Shadow Work #1: Discovering Your Shadow

Softening The Delve Into The Unconscious Realm

Let’s have a conversation about Shadows.

There’s a lot of confusion concerning shadow work. My goal in this series of articles is to deeply explore and explain shadows, what they look like, where they come from and how to work with them.

In this first article we are going to discuss what the shadow is.

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I’m going to talk about some things to which we have few words for in English. Let’s frame ethereal concepts into spoken word, by which we can explore an often unseen world. For all its beauty and power, our world is often shunned and confined.

So What is This SHADOW I Speak Of?

We refer to “The Shadow” when we are discussing parts of us that leaves us breathless, yearning, or scared. Terrified. Ecstatic. Enraged. It is the parts of you that are unconscious to you, often the pieces you are ashamed of in secret. We each have a shadow side, it’s where all the pain and the wisdoms learned from that pain are held. And while it’s ‘normal’ cause everyone has one, unchecked, unseen, unaccepted, unforgiven and unsuspecting it is not a healthy state for thriving. No matter how positive you try to be in life, if you do not become fully aware of your own Shadow frequency ( your dark-side) you will never be able to understand stand and unfold the higher frequencies of your soul’s purpose and consequent peace.

Shadows are where your shame, guilt and blame live, and where the fear that leaves you paranoid blooms. It’s the places where you deny yourself or indulge too much. It’s the places where the core truths of chosen beliefs get twisted until you can “feel ok” again. It’s how the hatred and the immense pain in the world have remained hidden for so long. Everyone’s shadows are all hanging out, demanding to win, to be right. It’s where ‘what we Know to be true’ and ‘what we have come to Experience’, have all become too dichotomous to accept.

To Find YOUR shadow, go to the edges of what you know, to the very edge of what is “comfortable”. And then turn your awareness to what feels “uncomfortable”. To what feels like a Pain Point. During this time of mercury retrograde it’s not hard to fine. Feel into what is annoying, frustrating or causing bitterness or resentment in your life Right Now. This is a place that is steeped in transformative energy. Breathe into and through the uncomfortable space, it’s just showing you your truth. All that is required here is to Be Brave and Allow Willingness. A willingness to delve into one of the most scary places, Yourself..

A Shadow can be any place you can’t bare to look. In the psyche it’s that space under the rug where you swept all the stuff you didn’t want to deal with or couldn’t at the time. It’s the unconscious nature within all of us, often a mystery, even to ourselves. Or Not, as we choose. It’s a noun, a verb, it’s a state of being or a feeling and sometimes it’s its own entity that steps out and makes decisions for you. It is also there where you can find your true design in life, your internal mapping, your inner compass and your guide through life once you come clean with your shadow.

Sit with these Statements for a moment…

Shadow work is ALL ABOUT YOU! This is where you get to shine! Where it’s all about you Darlin.
TIME is Shadow’s vehicle.
The Shadow has a purpose!
Your shadow has Deep Worth.
It is lost twisted Power
It is fuel waiting for you to use it.
If you don’t use it, others will.

It’s the Worth out of all the horrid feeling experiences you’ve encounter in life.
(These will all be expanded on it the coming articles)

Willingness

You have to WANT to find your shadow. When there is a Willingness to truly See IT for What IT IS, IT Will emerge. (It wants to live too!)

This work is a deep process that takes patience, deep acceptance and most of all, COURAGE. Courage is fortified by having Faith that what you find has Power for you, if you can but find the diamond within the coal. (Hint: this is Not done by Thinking with your mind, rather its done by feeling. The head has no authority, it has informational data only)

You aren’t meant to understand it all, The Point here is to remain open to the mystery. The Choice to Accept your Shadow comes at every point along the way where you find/feel resistance within yourself. “I’m not like that”, “That’s horrible”, “That makes me a terrible person”, “what were they thinking?!?”, “They made me feel..”.

Your Shadow is a frequency in your energy field, it resides at the lower end of the spectrum. The primary focus of shadows is on a individual survival instinct, and it’s based in fear. Wither that’s learned fear in the present or fear from our deep ancestral roots, heritage, karma, ect. Humanity as a group conscious is still powerfully influenced by ancient fear based codes. “No matter how positive or upbeat, spiritual or conservative you try to be in life, if you do not become fully aware of your own shadows frequency patterns — your “dark side”– you will never be able to unlock the higher frequencies. This is where the real work begins…

The goal here is to give you an inner language that allows you to see and feel the unconscious fear at work inside of you, how it it is made present in your actions, thoughts and words. Just by the nature of having been born, you came with inherited traits, unconsciousness responses, ancestral memories and fears that have no basis in your current life. It’s all been locked up safe and sound in the unconscious, both individually and the collective whole (tribal), until it’s unearthed and sought out. Contemplation of the shadows aspects stirs up ancient coding and realtime In-this-now fears. With intense delving on your part, you will begin to see how much of your life and the world around you is wrapped up in this patterning. In bringing awareness to these hidden aspects of your unconscious behaviors on a regular basis you can gradually and effectively disarm them. You begin to find, that hidden behind all that armor is gifts that far surpass the offerings that the hidden shadow can hold. Take heart from every insight or breakthrough you have along the way, for you are birthing the authentic you, that has treasure and worth untold. To the Shadow lands we go, seeking the language so we can change our stories, for our worth is far more than we now know.