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Once this muscle is unlocked you have the power to turn enemies in friends in real life. The greater this skill, the more fearless you become. But first you have to start with the basic movement. Love yourself.

This has to be experienced. You have to see shadow become light and see that vanquishing shadow was the wrong goal. Otherwise it's like learning piano w/o having seen or heard a piano before.

You have to get your shadow to forgive you by realizing that it was you who first ignored it. You were the ghoster, not the ghosted. You apologize and forgive yourself for pretending that you didn't exist. For not being yourself.

Being ashamed of someone's existence is the greatest insult we can have towards someone. Imagine telling this feeling to a friend. It'd end the friendship. Being ashamed of yourself is precisely why you're angry at yourself.

Your imaginary friend is actually your 'higher self'. That bully who tells you you're too fat and dumb is actually right. Except instead of being a great life coach, this life coach uses vitriol and punishment to 'encourage' you.

Everything this life coach tells you will be true in some way. (You can and should always be growing, always be living) Yet depending on how the message is delivered it can have hugely different effects.

You need to have the ability to befriend a bully. Most of us have never had this experience. We strive to be 'stronger' instead and bully the bully from a position of strength. Mentally we imagine the bully as a loser. Someone we could never befriend.

Our original bullies are often our father or mother figure scolding us, making us fear for our existences. If you don't have a bully figure in your life, perhaps the people you have to make amends with are your parents or caretakers.

We have to be able to be friends with our parents. But this is *hard*. Society tells us we can't be friends with super evil people like racist people and our parents are like super racist. "Stay away from black people"

If there's a voice of satan it whispers only this "That is unforgivable." It shows you rapists, murderers, torturers, etc... It brings up genocide and torture.

Yet still.. if we traced through every individual's life and watched it from birth, we'd probably forgive everyone. We'd understand why. It's just that we don't care to. We can't. There's not enough energy to do so. Especially as we're busy with our own lives.

Forgive yourself. And if you can't because there's something you need to do? Then do it. That's the "work".

It means really digging into why you're ashamed of yourself. Was it b/c of that time you looked stupid in front the whole class? When you were the skinniest/fattest ignored by all the girls/guys?

What is the exact reason you sent your imaginary friend into purgatory and exile? If you can put into coherent thoughts exactly how you wounded yourself... you'll have reached the understanding necessary to forgive yourself.

This isn't something in the 'past' btw... If you're hurting yourself it's something you're doing right now in the present. E.g. the act of replaying the past is something done in the present as is the act of imagining the future.

How you're wounding yourself is how you wounded yourself. Healing the present heals the past.

We have two ways of befriending ourselves. One is by casual day to day positive interaction. Over time, we just become friends. (e.g. classmates, colleagues, etc..) Another is when sharing an intimate moment, a 'spark'.

If you have a good relationship with yourself make sure to maintain it. Don't take it for granted. If you can't maintain a relationship with yourself, are you really ready to maintain one with someone else?