“Shadow work is a type of spiritual initiation. Each of us hold polarizing energies within our bodies and our souls—light and dark, positive and negative, masculine and feminine, expansion and retraction, you get my point. If one side is dominating over the other, the energy becomes distorted and our personalities adjust according to that distortion. Although you can spend your time watching your energy, practicing self care, and setting boundaries, there still remains the shadow side of yourself that sits in the corner going unnoticed and abandoned.
It’s easy to reject this side of yourself because it brings up feelings of inadequacy, shame, anger, and tension. It’s generally tied to things and events that have already occurred and you no longer have any control over. It looks a lot like childhood trauma or fears, or self induced trauma as an adult.
Society has adopted the mentality that it’s not okay to feel uneasy, but if you must then you are only allowed to stay there for a limited amount of time. This cognitive dissonance pressures you move though your healing work faster than you’re supposed to, ergo benching your shadow as something unacceptable or something to be ashamed of. You may only end up healing at a surface level; as what’s socially acceptable, or addressing the problem but not closing the wound. People heal at different rates at the level of their trauma. As you hold patience for others, also hold patience for yourself. So why Is it even necessary?
Imagine you just bought a new car and you’re excited to get it home. You vow to care for it, clean it and protect it. You arrive home to find that you’re unable to park it your garage because there is so much junk and clutter blocking any free space. In order for it to fit, you now have to clean out the junk, donate, sell, and break your emotional ties with grandmas end table.
This works the same way spiritually. We hold onto so much junk via ways of thinking, frien
ds, family, things, places, trauma, and fears that life won’t allow abundance to arrive because there’s no more room. You have to clean out your emotional and spiritual garage in order to make room for abundance to arrive. It doesn’t feel great at the time, but you’ll feel so much better when there’s room.
What does moving through shadow work feel like? Sometimes it feels like old memories of past hurts suddenly surfacing for you to address. In addressing the childhood shadow, these memories can take on several different scenarios. It could have been a single event or several events that took place shifting you out of the innocence of being a child, forcing you to grow up way too soon. As an adult it can look like a lifetime of decision making leading you into a state of disempowerment or victimhood mentality. Now how do you heal it? Shadow work is like addressing open wounds.
1. RECOGNIZE
Recognize the wounds. What just triggered you to react? Is it a rational fear? Are you truly in an unsafe situation or is your body reacting to a trigger?
2. ADDRESS
Address the wounds. Locate the original source. Think back to a time in your life that shifted your paradigm completely. Was it being ignored by your parents, or was there actual neglect? Were you a bad kid, or was there abuse? Did you live in a house more worried about money than quality time or were you in poverty?
3. CLEAN
Now clean the wounds. Acknowledge that what happened has happened. It’s okay for it not to be okay. Don’t force or convince yourself otherwise or make excuses. Most of all, do not shame or condemn yourself. Can you accept that the person from your past and the person standing before you is doing the best they can with what trauma they’re dealing with, even if that person is you?
4. WRAP the wounds. Show some compassion for that little child and your adult self. Understand that they didn’t know better. Chances are they were operating out of debilitating fear undoubtedly passed down to them from their parents. You are not the same person.
5. HOLD & HEAL
Gently hold the bandaged wounds. Have you ever noticed that when someone actually bandages a wound, the person providing the aid will hold it for a second or two? That’s healing energy they’re giving to you. Give this same energy to yourself. And if you have to go to the bathroom, find some gauze, wrap yourself in order to do it, please do.
This type of healing work sends out a ripple effect. When you move through shadow work, you’re not only healing your past self, but your present self, your future self, and all of those who were with you during the wounding period. This releases you from any spiritual contractual agreements you may have knowingly or unknowingly entered into in the form of forgiveness. Forgiveness of self, and forgiveness of the offender.
This will bring realizations and prompt you to seek closure with those contracts. With these conclusions you will begin to see shifting in your life timeline. It can feel like waking up from a really good nights sleep, almost euphoric.
Just remember to ground yourself before you float away on cloud nine. If things become too uncomfortable or serious remember to shift your thoughts as they will shift your vibration.
The longer you stay in a particular thought, the more you anchor that scenario into your current or future realty. So if you’re playing a past mistakes in your head over and over again, remember that you’re anchoring that outcome into your reality. Shift your vibration by picturing how you wanted the scenario to play out in the best possible outcome for everyone involved. Then thank yourself for shifting and the lesson you learned.
For those nearing the end of your shadow work period, you are seeing your abundance. Congratulations for all your hard work you can expect a physical reward promising to bring you happiness and a sense of security. What you thought was abundance is well beyond your expectation. You are now learning that abundance mimics the feelings of peace and freedom.
Finally, during these shifting energies of planets and waves, number synchronicities are flying at you especially in the form of ones and twos. Pay attention to your thoughts before and after you receive a synchronicity. That is your message.”
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