Where is my attention directed?

Projection is a fundamental concept in the Bioneuroemoción® method, since it allows us to understand that the stress generated by certain behaviors and everyday situations is due to features of our own psyche that we attribute to others. What we perceive to bother us reveals part of our unconscious information. Assuming the influence that our perception of reality generates on our emotional state and on our body, opens the doors to a new paradigm in which the person has the opportunity to choose how they want to experience a situation. When we begin to think that everything around us is related to us and that the judgments we make are linked to aspects of our personality, we can begin to realize that what we see outside is part of us. What captures your attention, lying situations, infidelity, betrayal etc?
For example, if we find ourselves in a situation where a person is lying to someone else or to us and if this provokes a reaction of anger, sadness, etc. we have to observe what part of ourselves we see represented in that scene, it could be either that we are also lying to someone or maybe we lie to ourselves, for example, we tell ourselves that we will do something and then we don't do it, we promise ourselves that we will go on a diet and 10 minutes later eat a cake or chocolate, it may be a woman who promises not to let her husband beat her and harasses her and again allows him to do so in a way by staying with him. The possibilities are endless, people’s personal experiences need to be explored. Everyone has different experiences.

Carl Gustav Jung

The shadow represents unknown or little known particularities or qualities of the ego and some of them may be conscious. It is, on an individual level, the negative aspects of the personality, the sum of all those unpleasant qualities that we would like to hide. It in no way represents the totality of our unconscious personality. By "shadow" we mean an autonomous psychic system that delimits what the Self is and what it is not. According to analytical psychology, it is one of the main archetypes of the collective unconscious since in some cases the shadow also contains collective factors that come from outside.

Since we are small we are taught, and we learn, to differentiate what we "should do" from what we "should not do" and we shape our personality around these premises. The way in which these learnings are carried out is not always obvious, but sometimes occurs in a very subtle way. Anything that we intend to modify, anything that we fear, anything that upsets us, makes us angry, irritated or annoyed; Even something that we refuse to accept and / or reject will keep us attached to the past and attached to our stories and the shadow - beliefs that drive them.

Where to recognize the shadow?

There are different ways to recognize a shadow. Below we will develop six different and effective ways to observe ourselves and learn something about our shadow:

• Observe our projections. To pay attention to those aspects that annoy us in others and also to the aspects that attract our attention in others means to observe our projections, and this is the fastest way to connect with our shadow. Any of these aspects contains parts of us that we are unable to perceive and therefore, develop or modify.
•What we are ashamed of. Think about what you wouldn’t want others to know about you, what you hide from your current life or perhaps from your past, everything you don’t allow yourself to share with your partner or friends. On many occasions we do not show these parts of ourselves for fear of being rejected, without realizing that we are already projecting rejection to a facet of ourselves that we consider inappropriate.
• Our addictions.Our addictions also hide part of our shadow. Addiction is characterized by the compulsive repetition of an activity despite its self-destructive and even not very adaptive character for our development and social coexistence.
•Behind the physical symptoms. . It is important to stop and reflect on what is the message that the body, with its physical state, is transmitting. It is necessary to ask: what does my body say about me? The body is indisputably connected with the unconscious and manifests our emotional states in different ways.
•Stop blaming others. When we overreact to any situation it is very possible that we are under the influence of the shadow. We tend to place the shadow outside so as not to see it in ourselves. Observing the way in which we relate to the environment helps us become aware of our shadow.
•Assume our responsibility. To look at the world around us with a mind that understands that the causes of the effects that are manifested in external life are inside, and that everyone is responsible for the decisions they make as well as the tangible effects that those produce decisions, is what those who try to develop a holistic, comprehensive mindset do. Someone who can make a genuine change in hir or her quality of life.