When we suffer from lack of confidence, lack of self esteem, or feeling like the underdog - any kind of suffering - there is always a shadow counterpart to it. The opposite quality within us is causing us mischief. If you suffer from lack, then it is likely you also have a fulfilled part of you, a confident part with a top dog mentality. |
This pendulum of going back and forth between tolerance and intolerance is because one part of us is dominating at one time while the other hides in the back, and the other part dominates at other times while the other disappears from the scene, and we don’t have control over our emotions.
This is what is meant by self-consciousness. We are swimming within ourselves because we have these parts of us that need to be integrated within our psycho-epistomology. We cannot heal one without healing the other because they beget each other. If I feel low about something, it’s because another part of me is being critical of myself. We are not always one voice, one thought at one time. We are an intricate web of thoughts that are tangled up, and on the way back to enlightenment comes the journey of untangling each one, one by one.
The best way is to take BOTH the top dog and underdog mentality and to hold them together in the light of your soul until you feel the tension between them reside. Often we work on one emotion at a time - say anger, but they also come in a story of pairs. Anger comes with helplessness on one end and self-righteousness on the other.
I often feel this tension in a certain part of my body that I rarely pay attention to, like the side of my neck or something stuck between my shoulder blades and spine. The back of our body is related to the subconscious - the areas of our lives that we do not pay attention to. Emotions can get caught in the aura in these neglected areas.
Focus on that area and look at what emotional story it is embodying.
When we go to one extreme, we imbalance ourselves causing us stress. There is a natural pendulum rhythm of ebb and flow to life, and when things are flowing it’s wonderful but when we are ebbing, it’s easy for those subconscious parts to surface. The middle point is what we need to find. Too much stress in the body can cause illnesses and so it is helpful to heal before stress starts to accumulate.
Along the top dog/underdog mentality spectrum is the integrated self, the part of you that is hopeful but detached to any outcome and prepared to deal with issues and accept success. This centered perspective is the purpose of life. We, as souls, are learning how to stay in the center longer with love and detachment while feeling compassion for other human beings and staying within our personal power, being vigilant to think and take action when called - a functioning adult.
When we allow our ups and downs to take over our lives, we send out erratic messages to the universe of what we want to manifest. A part of us wants to win at all costs and another part of us already feels like a loser - so what we manifest will be haphazard and not in alignment with our best interests. Winning is not the goal. Losing is not always being a victim. Service is the goal. Winning is not for just self but for all involved. Losing can also be giving when seen from another light.
When we are centered we can see both top dog and underdog in the corners of our vision but we don’t identify with either. We can turn it on or off and we balance the two by accepting it is there but not feeding it with drama. It takes a lot of self-consciousness to see when we are betraying ourselves by feeling like we are failures when maybe it is just our inner critic telling us we are not good enough and we’ve done enough already. Of course it is important to be happy and successful in our lives but we are humble and not attached to the outcomes. Success is an outcome of our inner alignment: our relationship with ourselves and our world.
Next time you feel bogged down, ask yourself what feeling inside you is playing tug-of-war asking to be the opposite and where is that thought coming from? The likelihood of picking up these thoughts from your environment as we dealt with past struggle and lessons, is high. It is time to heal. Unless they come from you, show them the door. We oust our faulty thinking and replace it with self-affirming thoughts and healthy feelings. It’s reparenting ourselves and learning how to undo the mess it made some parts of us feel.
By understanding the spectrum of healing we can integrate our fluctuating emotions and center coming from wholeness in our service and relationships.