SHADOW WORK

SHADOW WORK

THE COURAGE TO SHARE

Shadow work is the process of learning to speak your fears, anxieties, shame, grief, and rage before Spirit and witnessed by humans. The latter is needed to heal toxic shame and to get you comfortable with being your authentic self, in front of other human beings. For some people Shadow Work is speaking out about one’s successes, happiness, gains and accomplishments. Shadow Work is speaking out whatever is currently uncomfortable for you to say in front of others. Sharing works best when you are specific and refer to date, time, place and people involved in actual events, occurrences, and describing the specific emotions experienced at the time and describing actual behaviors and actions that occurred. A Shadow Work group, like 12-Step programs, provides a safe sacred space, a confidential space, where others are there to listen and witness your Journey of Healing without interfering. Shadow Work groups understand that they are just there to witness and know that the real work is between you and your Higher Power. Shadow Work groups give you a safe place to practice saying things that normally cannot be spoken or must be said with careful attention and energy.

When you share dangerous, threatening, fearful or shameful material with a safe group, you will slowly, with the help of your Higher Power, be able to heal the emotions and energy connected to those issues and events.  Now instead of those issues and events ruling you, you have the space now to make choices, choices on who to talk to in your life circle about delicate personal material, when to do it, how to do it, or if it is even safe to share with certain people or not.

As you unload toxic memories, occurrences, and emotions you free up healing space in your psyche. Shadow Work occurs in layers and when you first start you will only be able to address certain issues, certain memories. As you get clearer, and stronger, Spirit will free up more up earlier memories, more difficult material for you to address, look at and heal. People bury pain as a way to survive, particularly childhood pain and extreme trauma. You have to unwind slowly and the safest way to do this is to become willing to allow Spirit, your Higher Power, to reveal material to you, trusting Spirit to know you best, to know when you are strong enough to grow through the next layer.

THE DISCIPLINE TO EDUCATE YOUR SELF

Sharing is only part of Shadow Work. As you learn more and more about your Self you will discover wounded areas. Yes Spirit will help with healing however you incarnated to learn and grow, to evolve. When you discover wounded areas in your life, your psyche, your emotions, your social skill set, your neurobiological patterns, you will have to literally educate yourself to learn (and practice) new skills. Yes Spirit can “guide” you to the “right” books, healers and Teachers, however you will have to do the heavy lifting, the work. After all, it is your life that you are saving. Learn to research your wounds, your wounded self, and read up on healthy skills and then practice them. Bring your reports of your progress (and even your lack of progress) in practicing new skills to your Shadow Work group. Often when speaking about your practice you discover new details as you speak. Speaking your progress out loud, again being very specific, also makes your progress and hard work more real for you as you hear it out loud and have the added energy of others witnessing you owning your work with your Self and with Spirit.

AMENDS AS SELF CARE

After some time with Shadow Work you will be able to better distinguish between toxic shame and healthy shame. Toxic shame is self-hatred. It is hating your very being-ness. Healthy shame can only be recognized when you are balanced, not swimming in toxic shame. Healthy shame is when you can identify actions you took, behaviors you chose, words you spoke that do not make you proud, that do make you feel good about your Self and who you want to be as a human being. It takes some time to feel balanced enough to take on amends and this stage, as with all the others needs to be “guided” by Spirit, by your Higher Power. Meditation and praying (“help me”, “show me”) should be a consistent practice when you are doing Shadow Work.

Direct amends should be made when there will be no harm done to yourself of others. Otherwise, you will have to (working with your Higher Power) find very creative ways to make indirect amends. Amends are done to heal you, so that you can feel better about your Self, so you can feel better about the wrongs you committed against others and against your Self. Asking someone else “How can I make amends to you?” is passing the buck. It is asking the other person to do your emotional labor.This is another subject you can research, look for good books, and also pray about. 

AS A LIFE STYLE CHOICE

In the beginning Shadow Work is done to clean up life from childhood to the present and to learn new skills, and make amends for the past. This typically takes about 2 years if you are seriously working, otherwise it will take quite a bit longer, maybe even a lifetime.  After all, your childhood occurred to set you up to learn all the lessons you agreed to learn in this life in order to evolve as a Soul. Everyone will learn and evolve; some will use life only as their Teacher and others have agreed to consciously wake up in this life and tackle their life lessons in a more conscious fashion. Once you are quite comfortable with your Self, with being your authentic Self in your life, your work, your loves, Shadow Work is still done. It is done on a daily basis, like brushing your teeth, like eating healthy and exercising. You clear each day by some self-examination looking at what worked and what could have gone better that day. You look at your choices regarding your actions and your words and you also examine how well you kept up your self-care that day. From this examination you see if there are any amends you would like to make and/or any better behaviors you would like to choose. All of this is done by first getting connected to your Higher Power through meditation, and the prayers of “help me” and “show me”. Now each day becomes “The Way”, “The Path” of mindfulness, self-awareness, and connection to Source. Each day is your next step in evolution, education, consciousness, being connected to Source and Self, as well as joy. This is the Tao.

SOME FINAL NOTES

Shadow Work is related to Steps  4 through 10 in 12-Step Programs. Read through those steps so you can see how detailed this work really is.  Most “spiritual” people, especially new age people hate 12 Step programs. Many hate psychology. They would rather identify any issues they have with themselves, their relationships, their weight, their income, their lives with past lives, astrology, tarot, entities etc. and prefer to use crystals, ceremonies, rituals, regressions, etc. as solutions. I believe in and support both. We chose this life, all of it. Therefore, when we were souls designing this life we set up all blessings and all challenges in order to evolve as a soul and yes to have fun too. We designed this life as a soul, before incarnated, free from the temptations of human life, of human desires, and we did it with all of our Guides present. Taking on your life, all of it, your wounds, your shortcomings, as well as your blessings is The Way; it is your Path to enlightenment. That is the Tao.  How you tackle that is your choice. I teach both psychology and spirituality. Spirituality, to me, means having an actual practice. A practice that involves connecting to and listening to Spirit, to a Higher Power, to yourself and your intuition and that requires some form of quiet, usually meditation. Psychology is also a practice. You have to actually use the tools for it to work. For those of you that prefer using a Spiritual Practice for your evolution check out Pema Chodron’s book “Taking the Leap”. For those of you interested in the principles and work of 12 Step, take a look at this link:  https://www.12step.org/the-12-steps/ The word God is not for everyone and 12-Step practices use a Higher Power, not God. 

Again, you have to use the tools for them to work. Remember that 12-Step means working with a Higher Power.  

Journey On
Dr. Marie
Life Path Healings, Yucaipa California