With Tony Blair resigning and Gordon Brown being 'remodeled' our political shadow figures are 'a changing'. But there's still George Bush.

Bush's method is to fight 'the war on terrorism' but of course that doesn't work. To fight war with war only creates more war. He acts out 'the stupid', 'the bully', 'the self righteous warmonger' for many.

If you have a shadow figure in your life, I sympathise. I have had a 'bully' shadow which has changed from one person to another and I am healing it layer by layer. The bully shadow asks that we step up into our place of leadership. It is part of my life's work.

Our shadows come from our unconscious and have been with us a long time. They are part of the collective unconscious that Jung discovered; the dark aspects of humanity which we all want to get rid of. In Psychology of Vision we recognise that the shadow is connected to the Vision level of the unconscious mind and to heal it releases a huge amount of energy. There are jewels to be found in the unconscious, the buried treasure that lies under the dragon.

The people who work with the shadow use this energy creatively. They are visionary artists, shamans, film makers, playwrights, actors, comedians and psychologists.

Do you have a shadow figure in your life?

If you have reached a glass ceiling, an invisible wall that seems to be holding you back in spite of all your hard work or doing all the right things, it tends to suggest that there's a shadow figure around you.

To heal the shadow we must first get honest and recognise that it is an aspect of ourself that we are projecting.

Denial is a strategy that the ego will use to hide this. When we feel bad we tend to blame someone else. As kids its natural to do this. However the bad feeling gets buried and we repress it. What happens is that we compensate. We become 'sweet, nice, good, dead people'. We start living by roles or even take on an archetype. But however good our archetype is, it constricts us.

Our life might well be a script that we can watch in 'Eastenders' on TV or 'The Archers' on the radio. Soaps are so interesting as they reflect what is going on in the collective. The current shadow figures in 'Eastenders' are 'the wife beater', 'the adulterer', 'the fallen woman', 'the child torturer'. They are almost laughable as they are so easy to identify.

Healing the shadow

There are may powerful exercise to heal the shadow that are best done in a workshop (see below) or in a group. There is one simple healing method that can be used on your own.

First name at least three qualities that you see in the shadow figure. Ask yourself if you have ever behaved in this way. If you can recognise it, that's great. If you'd die rather than behave in that way then you have repressed it. The basis of psychology is that we can only see in another what is in us.

Then imagine that you are holding ‘the good, sweet, nice, dead’ compensating part of you in one hand and The Shadow in the other. In your mind, melt them down to their pure light and energy (their most basic form). Then join the two energies together until even your fingers interlock. Keep the new combined energy in one hand and imagine that true goodness is in the other hand. Once again, melt these down to their most basic form of light and energy and join them together.

I wish you well with this healing exercise. I have done it many times and I find it very effective.

with warmest wishes,