I had an encounter with my Shadow Beast and it was horrible. However, it’s lead me on a journey of discovery, using visualisation for self-therapy.

For those of us with imaginational OE, visualisation can be fantastic for autopsychotherapy. Working on yourself is very important in your disintegration journey. I hope this post shows you how powerful your imagination can be for cleaning out the sticky and frightening parts of your brain (and I’ll include some tips and tricks at the end).

Meet the Shadow Beast

Beating myself up doesn’t help me grow. Self-hate is something I grapple with a lot. Some self-criticism is useful (i.e. in the form of a dynamism like dissatisfaction with one’s self), whereas unfounded and highly aggressive self-punishment is not. Sadly, that’s exactly what drives my Shadow Beast. My Beast specialises in viciously tearing me down. 

Shadow Beast is extremely strong. For a long time during my life, he was an ever-present, looming thing. Thankfully, these days, he doesn’t appear so much. It’s only in the rare, really bad moments that he shows up. Unfortunately, that’s when he’s at his absolute terrifying peak.

And that’s exactly what happened during our last encounter. He crept up on me in the shower when I was vulnerable and hurting. Next thing I knew, I was bawling my eyes out, silently screaming awful things to myself. Tearing myself down in a vicious and bloody bout of self-depreciation.

A Timely Wake Up Call To Action

Not long after, we recorded a pertinent podcast episode with Sheldon Gay, and I knew it was time I had a serious talk with the Beast. We spoke on that episode about the importance of working on yourself, and looking into the dark and dingy corners of your mind. This conversation rang a bell of truth, and I knew straight away that I’d been avoiding my own darkness. The self-loathing couldn’t continue, but I had to recognise I had never actually dealt with the Beast in an effective way before.

I had used visualisation to connect with past selves, work with my inner child, and practice subject-object in the mirror. Visualisation is an excellent tool for connecting with parts of myself, by giving them a persona. It allows me to maintain some sense of objectivity. Once I externalise myself (and treat parts of me as other people), I have more empathy for myself. It bypasses my natural tendency to self-punish.

Nevertheless, this was going to be a massive gamble with the Shadow Beast, who is a creature seemingly built for nothing but punishment. Perhaps calling up the Beast on my own terms in broad daylight, would make it easier? Maybe I would catch him on a good day? I got out my notebook… 

The Visualisation Conversation

Firstly, I had to conjure him up. Summon him, with a focus on what I needed answered. Here’s what I started writing:

“You swirl. Black. Angry. Formless hate. You tell me hurtful things. Sometimes you whisper. Sometimes you roar. Always big and looming. What have I done to you to make you so mad? How can you say all those horrible things? Why do you hate me so much?”

The Shadow Beast slunk in, and we could begin. Big. Dark. Formless. Looming. I was worried… But when he spoke quietly in his deep, gravelly voice, he asked me something which took me by surprise. With great deal of apparent indignation, he said:

SB: Why do you call me “Beast”?

Me: You act like one! You hurt me…

SB: I’m just trying to protect you.

Me: But you HURT me. BADLY. How is that protection?

SB: Just trying to bring you down a peg or two, so you don’t get carried away.

Me: Carried away? How?

SB: You dream too much. You seek too much.

Me: Why is dreaming a bad thing? Can’t we have hope?

SB: “We”. That is better. You are starting to see. It is us.

Me: Can you answer me please? Why do you think my dreams are bad?

SB: Because your dreams cause you so much pain. Bitter disappointment. I don’t hurt you. You do it to yourself.

Me: How so?

SB: Others fall short of your idealism, and you hurt. Dreams don’t come to fruition, and you hurt. Love walks away, and you hurt. You’re so good at imagining things you think ought to be, and you cling to them like a barnacle. You don’t let go. I’m here to destroy all that with fire. It takes a lot of brute force to truly destroy you and your dreams, so you see me as brutal. Ruthless. But I destroy those dreams you think are all sparkly and glorious, because they are the things hurting you – when they don’t get fulfilled you die inside.

Me: But I can’t live without my dreams! I need them! Without them I don’t have any hope!

SB: Good. Hope is bad. It is not WHAT IS.

Me: What about the “ought to be”? 

SB: Ridiculous nonsense. Stupid.

Me: Well, I see things differently. Without the ought to be, I can’t have goals. I can’t reach, have direction, or even have a Personality Ideal! I need that shit, and we need to resolve this difference between us, because you can’t keep ripping me apart!

SB: Really? Can’t I? Isn’t that my purpose? Tear you asunder to protect you from your own folly?

Me: Look, I appreciate you think you’re fulfilling your purpose, but I really need you to understand why my dreams are important to me.

SB: YOU FORGET YOUR PLACE!! You forget your lessons! You forget how you can be hurt by your own witless stupidity when you don’t prepare yourself for failure!

Me: If you don’t want me to fail, doesn’t that logically mean you want me to kick a few goals? I can’t kick goals when I don’t know where the posts are!

SB: Yes, I suppose you are right there… But what do you expect? What do you want me to say? I am your storm, girl! The mighty force which fans the flames and the wild winds! The glorious eye of your hurricane!… See how splendid I am? I trigger all your beloved disintegrations which are the REASON YOU ARE HERE RIGHT NOW – in the place you OUGHT TO BE!!

Me: This is true. I wouldn’t be where I am now without you. But do you have to hurt me so fucking much to do your job?

SB: I want you to see the potential of your failures. Understand consequences. See risks, and not just rewards. Understand you are just a stupid human, whose plans and lofty dreams will not always pan out. But you are stubborn and foolish. You always remain convinced you can do anything. I am here to show you that all things can fail. That you are inconsequential in the grand scheme of the cosmos. That you don’t matter – at least not more than anyone else. You are not special, and I show you that. That is my purpose. It counters YOUR purpose.

Me: And what is that?

SB: It’s your job to find solutions. Hear what I tell you and figure out how to make it work, knowing full well that failure is possible. I AM YOUR STORM. It is YOUR JOB to bring sunshine. Rebuild yourself, and facilitate your own rebirth. Unfortunately your sunshine is blazing hot and unrelenting. I am simply here to balance you out. Test you. Force you to doubt yourself, so you don’t blunder blindly into another mess. I burn you to ash, so that you can rise again like a phoenix! I make you strong!

Me: When you turn up, you completely eclipse my sunshine. You make me feel weak, not strong. 

SB: I am YOU, idiot! I am only as strong as you are. Why can’t you love me?

Me: Why can’t you love me??!!

SB: I DO, YOU MORON!!! Why do you think I do what I do?!! I want you to succeed and not fall on your ass all the time!!

Me: I always thought you hated me! That’s why you punish me! I thought I disgusted you! Why else would you say all those horrible things??

SB: No, I don’t hate you. I do it because I care about you.

Me: Ugh! Fine… you say it’s my job to make it work? Let’s make it work. So tell me – What do you need from me?

SB: … hmmm… I never thought you’d ask me that…. I don’t know… I’m not sure….

Me: Think, please. I need you to think.

SB: Do you need ME?

Me: Yes, I need you. I can’t solve this without you. Tell me – What do you need?

SB: LOVE ME. Love me, like I see you love others. Like you love other parts of yourself. I am part of you. If you don’t love me, you don’t love yourself. I am not the part of you that stops you loving yourself, I am the part of you which you refuse to love! The loathing and disgust is something you project. Your neglect has caused me to rage out of control, because you have never bothered to work with me, only against me. It is YOU which HATES ME, not the other way around! If you cannot embrace your own darkness, how can you ever fully accept yourself?

Me: I never considered that before… Am I really perpetuating my own hate this way?

SB: Yes. Who do you think feeds me? Keeps me alive and powerful? Lets me get out of control?

Me: OK, I can see that now. This makes sense, and I admit I haven’t really taken responsibility for any of this. I’ve always blamed you. To be honest, I thought you were the product of other people’s hate, not my own. The Shadow of Trauma.

SB: No. I simply learned to speak their language –  the mother tongue of bullies and abusers. But they don’t write the script. 

Me: OK, we’ll work together to learn a new language. Be more focused. More factual. Purposeful. Can you do that, and be less frightening?

SB: I will try.

Me: Thank you. Just as you need me to love you, I need you to love me. Care for me. Otherwise I can’t love you back. I’m only human.

SB: It is difficult to love during times of great stress. Even harder to express it when times are tough. This is a good lesson for both of us. But now you understand me better, will you let me do my job as intended?

Me: Yes. Just try and protect me in healthier ways. Don’t be so savage. Don’t completely eclipse the sun, if you expect me to bring it. Otherwise we’re just hurting ourselves with no clear resolution. And if we both want to succeed, we need to remember we actually have the same goals.

SB: I will try to do better. But know this… When I do tear you down again – and I WILL – It’ll be for your own good. I will always be here – FOR YOU. To serve you. I AM YOU. You may not like it, but it is necessary. Just trust me. Trust in my purpose. Love me, and know why I exist. If you can love me and accept me, it will be easier for me to be kinder to you. And trust in yourself. Accept and love yourself. Trust in your sunshine. Trust you are able to rebuild and be reborn…

And with that, he was gone… leaving me feeling oddly calm and content, but with a lot of work to do.

The Post-Therapy Road Ahead

Stringing together all the pieces which came out of it. Analysing what was said. Thinking about what I need to do moving forward. Embracing the healing and lessons. This is really the most important part. 

Visualisation exercises are very immersive and raw, and can cause massive paradigm shifts. The experiences on their own are often epic, and can restructure how I feel about myself, my past, and others. However, the real magic is going away and digging further into it – reflecting, assessing, and applying. So now it’s up to me to conduct a forensic deep-dive. Sift through everything which my imagination just dragged kicking and screaming from the icky parts of my brain.

In this case, I also have to prepare myself for the next time Shadow Beast and I meet. Because we will meet again… So how do I handle the next situation differently? How do I mitigate the sudden rush of violent self-loathing? What will I do to channel that energy into something more constructive?

On top of that, this conversation has drawn out all sorts of other themes and threads which have given me plenty of food for thought – Love, for starters (which seems to keep cropping up for me). Letting go. Finding strength in places I didn’t know I had. How I handle confrontation.

Three Visualisation Tips

First tip – visualise an aspect of yourself as their own entity. Whether you use a mirror, a drawing, a picture of yourself, or just your mind, you need extract a piece of yourself and look into their eyes.

Second tip – let it flow! Whether you’re writing, or voice recording, or typing (and you DO need to capture it!) make sure you’re not over thinking, and just let it out. Typos and flubs can wait until later, so just keep going! And don’t think too hard about what the ‘other’ is going to say. If you imagine them as having their own character, they will eventually ‘speak’ to you. Relax your mind and flow. Remember you’re trying to get into the corners of your mind you often don’t want to think about. So don’t think – just do!

Last tip – you gotta keep going. You should tidy up those notes immediately afterwards. Jot down extra thoughts, and expand on stuff. Then give a it a break, and come back later and examine it all. Reflect. Look for themes. Analyse. And make a plan! Now you have all these insights, what are you going to do with it? Nothing? No! Put your lessons into action!

Final Thought

Having conversations with yourself sounds crazy on the surface, but if you have a powerful imagination, it might be a good tool for you. If you already see yourself as having “many personalities”, sides, or personas, it may be something you can slip into quite easily. And at any rate, it’s well worth a try, so give it a go.

The crawlspaces of your mind may be dark, and dirty, and full of cobwebs, and probably a bit frightening. But you will also find hidden treasure there.

Happy visualising!