Hello, thanks for listening to this Darma podcast. I hope you consider that in accordance

with the Buddhist tradition all of my work as a teacher is offered without charge and supported

entirely by donations only.

In tonight's talk, I'm going to be diving into an explanation of why we have what could be called

a shadow self, a realm of largely important emotional impulses, feelings, memories that are kept away from our conscious awareness,

compartmentalized, repressed.

We'll go into why it's important to become aware of the contents of this shadowy realm.

To explain the existence of a blocked or shadow self, the brain is a social brain. Being the dominant survival concern

through evolution was establishing

very core strong social bonds

to maintain tribal affiliations, adhesion, connection. We are as a species

extremely vulnerable when we are excluded from any from a

clan or a tribe. Over the

characteristics that allowed us to thrive

that allowed us to thrive and become a dominant species was not anything that had to do with physical strength.

We don't have shells, claws, or even the abilities of other mammals to survive.

But what we do have, par excellence excellence is the ability to connect. So the social brain is so

important that it hijack the physical pain circuits of the dorsal interior

singular cortex and the feelings of distress, anxiety, self-disgust, pain after social rejections is extremely, extremely painful.

The work of Naomi Eisenberger and Matthew Lieberman, as detailed in the work of the clinical

psychology book, Social, about the social brain eloquently describes just how efficient the human

brain is in creating emotional pain after any form of

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