from the environment rather than being our authentic self, we adopt the shadow as our subconscious way of being.

At some point in the video you say that we can be in a mindset that we have no choice at all. But for most of our developmental stage we do not have any choice and the false self or the persona develops during that time period. In other words, isn’t it true that during this stage of life when we are developing, we have no choice but to be completely dependent upon how others treat us accept or reject us based on whether we fit into their paradigm (if they are unhealthy), and that our False persona develops in order to survive the unsafety of our own authenticity in the face of unhealthy caregivers who seek compliance over acceptance of their children but that this persona (attached to the shadow its worst aspect( sometimes outlasts that stage of dependence? And that that is what the work is… The recognizing what about us is true and what about us we came to believe because of the need to survive rather than to be authentic self in an environment that was unsafe during our developmental period.

Put another way, it seems that people who grew up in the household in which the authentic self was not mirrored are more likely to grab onto the persona of someone who seems popular or successful in popular culture and to therefore create both a persona and a shadow self that differ from the authentic self thereby leading an inauthentic life in which the true self is submerged and therefore emerges through traumatic triggers

Very well told.

I've recently started researching shadow work and found your videos. I'm struggling to identify the order of the videos that are geared to shadow work. Can you provide the list of videos in the order they should be watched

I don't know about you, but I can still learn to understand and change an unmotivated thought. But I have a voice that goes by itself as if someone is talking to me in my head that complains to me all day long it's painful have I sponged up all the hatred and suffering? Who recognizes this.. and is this normal?

If it’s “a fear of choice,” why does my inner critic hate me even more when I DON’T make a choice
than when I make any choice (even if I make a choice that the inner critic opposes)?

Im still confused. How do I drop my inner critic ?

Great explanation. How do we do the work to get out of the shadow and persona to get to real authentic happiness??

Have you read Peter Michaelson book about inner passivity. ? I think Edmund Bergler who Peter follows is more direct, not worrying about being politically correct, when he says psychic masochism is an universal phenomenon due to the helpless nature of human infant 👶🏼. It's the fourth narcissistic injury according to one analyst.

Omg the little drawings are so cute haha ♡ Dr. David you are just simply amazing!! Thank you so much for all of your videos, old and new! They have helped me so much and have become such a source of comfort in my life 🌩🌈

Beautiful 👌💐😊Doctor....

This was lovely…

I'm bi-polar..... Skip the first 2.15. because I do know I pick critic. I can't help it. I have too meditate an hour sometimes to get to piss off the critic hahaha

we tend to judge our worst with other peoples public best and come up short ...bc we know us and unwittingly think their public persona is ALL of them when its not. They go away feeling bad about themselves bc they know THEIR dark parts and unwittingly compare themselves with YOU'RE public persona, thinking you have it all together when they feel like they are falling apart. not everyone, but some.

accept the unacceptable parts of yourself. love the unlovable parts of yourself. smile at the ugly parts of yourself and hug the most vile secret parts of yourself. YOU MADE THESE DARK PARTS and when they knock you treat them like bastards and PRETEND THEM AWAY. Acceptance of ALL of you = wholeness yin / yang allness. Just because you ACCEPT them does not mean you APPROVE of them. You cant give away what you don't have so by accepting these parts means you can give them up to your Higher Power to rewrite, redefine and redo what the REAL meaning behind these parts. ACCEPTING DOES NOT MEAN APPROVING. That's what stops most people with this type of work.

YES DENIS RULE 1- NOTHING YOU SEE HEAR ets MEANS ANYTHING AND HAS NO VALUE. this is a true fact whether you believe it or not. Rule 2- IT IS YOU WHO GIVE MEANING to everything you see. It is YOU who decide what value and importance anything you see means to you. EVERYTHING in and of itself is completely neutral UNTIL YOU DECIDE THE VALUE and meaning and importance it has for you. EXAMPLE your car is meaningless to me but if you are picking me up for a job interview your car has become very valuable to me and has more meaning to me. MY extra warm coats are meaningless to you but very meaningful to me and if we were roomates and lived in Illinois my coats would be very meaningful to you when i give you one to wear in sub zero temperature. I'm sure there are better examples but everything is neutral until YOU CHOOSE ALL THE MEANING ANYTHING has for you. This way YOU choose your mood bc its not based on externals and do not allow anyone to fuck with your ZEN. Do not take anything personally. Nothing anyone says or does is because of you it's because of them. You don't shit what other people eat so why should you drink the poison coming out of their mouth. Don't drink their poison bc its coming from inside them and they are referring to how they see themselves and has nothing to do with you. They are projecting their unconscious beliefs about themselves onto you. They are telling the whole world about who THEY are but projecting it on you,,,,don't buy into it don't drink their poison. The best thing to do is SAY NOTHING and walk away.

This is really interesting and thought-provoking, thank you. But I am really intrigued, why does the inner critic fear choice? - I look forward to more of your videos, thank you.

Damn bro you just broke that down so good dawg this shit just helped me in so many ways thank you so much im definiteley subscribed

Brilliant! Just...brilliant! Made me cry with realisation about how I've been beating my own authentic self up all these years.

Just so much chin music

Getting rid of the inner critic? The inner critic has a function: it is the quality controller. It won't like it if you try to get rid of it. Like any other part of the human mind it wants to be acknowledged and valued. The problem is not that it is there but that it tries to evaluate things too soon.

I certainly agree with you that we need more compassion towards ourselves. After all, research on academic procrastination has already shown that students who were most forgiving about their past procrastination were much more likely to not procrastinate on their next assignment.

So the idea is not to get rid of the inner critic but to transform it into an inner voice that is more encouraging and more matter-of-fact in pointing out areas of improvement at the appropriate time.

Awesome video. However, couldn't you make another video explaining exactly HOW we can choose happiness over criticism? I ask this because, for me, the real puzzle lies in HOW to make this choice. Maybe there's something about this that I'm not seeing. When we question our "Persona and Shadow" are we "choosing" happiness? Or is the choice to be happy something else that has nothing to do with the questioning part? How do we chose, thats my doubt.

Great. Waiting for the next video

Hope you found this video helpful. Thanks for watching and, as always, any feedback or comments feel free to share here. Take care, David.