Why Does Shadow Work Matter?
Shadow work is the most important part of your healing journey. This is where you confront your shadow self. The deepest, darkest part of your soul. The you that gets buried deep down because you may have been made to feel embarrassed or bad about it. Or you may not like that part of you because you feel it is “bad” or “negative” (for example: you hate how emotional you get when people hurt your feelings).
Once you are aware of an aspect of your shadow, you will want to go back and find out the original reason for how/why it started. What situation caused this emotion or reaction? Journaling and meditation are amazing tools to help you find the cause of these shadow aspects. So if we use the example from above- that you hate how emotional you get when people hurt your feelings, let’s say you meditate and journal about what caused this. You find that your mother would make you feel stupid for showing emotion or crying when your feelings got hurt as a child. Over time this causes you to bottle up your feelings and stuff them down. Now as an adult you don’t know how to express your feelings in a healthy way. Do you see how this ONE aspect has followed you through your life affecting all of your interpersonal relationships?
Dealing with these shadow aspects of yourself will really take you on a journey of self discovery, which turns to self healing. Every shadow you find will take you through your life to help you forgive yourself and others. Forgiveness is KEY here. It can be one of the toughest lessons you learn. Forgiveness is releasing that circumstance that has plagued you. Even when you are forgiving someone else, it is for YOU. You are not condoning what that person did by forgiving them. You forgive them to let that situation go. You forgive yourself for holding onto that circumstance for so long. Then you let it go, sending it off with love!
I have personally dealt with some truly awful situations and circumstances. Things that dug their roots far into my soul. I went to therapy. I journaled. I did the work to heal myself….but I found that the most healing happened when I did my Shadow Work. I had to come face to face with things I buried deep down. I remember crying one night because I wanted to forgive someone for the awful things they had done….but I just could not figure out how to do it. I was still angry at them. I was just carrying around this anger for so long and I was so tired. Once I finally understood that I was forgiving for ME and NOT THEM, I FINALLY DID IT! It was the best feeling of freedom. I wasn’t controlled by that anger anymore.
This is where spirituality enters the chat. As i was doing my shadow work I found all of these spiritual healing techniques that helped propel me forward! When I found Past Life Regression Hypnosis, my mind was BLOWN. I was fascinated with the thought of connecting to your past life and higher self to aid in healing. That led me to having my first Reiki Session, where I was shocked at how amazing I felt afterwards. It felt like my energy was FINALLY moving the way it is supposed to. When I opened all of these chakras it opened up my intuition and psychic abilities.
Shadow work sent me on an amazing journey of self discovery and self healing. I still have things that I am working on but those things seems small compared to the trauma I started with. Now I am empowered and deal with circumstances in a much healthier way. I am not held back by my past OR my shadow. I have shined a light on that part of myself and embraced it. it is now something that has helped me reclaim my power.
Are you ready to start your shadow work journey?
