Confront The Dark Side of Your Personality

Today’s topic is a touchy one that many avoid or cover up with a lot of sentiments,religion etc. To confront the dark side of your personality and acknowledging the existence of a thing sometimes marks the beginning of mastering the thing, whatever the “thing” is for you. As easy as it is to say, it’s one of the hardest things to admit. That something wields more control over us than we would want.

Most times, people will do anything, no matter how absurd to avoid facing their own soul.

– Carl Jung

You are nice, charitable, charming, the life of the party and so much more. These are all facets of our personality developed over the years to make us socially acceptable. Under the debonair, polite exterior lies a dark side that is filled with selfishness, aggressiveness and insecurities.However, in your unguarded moments. Moments of extreme anger, emotion, passion and lows the shadowy dark part of you shows up. “The Persona” is the part of yourself that you created to enable positive perception by others and this allows you be accepted into groups. This persona could be your personal or professional role, a costume you put on and off. Your persona is the star on the stage-play called life. You created it to blend into the work-force at your workplace and be part of the functional whole even though something dark and deep gnaws at you. After speaking to many clients, i have collated some of the most common dark side traits that haunt many who care to admit this.

1. You are addicted to partying, outings, drugs/highs(church included), alcohol etc
2. You are controlling and do not yield
3. You love to have sex more than what is perceived as normal so you learn to hide this from everyone
4. You love to engage in dangerous sexual activity and masturbate excessively
5. You get hurt easily, hold grudges and fancy revenge
6. You get jealous of other people’s achievements very easily and secretly desire (not want) what they have
7. You love money and will do whatever it takes to get it, even kill if no one had to know
8. You love to fight even if it means generating a reason to do this.
9. Your anger truly has conquered you and you cannot control it.
10. You always go for what is socially acceptable rather than what you truly want (happens a lot in the choice of partners/spouses and on social media opinion-forming).
11. You are difficult to deal with even if you make us all believe otherwise
12. You are a bully at your very core
13. You are arrogant, inconsiderate and arrogant
14. You love revenge and this drives you to a point of restlessness
15. You are brutally honest and you don’t care if it hurts other people so you look for a lofty ideal to cover this up. (Islam, Christianity, Outspokenness etc.)
16. You’re extremely selfish, sneaky and have a lot of ego issues
17. Deep down you want to be a leader who will crush others
18. You are extremely mean and cruel to others most time in your head
19. You are very insecure deep down and everyone that gets close to the primary reason for this insecurity is in danger

…i could go on and on with this list but here is the thing.

YOU MUST BALANCE OUT

The more you deny these dark sides, the more you run the risk of being eaten alive by these negative energies.

In all my years on earth, i have come to understand that there is no good or bad man/woman. All i see are humans with a little bit of both. So denying your dark-side doesn’t make you good. Instead it makes you a hypocrite with a price. Accepting the existence of a dark side makes you a realistic man/woman on a quest to understand yourself.

– Temple Obike

HOW TO TAME YOUR DARK-SIDE

Just like success which i’ve always likened to a beast that will tear you apart in public view if you do not learn to tame it in private, Your dark-side rears it’s ugly head most times when you are at the pinnacle of whatever you are pursuing making it harder to recover from the uncovering or scandal as it’s appropriately termed in popular modern society.

There are many among us who have learnt to tame their dark sides. I will use the first few examples from the list mentioned above.

1. If you are addicted to partying, outings, drugs/highs(church included), alcohol etc. It simply means that you always want to be in a constant state of activity and high which is un-natural. Simply take up activities that will teach you to remove attention from yourself, channel your energy into a cause or leave you mentally and physically tired such as a trekking club, offering to help out at a local orphanage and taking up swimming or lawn tennis.
2. If you are controlling and do not yield, engage in nature observation, team sports activities that will allow you understand the importance of team work in a play scenario. This will go a long way in teaching you the art of delegation and team spirit. Avoid one-man sporting activities with high competition drives such as table-tennis as it will achieve the opposite and reinforce the controlling nature. The more you see the importance of team-work, delegation by observing nature and through sports, it will make you more open to yield a bit of control in your life.
3. If you love to engage in dangerous sexual activity and masturbate excessively, utilize this raw sexual energy and channel it into having unbridled sex with your wife/spouse Sexual energy can be used to fuel ambition too and accomplish goals. Floyd Mayweather, Tiger Woods etc are some prominent men who have turned the tide on this dark-side and used it to accomplish goals.
4. If you get jealous of other people’s achievements very easily and secretly desire (not want) what they have then channel this energy into building some great product that will fill a need that everyone forgot existed. Fill the need so badly that everyone else desires to be you. Trust me when i tell you that somewhere between building that product and filling the need, you will only be left with the raw energy to succeed. The jealousy and covetousness would have dissipated. One of the cures for a jealous and envious streak is “service”. This gives you a healthier perception of yourself and something to lie for.
5. If you love money and will do whatever it takes to get it, even kill if no one had to know, Use that energy and become a money manager, economic leader, financial advisor, investor etc. Position yourself in a place that shows you the true nature of money. Money is just an enabler and not the ultimate goal. The more you come to understand this, it kills the urge to get it at all cost and replaces it with the urge to enerate it and put it to creatively positive use.  By the way, i’d like to mention at this point that for anyone who chases after money hoping for the ultimate orgasm, they already failed the class and will need to re-adjust their sights.
6. If you are a bully at your very core, then that’s the same energy required to learn an art that tames the raw energy and teaches you the discipline involved in using it. Pick up martial arts, start working out. If you still feel the anger pangs still gnawing at you, become an MMA fighter, boxer or trainer for the mentioned sports etc. These will help re-channel the energies and learn the discipline that goes with it.
7. If you are brutally honest and you don’t care if it hurts other people so you look for a lofty ideal to cover this up. (Islam, Christianity, Outspokenness etc.), step back from yourself and the ideals you created to cover up this problem. Join a humanitarian organisation where you help solve problems that men created for their fellow men. This will surely put you in touch with your compassionate self and adjust your proclivities for verbal abusive

WHAT HAPPENS WHEN YOU HIDE YOUR DARK-SIDE?

Understand one thing, a dark-side you continuously try to hide will;

• Always have control over your everyday life and decisions.
• Leave you weak, undisciplined and stagnated
• Always work against you and your loved ones in destructive ways
• Lead to sadistic tendencies such as murder, destructive sexual practices, lawlessness, unnecessary violence, extreme depression etc.

CONCLUSION

Learn to understand your dark-side. This is not a call to practice some demonic art or join some “Yaya Sisterhood” in pursuit of self. It simply means that you need to own your hustle sorry, your dark.

Yes, “Own Your Dark” and You will learn to guide the light with laser like precision towards it.  (i totally made this up now but all join mein)         -Temple Obike

Negative energies that you deliberately seek out from within you and then decide on how best to deal with it are the ones that have no power over you. Some deal with it using religion others with all forms of practices. Imagine someone dropping a coin in an Olympic-sized swimming pool but they couldn’t remember what part of the pool it fell into. Then you hand them a torch to search for it. That will be a hectic, time-sapping and almost futile activity. Now imagine this same person with an idea of the precise location the coin dropped. The moment you are handed a torchlight, you move straight to the point.

Simply put, learn to deal with your causes and you can master the effects/outcomes. If you continuously practice this, you will shine light on some dark-qualities and become a better version on yourself over the course of your life.

As always, i hope this piece helped someone somewhere. A negative side that you hide from everyone isn’t a verdict on how bad a person you are but simply a pointer to the fact that you are human. A soul trapped in a body that needs your five senses but also has a spirit that gives you access to wisdom if channeled properly. Knowledge they say is power but i say in it’s right application lies real mastery.

Written by Obike Temple

A Counselor, psychotherapist, brand-Sage and entrepreneur who has counseled over two-hundred couples, individuals, substance abuse and grief-stricken clients.

For more information on related issues and to schedule an appointment with “Temple’s Counsel”  visit our counseling page, chat us up via our website or send a whatsapp message to +2348109055475. Appointments are scheduled within 24 hours. https://templeobike.com .