How to Face Your Fear - The Keys to Understanding Your Shadow

If you ever felt like you had a huge upheaval in your life such as a break up of a relationship, loss of a job or promotion, someone you love sick or loss of them, you are probably facing the Dark Night of the Soul. This is the journey of the Soul Initiation into a more creative life, not a curse or bad karma.

Find out:

• What is the Dark Night of the Soul?
• What does it mean to face your shadow?
• Why do we have a shadow side?
• What is the best way to deal with the Dark Night?
• What happens AFTER the Dark Night and shadow process that helps you reach your goals.

•••

Interested in Jungian Life Coach Training? Download your free program brochure: https://www.creativemindlife.com/program-brochure

Stay Connected with Debra and Dr. Rob:
Instagram | LinkedIn | YouTube | Facebook | creativemindlife.com | connect@creativemindmethod.com

Transcript

How to Face Your Fear - The Keys to Understanding Your Shadow

Fri, 6/5 1:16PM • 36:27

SPEAKERS

Debra Maldonado, Robert Maldonado

Debra Maldonado 00:03

Welcome to Creative Mind Living, a podcast for personal growth based on the works of Carl Jung neuroscience and Eastern philosophies. We're your hosts Debra Berndt Maldonado, and Dr. Rob Maldonado, founders of Creative Mind Coaching. Hello everyone in our creative mind YouTube channel. I'm Debra Maldonado.

Robert Maldonado 00:28

And I'm Ron Burgundy, Berg and I just look like he's like having cut my hair in three months.

Debra Maldonado 00:34

I know and my hair is much darker because I've been dyeing it on my own but we're making it making ourselves camera ready for our new show creative mind live. Our podcast is Creative Mind Live, you can check us out on buzzsprout. I will post the link below after we're done with the show. We're going to come live every week and tell you fill your minds with creativity inspiration. So post your questions. Yes.

Robert Maldonado 01:02

And give us the hard ones we like the hard stuff.

Debra Maldonado 01:06

And if you haven't already, please subscribe to our channel, we will remind you afterwards so you can make sure you get every episode. And some information below always with our broadcast of aren't what we're doing what we're what we're with what's happening in the world of creative mind. Yeah, you can be a part of. 

Robert Maldonado 01:26

Yeah, so today we wanted to start with something light and simple. Seeing the dark night of the soul. Yes, yeah. Know what you don't call the shadow? Because a lot of people have questions about the shadow and it's so misunderstood. So we wanted to clarify a little bit of it. And tell us a tell you about our personal experience with the shadow and how we work with clients to do the Shadow Work.

Debra Maldonado 01:53

And if you're not familiar with our work we are we do coaching, not therapy. We're coaches we run a coach training company. It's based on Eastern philosophy, Jungian depth coaching, that we developed a method called the creative mind method. And it helps people find love and have success, healthy body and reach their spiritual purpose all in one weekend. So we talked a lot about topics of about the mind, about consciousness about spirituality, about psychology, so we would love to hear your questions and answer them each episode. So today, we get a lot of questions about fear. And what is how do I deal with fear? I don't want to do that because it's going to be scary. So let's talk about fear and how to work with it. Right. So it sounds like we're doing two podcasts or two different shows but because I said the shadow and the dark night of the soul and you said fear, which is the same thing.

Robert Maldonado 02:56

Yeah. So we just want to clarify that the Let's say at the heart of the Shadow Work.

Debra Maldonado 03:03

At the heart of the dark night of the soul is filler.

Robert Maldonado 03:05

Yes. And it's both the Shadow Work and the dark night of the soul.

Debra Maldonado 03:09

Okay, well, let's talk about what is the dark night of the soul because a lot of people in the shadow work because some people are new.

Robert Maldonado 03:15

Well, so the Dark Knight is so has become part of the culture, and people often talk about it. But it actually comes from Spain. I'm not sure on the year, I'll look that up. But it came from St. Teresa, and one of her pupils, who is named saint john of the cross. So these guys were mystics, essentially Christian mystics, and St. JOHN of the cross and wrote a book called The dogmatic soul or he mentions the dark night of the soul and one of his books. And he described it as this process of deconstruction, letting go of the old self Hmm. So they He could be closer to the divine.

Debra Maldonado 04:03

And it's a play that has been played out through myths and humanity and famous people go through it. And it's a transformational process. And it has a bad rap because it's called The Dark Knight. And it means that this kind of terrible things happening to you, but it's actually a impactful spiritual experience.

Robert Maldonado 04:24

Right? Because, like I was telling some of our students, the word soul is in there, which means it's a spiritual process. It's not just the dark, just the darkness or the ignorance or the, the absence of light. It's the soul right that is undergoing or experiencing these things. Or, more properly, what I would say is that it's a way of reconnecting with the soul. Maybe like, people talk about this soul retrieval.

Debra Maldonado 04:55

Yeah. Why? I think it is a soul initiation. It's your initiating or reconnecting to the soul that has you were born with like we were like you have always say that we're born with this whole, whole, whole perspective. As a child, we have so much magic and so much wonder. And then we split ourselves into this persona that has to fit in socially with the world. And so we cut ourselves off from our imagination, our creativity, our passions. We kind of are fearless as children, we climb trees, and we, you know, act silly and do things and then little by little things in life happened to us that say, That's not good or Jimmy won't like that. Or a teacher doesn't disapprove of that or mom and dad don't like when you're that way. And then we tend to we and a lot of times the way we've been disciplined is through fear is like, kind of getting punished and you're you're yelled at or stern talk to or even the look. And then we learn to kind of the things that were made us really passionate imagined. We learned that when they're not safe anymore, and so we put them into what Jung called the shadow. And so that's what the shadow is. It's it's not a bad thing. It's just kind of a container for an lived self. I lived part of us that part of us that we didn't get a chance to live in some people, you know, there's a one of my clients always says that she doesn't want to die with the dream left in her. The music and music is gonna, the left me that I haven't played and that's really what's in the shadow. It's our unlived self. And we're forced to be this persona in the world. This ego that needs to everyone's approval needs to be a certain way. And it ends up causing so much conflict in our life. And then we wonder why we living this mediocre life where we don't want to go for our dreams, why we don't find the love that we want, because of this. And so the dark night of the soul, wouldn't you say is sort of a wake up call for us. It says It's a it's a, it's the door starts opening to this a real self. And but most of us want to shut it. They're like, Ah, this is scary. Let's Shut it. Let's keep avoiding it. And it's been trying to open most of our life. It's trying to call us back. But we are too afraid to open the door. And that's why I think it really is about facing your fear. It's because those things we're afraid of. We're more afraid of our greatness, and that that unloved part that they're kind of a threat to our security, then

Robert Maldonado 07:31

Yeah.

Debra Maldonado 07:32

what we think is so magical. We think, Oh, this is going to be great, but we're actually afraid of it on some level. Yeah. Why is that? Why do you think we're so afraid of, of these parts of ourselves, these unlived parts of ourselves,

Robert Maldonado 07:45

right, so back to the dark night of the soul. Then, when young read St. JOHN of the cross, he identified it as the individuation process which he had been going through This kind of period of chaotic breakdown, where things that is appear to be falling apart. The the ego is essentially disintegrating. In a sense. The old persona is dying, your way of doing things has to come to an end. So the new person can emerge or the soul can emerge.

Debra Maldonado 08:22

So is that kind of like what I was saying is that the door is opening. It's kind of like the, the almost like the the dam has burst. And all the things we've kept away the door, you know, it's trying to get our attention and then, yeah, it's a flood. It's an intense experience of facing what we need to face in order to get what we really want.

Robert Maldonado 08:43

Yes, so Jung spoke about it this way. He says, The Shadow presents a moral dilemma for us, because it means that we were rejecting or transcending everything we built up up to that point, we get to a station in life or stage of development where we realize that we're going to have to let go of our old attachments our old way of thinking, our old way of being. If we want to proceed further, we want to grow beyond our, let's say, our conditioning, our socialization, what we learn from our parents, what we learn from our teachers, our preachers, it's very limiting. At a certain point, it becomes a limitation, because it's based on survival. It's based on biological survival, and then it's based on social survival.

Debra Maldonado 09:42

And so we're for survival in itself, is is conditioned through fear that we're going to die. If we don't keep this persona up. And

Robert Maldonado 09:55

live symbolism let's say the symbolism of death is in there because It's the death of the Old South. Yeah. And so the ego perceives it as the end of my being the end of my existence. And, and people often misinterpret that because people around that time will have dreams of death. Hmm. They'll think somebody out to kill me whether or I'm in danger. And it's a very visceral sense that you get when you're doing Shadow Work, that you're in danger, you're in mortal danger of not existing anymore. But it's simply the ego misperceiving that calling like you say that it's really an opportunity to go beyond your limit itself.

Debra Maldonado 10:42

So when you say Shadow Work, what does that mean to you? The dark night of the soul is the intense emotional experience. So let's talk about what that is. The I see it as this time where it feels like everything is either falling apart, where there's an intense experience that causes an intense emotional reaction that is almost over over overdrawn. You know, it's like overplayed it's like Why don't I overreact so hard to this, like this breakup or this losing a job or this boss saying that to me? Like why did it get to me and it's you just can't almost let it go. And it's kind of sticky, and it feels as though you're wrestling inside and it's that's what I would say the dark night of the soul feels like it's like you're questioning yourself you're questioning the world you're questioning where you're going in life, it's this big moment of really asking yourself what the heck is going on with me? And what where am I at would you

Robert Maldonado 11:47

We both face those those periods in our life where we get, we lose our job or we get fired or we quit because it's like meaningless. And those periods, we often interpret them as depression or anxiety or kind of we lost our way. But it's essentially that we don't have a structure for people to undergo that process of transformation. That is the dark night of the soul.

Debra Maldonado 12:19

And so the outer experiences would you say sometimes it feels as though your life is falling apart, you lose a job, you lose a relationship, or someone you love passes that you didn't expect or have some kind of tragedy. And we just kind of, we don't use that opportunity that creates this intense experience. To change we use it to we just kind of get in survival mode because most people don't have coaches to help them through it.

Robert Maldonado 12:45

Right. So if you notice in depression, it's a very looking inward process, right? You your mind forces you to slow down there's no energy for doing it saying it's time to look inward, it's a in some traditional cultures they would call it the time of ashes. So a time of ashes was it people understood when you were in the time of ashes, you weren't expected to haunt or work. You were given that time to to do your process.

Debra Maldonado 13:19

You know, when I always talk about this and this actually made me remember something when I went through my homeless man listen jobless face before you before I met you. I had broke my engagement A week later lost my job. And then we had to sell the condo I had to move out within like 30 days, I was out living without a home, couldn't buy anything because I had didn't have a job to for downpayment and all that. And I remember thinking that everything that I found secure in my life, a home, a man and a job, work, love and security. Were all taken away from me and I remember just thinking, the only place I can go is inside and I wish I had a coach at the time. And a guide to help me through that to get the most out of that. It was a transformational experience just going through that and just realizing, like, what I think I did was I just tried to find my own internal strength instead of relying on the external and that really shifted my life at that point, but I could have gotten more out of that time if I had the right mentor coach.

Robert Maldonado 14:21

Yeah, because it forces you then to ask the question, What do I really believe in? What do I try? Yes,

Debra Maldonado 14:27

yeah,

Robert Maldonado 14:28

you have to you have to search it from within the strength has to come from something beyond your persona beyond your kind of conceptualization of yourself as, as his little personality existing in the world.

Debra Maldonado 14:42

And don't you think let me just ask your opinion, do you think that things fall apart, because they're not aligned with who you're becoming? And so it feels as though these things are happening to me. But in a way we asked on a deeper level for these things to fall apart because we wanted it because I always felt that like I at the time I said God decided you're on the wrong track here. This is the wrong guy the wrong job, the wrong situation you need to you're in your mind you I had so much so many bigger dreams. And I kept kind of pushing them in the shadow. I was like, maybe I don't need to be entrepreneur right now maybe he could, you know, do his thing. Maybe I shouldn't do this, you know what I love? Like let me stay in a regular job and I kind of got caught up in having the security versus my dreams. And it was like, Okay, well you know what, we're going to take it all away. And but it was me it was like an aspect of myself. Now I realize looking back, that there's a part of us that chose these things to fall apart so that we can put our new life together as our new self.

Robert Maldonado 15:47

Yeah, chose is a difficult word and not consciously, right because we don't do it consciously. But there there is a pressure from the unconscious to to compel us to express the deeper parts of ourselves.

Debra Maldonado 16:06

It's like this energy is like a desire that wants to be expressed. And then the ego pushes it back. And then the desire keeps coming. Now that desire is also coming from us. So there's always this battle inside of living our biggest dreams, what we want and then the ego saying, No, no, no, it's too scary. Don't just do let's stay in the line of how we've been conditioned. Just like when we were kids, we wanted to do like, I want to be an astronaut, or I want to do this. And I remember my biggest downfall I was told is I wanted to be a singer. And the little girl and brownie said, Debbie, you can't sing and it was like, you can't get what you want. And and so we learn to condition in life that way. So this dark night of the soul is really a way for us to reclaim our dreams.

Robert Maldonado 16:52

Yeah, absolutely. Not only reclaim but to find them. But yeah, I don't think we know what we're meant to be before we undergo the process, because again, we're operating under the conditioning of society, our foreign parents and our kind of our culture. We think we're supposed to be doing what kind of will please our parents, or these are teachers are fit

Debra Maldonado 17:19

in or

Robert Maldonado 17:20

others Yeah, where are peers and all that? And there's nothing wrong with those things. But they're not real choices. They're not individualized choices, which is what young men by individuation, individuation is meant to get you to the place where you're really choosing for yourself. Hmm, a lot of creative space. So, this is the mistake a lot of people make when they're in those situations. They they want to go back to where they were before they say if I could only get back to normal. 

Debra Maldonado 17:52

And that happened to me. When I went through that stage I as soon as I got a job offer for another similar market. Getting internet marketing job, which is a great job actually. I went back because I said, Well, this is way too scary for me. I can't change careers and leave a relationship I need to get. I remember thinking to myself, I need something secure in my life. And I think and that delayed me living my dreams for two more years, because I was just too It was too much for me. I didn't have a guide to say, You said you wanted to do this. Why don't you go keep going? why don't why Why did you stop?

Robert Maldonado 18:28

Yeah, that's the key is to push forward.

Debra Maldonado 18:31

Not go backwards,

Robert Maldonado 18:32

not backwards, but to push forward because like, in the heat in the hero's journey, the task is. It's a phenomenal task. It's something that you're not sure you can do.

Debra Maldonado 18:46

Hmm, yeah.

Robert Maldonado 18:47

It has to have that quality of I'm not sure I could do this. I might even perish in doing this. But if you meet that challenge, and this is the scary Write this is where the fear comes in. That at the heart of that is the, the thing that you fear the most. And it will present itself as the thing you fear the most. Because that's the way consciousness works. Whatever we push away into the shadow becomes an external situation.

Debra Maldonado 19:23

Well, it's almost like the like, you always say that the psyche has this like, quality of like you have it knows all the codes, and it knows what's going to get you to stop because it developed them those those defenses. So if you have a fear of heights, it's going to keep you know reacting from that fear. So and then as long as we respond to the fear, the same way we end up staying in the same place. So if what kept me going, kept me in the corporate world was the fear of I can't do this on my own. I can't make money on my own. I have to rely on a patient The only way to break free is see if I can do it. And I remember when I left the corporate world, I said, I just want to see what I'm made of. I just, I was up for the challenge. It was no longer an option. And it maybe it was perfect that I went back to the corporate world because I took the road most traveled versus the least traveled. And then I decided, you know, I did that already. I went back already. This is not the time to go back anymore. I have, I've lived I've done that I've lived it. It's time to do something different. And it was scary. But I feel that if we are willing to face our fears, we become unstoppable. There's no transformation without fear without courage without you know, I think sometimes in like when people watch the secret, you know, this kind of old now it's like 20 years ago. But people think of the law of attraction and they could just like manifest what they want. They don't realize that there's a barrier between where you are and where you want to be and it's fear. It's something you're afraid of that's preventing you not that you can visualize like crazy. And you may get some things, but to truly become the transformational person that you want to be the true self, you have to face that fear. And it's always never as scary. When you actually face it, then your mind anticipates it to be. Yes, that's normal.

Robert Maldonado 21:18

Yeah, it's ultimately a paper tiger because it's our own projection. Mm hmm. But it doesn't feel that way. When we're in it. That's the usefulness of the guide is to remind you, what is it that you're facing? Because if you don't have a guide, you believe the world is against you. In essence.

Debra Maldonado 21:38

We have the wrong guy that says, You're right, you should not take you should take a break. You should not face that fear. You know, clear the fear away and you don't have to deal with that your divine spiritual person and you're above all that and you know, let's try to piece the person's ego. And that's like, the worst thing is not recognizing when a client is an ego. That's I think one of the best things about our coach training and coaches is that we teach them how to get that ego, like understand what the ego is and what it's not and who you really are. So let's talk about when they're in it, what's the experience like being in it? Just real quick, and then we'll talk about what happens afterwards. So what do you experience? If you how would someone know when they're the dark night of the soul? And they're in shadow?

Robert Maldonado 22:28

Um, both internally and externally, things start to fall apart. And young describe described it as being extremely unsettled. Hmm. Almost like the rug was pulled out from under your feet. Mm hmm. Everything you were counting on, disappears or lets you down

Debra Maldonado 22:51

like chaotic,

Robert Maldonado 22:52

very chaotic. Uh, you, you might think you're losing your marbles.

Debra Maldonado 22:58

I feel like there's a lot of control fusion that you really just are kind of spinning and you're pulled in different directions, and then you feel like you've got an insight but then you're right back down, and it's a little bit swirly for a while. And one of the things we always recommend for people is not to try to create in that state like I'm trying to, you know, go and date or build a business while I'm in this heightened emotional, chaotic state, you're not thinking clearly you're kind of in that swirl. You want to wait go through that first before you then you'll have the clarity to what to do next. And you'll have better results than if you're trying to create while you're in the in the Dark Knight.

Robert Maldonado 23:38

Yeah, and it's almost like any initiation it's a test. If you're not ready to proceed, you will run back. Meaning you will go back to your normal, everyday life and give up the quest. But if you're if you are able to push through and face that fear slightly Dragon and conquer the castle. Whatever metaphor you want to use, then you, you get to the next level, it's very much like where we design those those video games, you have to solve this problem before you can move to the next level. And people

Debra Maldonado 24:16

want to leapfrog over their shadow and go to the goodies without really understanding what they're, they're not bringing all their energy with them. They're only bringing half their energy. And that's why a lot of people get exhausted with dating and with busy trying to create a business or trying to create success in their life or trying to even lose weight. They're kind of only using half of their energy and the other half is pulling them back.

Robert Maldonado 24:39

So Jung says that ultimately, it's a confrontation with the unconscious. Hmm, this shadow element. And it's a confrontation with everything that's kind of been stored up in your unconscious mind. You're finally turning around, you're not running from it anymore. You're facing and you're saying Bring it on whatever you got on tired of running. Well, you're not always saying that.

Debra Maldonado 25:05

But part of you you say what they say your your are when you're going through the document you are saying bringing it on, but at the same time you're kind of scared of of it as well. Like it's kind of a little scary, right? And I just like Hey, bring it out and you're like, Okay, I'm ready to face this

Robert Maldonado 25:23

Right. No, you're you're just sick of running. Essentially, you're just gonna deal with get to a point where you say, you know what the hell am I afraid of? What's keeping me running? 

Debra Maldonado 25:35

I can'tdo this anymore. Yeah.

Robert Maldonado 25:36

And I'm tired of being afraid. You know? It's

Debra Maldonado 25:39

I love that I'm tired of being afraid.

Robert Maldonado 25:41

Yeah, it's exhausting. You get home at the end of the day, you're exhausted because you've been putting up this persona front. And it is very much like a like a shield, defense mechanism that the ego uses to protect itself but it You know, it's you against the world. And when you fight the world, you know who's gonna win? Right? The world has much more power. But if you access that power in the in the unconscious mind, which is which you can only access through the Shadow Work, then you have the power to transform your world to really be fearless in the world. 

Debra Maldonado 26:27

And that fearlessness is, like we always we, it doesn't mean that we aren't afraid. But we're not afraid of the fear. We kind of are willing to deal with it. And we're there's

Robert Maldonado 26:38

challenges obviously, but we want the chance. 

Debra Maldonado 26:40

We're not letting it stop us. 

Robert Maldonado 26:42

Yeah, it doesn't mean though. You're done and everything's, you know, beautiful for the rest of your life. There's definitely challenges but you want those challenges because you understand. That's the way I grow. That's the way I express the fullness of my being.

Debra Maldonado 26:58

So someone going through it number one, you need a guide. So get a coach, we have plenty of coaching in our company that we have coaches that are trained to work in shadow. You want to make sure you're working with a coach that is not, that's more a coach not therapists, because they're going to treat you in this in a different way than possibly someone who can do it from a high functioning model, where they're not pathologizing what's in the shadow, they're kind of you're seeing it for what it is, and that's what we do. And then also, don't be afraid to feel anything because if you look at what you know, it's emotional. And if you really it really comes down to it. A great question ask yourself is what is coming up for me? What's the sensation and why am I afraid of just having pressure on my chest? It's your mind that makes up what it means and you know the future and the stories, but it really is just a sensation in the body that we're afraid of. And if we resist it, it actually becomes more intense. But we realized, Oh, this is just a trigger old stuff from my past. Let me open it up, let me approach it, it actually becomes easier to work with, then if you pull away from it. And then the last part is welcome. It is the greatest opportunity. It's a rebirth of your life and, and it's not the only time you'll go through every time we go to another stage in our life, every time we want to grow in our life, we should have this dark night. It's it's darkest the first time but I think as you keep revisiting the fears that you have built up in the shadow, it starts to become more more like a video game. Then the life or death game, you start to see Oh, I get to play this is my psyche here and I'm much bigger than this little conditioning part of my mind. I'm so much more than that. Instead of thinking this conditioning is all of who I am, and I'm inside of it battling you're kind of outside of it. Still with it, but you're not as consumed with it and letting it take you away.

Robert Maldonado 29:01

Yeah, and from the other side Yeah, I mean what's on the other side once you get past the shadow you you realize yourself as a spiritual being the whole idea of this this process the process of the dark night of the shadow of the soul is to be reborn right a lot of the mythology a lot of the spiritual traditions talk about this as the second birth, the rebirth the the rebirthing of yourself in a way and but that's on the other side. A lot of people like to say they want to get to that point but they

Debra Maldonado 29:41

want to go around it boulder but they want to go around it versus

29:46

go through the go right through it. The spiritual bypassing Yes,

Debra Maldonado 29:51

kind of just manifest something else so don't have to deal with this magical theme. Or here's the best thing is like, if you have a fear or are afraid of what other people think, they think that overcoming it is by saying, I don't care what people think. Yeah, and that pushing it away, you're still giving energy to it because now you're pushing people away. And you don't want to be surrounded by people who criticize you or, or are toxic and, and you're really not going anywhere. You're just kind of hiding from it. And what we want to do is we want to face it, we want to face those things that scare us. So that doesn't control us anymore. Because whatever we fear controls us. It controls our life. And so afterwards it feels this fearlessness, this power. I feel like after I go through a dark night, many dark nights I've had I feel so much more confident and so much more focused. And I feel like I've it's like this power power pack that I've had that stored away that I'm like retrieving more and retrieving more and like wow, and you're just kind of more you feel like more there's possible for you. And and you start and then the next time you go through it you oh I've been through this. I've been Through this dance before this rodeo before I know how to work with it, and it becomes easier and easier. It's almost like speaking of rodeo, it's like taming the wild horse. It's like that all those emotions and it's resisting, and then all of a sudden the horse starts to follow your lead. And that's kind of what we want to do with our emotions in our mind as we want to tell them. We're in charge. This create this critical thinking, panicky thinking emotions, those aren't driving our life anymore. And it's a powerful place to be. But a lot of people one of the questions is, would I get stuck there? What would you say if they, if I get what if I go, well, like I'm in this place? What I see

Robert Maldonado 31:41

Often with our clients, or our students often is that they think because it is so transformational just doing Shadow Work. They think that that's it that that's individuation that's only the beginning.

Debra Maldonado 31:57

This first step

Robert Maldonado 31:58

Yeah, it's just the entry point. into individuation. And a lot of people just think well because I've been doing Shadow Work, and I get it

Debra Maldonado 32:08

I'm done. But it's it's the it's the ticket in it's your goal and taken into individuation, which is a lot deeper it goes into the collective unconscious, into you understand dreams. And so like my first dreams before I did Shadow Work were all about my personal life. And then when you go through on the other side of the dark night of the soul and you really work with the shadow and integrate it, integrate that power and stop pushing it away, then you start to have dreams of a collective nature. You start to see that your duty in this world is much more than you just feel unhappy and people liking you that it's like wow, I have a mission here. I have a purpose here. And I can influence like everyone here and weave people up and that's really it's really an incredible process to go through. But it is I think like that initiation, like you said, it's, if you turn back, you can't go through, you know, if you can't make it through the first round, you

Robert Maldonado 33:08

redo it.

Debra Maldonado 33:09

Yeah, you have to start over. You know, like, you can't go to level two yet. And so we want to go to the another next level of our life, we have to face our fear. And, and I've always, if you're afraid of something, it's a doorway to something. So we don't want to be fear, afraid of fear, we want to face it. And we went to use it too as energy. It's just energy that is going to take us to the next level. So great talk today. The dark night isn't that dark, it feels it sometimes during it, but the longer you stay in it, the more you wallow in it, and you don't have a guide to take you through it, it will last longer. But if you have a guide, you'll go through it and it'll feel so liberating on the other side, and I really think for me, I time it's I can't believe I was so afraid of that or I can't believe this this used to stop me so much it's so ridiculous it becomes so ridiculous but before the shadow work if makes all the sense in the world that if if someone criticizes me online then oh, it's gonna be a terrible like, I'm just a failure. And now it's okay. There you go. Let me check test this out what is the thing about me and how much power I'm giving to other people?

Robert Maldonado 34:28

It's definitely not for the weak at heart. But more and more we've we see that people are ready for something deeper and something real Yeah. And that they're willing to take that challenge of the dark night of the soul.

Debra Maldonado 34:41

And here's the best news that this I think is that after you go through the dark night of the soul, the things that they they teach you about visualization and manifestation and holding your thoughts create your life. It becomes a rapid result. It actually expedites you getting what you want but then another thing is you get what you really want. Before the shadow, when you're still in ego, you're getting things just for survival, you're winning things from a smaller place. And when you come from connected to the divine, it's like reconnecting to that soul of you, you can really create in a more powerful way. And also, your worries start, you know, kind of become more powerful too. So you want to, you want to be able to work with your mind so you can have more access to more creative energy. When she say that would be a case for you.

Robert Maldonado 35:33

That's right. It's it's the real creative process. Yes. And that's our true nature is we're creative. Well, we're the happiest when we're being creative. Yes.

Debra Maldonado 35:44

Well, thank you so much for joining us for our first broadcast on YouTube. We hope to see you again next week and we are so excited to share this information with you. Let us know what you think. Put your comments below and be sure to check our podcast out Also, let us know what you want to hear about. Ask us your questions, and we'll make sure we get to them on whatever shows.

Robert Maldonado 36:07

Yeah, we don't shy away from the deep stuff. So ask,

Debra Maldonado 36:10

ask anything you want anything you want. So take care everyone. Have a great weekend. Bye