How To Use Your Shadow To Become Unstoppable

15.08.25

The year was 2020, and I had just moved from Rio Grande do Sul to São Paulo to be with my girlfriend, now wife.

After looking for thousands of apartments, we finally found something nice within our budget. Nothing fancy, but a nice place for us to start our lives together.

The only thing left for me to figure out was a new place to work. After a couple of months of research, I finally found a new workspace, and I was excited because it was close to our place.

Within a month, I gave a workshop, about 35 people came, and I got my first 3 clients. Everything seemed promising, but I had no clue about what was about to happen…

After 3 months, the pandemic hit, and everything was shut down. I couldn’t do any new workshops, and since I was a nobody in this new town, no one was looking for my services.

I couldn’t see a way out, but I had to do something to pay the bills and the rent for my new office.

I’m certainly not romanticizing the constant anxiety and sleepless nights, but when everything is on the line, you have to dig deeper and end up finding resources you never knew you had.

I experienced a deep mental shift, and I understood that “feeling motivated” or worrying about what other people think was a luxury I simply didn’t have. I was in survival mode, and I had to give my all.

I noticed that everyone was spending more time online, and I created a movement in my new workspace to make daily lives and online workshops. Slowly, I got more clients, but for months, I was barely breaking even, so I decided to quit this space and do my own thing.

I knew I couldn’t stop, and after trying a lot of different things, I found Reddit. At the time, I didn’t know it’d be life-changing because I was facing a major problem: I didn’t know how to write.

I confess that I was afraid of random people judging me, but I couldn’t afford to entertain this vanity, so I started to practice writing daily.

As my articles got better, people started noticing me more, and my venture started growing. Last year, I also joined YouTube. Again, I was afraid of judgment, but I found that if you can endure how nasty people can be on Reddit, you can survive anything, lol.

Know Your Pain

The reason I’m telling this story is that many of my clients complain about not feeling motivated, being worried about other people’s judgments, or simply feeling stuck.

I also faced all of the same mental blockages, and yes, frequently, there are a lot of bad experiences and deep wounds involved. I already mentioned plenty of times that I had to overcome CPTSD, for instance.

But when we become adults, eventually, we’ll have to face our crutches and realize how our internal narratives not only keep us comfortable but also become a way to justify our mediocrity.

I don’t know about you, but the mere thought of being mediocre haunts me.

Whenever I’m feeling resistance, I’ve learned to seek a deeper fear within myself. You have to look at your pain and ask yourself, “What if things remained exactly as they are?”.

Be real, do you want to keep having the same problems? Feeling the same despair, the same loneliness, and the same unfulfilled life?

Think about everything you’re missing by not taking simple risks.

Our pain often reveals what is important, and if you’re living a mediocre life and wasting your talents, entertaining things remaining the same for the next 20 or 30 years should terrify you.

When we find a more important fear than the small narcissistic ones, we can use it as a fuel to overcome any obstacle, because in the end, they’re often only in our heads.

Another harsh truth I discovered is that people often have the luxury to not face their life tasks because there’s someone else picking up their slack. Maybe their parents or even partners are having to do extra work because they simply want to remain comfortable.

The Flow State

But enough about harsh truths, because once we get out of survival mode, another interesting shift happens. Instead of being driven by fear, we can start being fueled by the inspiration elicited by the Flow State.

Before, I didn’t feel like I had a choice, everything was done by pure necessity. I just had to produce content. But the more I developed this craft, the more I could see the beauty in it, and I started to feel excited about where the words would take me.

Most days, I get up happy because I get to write, make videos and courses, and help my clients using my talents and abilities.

When you learn to unlock the Flow State, you feel at your best and perform at your best. Pushing yourself and taking new challenges becomes fun.

This opens an even deeper layer of motivation. In other words, when we put our God given talents in the service of the greater good, we finally uncover our purpose. But to do so, we must understand that we aren’t here to satisfy our egos, but to contribute to His work.

During this time, I studied everything you can possibly imagine about how to be more productive and create better habits. But I find that these tools don’t work without an initial period of sheer obsession.

In the beginning, you just have to force yourself to do things and develop grit and discipline. You must know your pain and your WHY.

Moreover, you must learn to respect your craft because the Flow State is only possible when you develop a minimum level of skill. You must earn the right to experience Flow, and the more Flow experience… the more Flow you experience.

Over time, everything becomes easier, you become more creative, inspired, and you start transmuting your wounds.

It’s crazy, but I can confidently say that developing a craft saved me. Most recently, I discovered that Flow also has trauma healing properties, and I must say I’m not surprised since I experienced it directly.

That’s what real shadow integration looks like, and that’s how you overcome the Puer Aeternus.

That’s it for now, but in the next few months, I intend to explain more about how to reach the Flow State and its mental health benefits.

• Read Next – Demystifying Shadow Work

Rafael Krüger – Live an Audacious Life

Whenever you’re ready, there are 3 ways I can help you:

Mentorship – Catalyze your personal transformation with 1 on 1 sessions. Master your psychology, relationships, and business.

Audacity University – Master Jungian Psychology in 1 year: Become your own analyst or integrate these tools into your professional practice.

Katabasis – The Shadow Integration Manual – My best-selling and accessible course will teach you how to disrupt the unconscious patterns keeping you stuck and integrate the shadow.