What’s the Shadow…
And what does it mean to ‘Do the Shadow Work’… 🤔
As a Healer, I’m discovering what a huge and important role Our Shadow plays in our life, our behaviour, our healing journey… this post is designed to be helpful, positive and encouraging, a mere introduction to what the Shadow is all about… and as always, I write from my own experience... to guide, encourage, heal and inspire others… 😇
The 3rd dimension was designed as a world of duality and polarity, of opposites... black & white, dark & light, hot & cold, good & bad... in order to know one, we must experience the other… to help us decide who we are, who we choose to be… to find inner balance... ☯️
We all have dark and light within us and our dark side is known as our shadow... we all have a shadow… it's part of our subconscious mind... I learnt from my Hypnotherapy training just how vast the subconscious is... the conscious being the size of a cork bobbing on the ocean of the subconscious... 🌊
Our shadow is our internal cave, where we hide parts of ourself away from the world, the parts we're not ready to uncover, look at and embrace... 😳 Shadow work is about looking at our internal wounds, doing the inner work, removing our masks and living as our true authentic self 😱 Shadow work is healing work, which includes our inner child who wants to be heard and listened to… who wants to play and be creative…
As we grow up we have experiences, often traumatic or fearful, especially in childhood, which our emotions and nervous system can't deal with at the time, so for self protection, we surpress these feelings, we store them in our shadow, where they remain... until we have the emotional maturity to revisit, look at and process these uncomfortable emotions, fears and traumas... this is known as 'doing the shadow work'... 😲
An example of what’s in our our shadow could come from childhood, maybe abandonment issues… if we lacked love, affection and attention from our parents or care-givers, we may have felt the need to over-give and try hard to please our parents in order to receive love and affection, so we may grow up as a people pleaser in relationships in order to receive love, affection, attention, approval or validation from our partner, or friends… this can lead to people pleasing and over giving, creating imbalance in relationships and being used or taken for granted 😳 Doing the shadow work here may lead to finding self worth and self love within, so we no longer look outside of ourself for love 🥰
These buried emotions can get triggered, and rise up to be acknowledged, felt and released, as part of our healing journey... if we embrace our shadow work…
Our automatic behaviour is motivated by our subconscious... we can exhibit repeating cycles and patterns of behaviour which can lead to self sabotage if we ignore our Shadow... the shadow aspects rise up for us to look at them, until we can no longer ignore them, or we adopt false behaviours to mask the shadow… at some point, the dam will break…
If we continue to repress the emotions which come up for release, through fear of what we may uncover, or feel, these energies can turn inwards and transmute into physical illness, so yes, it’s good to cry… crying is the best way to release emotions… even though we were taught not to cry… it’s essential and healthy to express our feelings and emotions… in a natural way to purge them out, not in an aggressive way where we project our stuff onto others… 🤬
When we act from our unhealed shadow, from our wounds, we project our own stuff onto others, blame others, to make us feel better about ourself, and we avoid doing our shadow work… a healed person who has done the inner work doesn’t take things personally because they inner-stand that others are projecting their own stuff onto them…
When your life is not going the way you want it to, it’s time to look inside and do the inner work… when we blame others we rob ourselves of our own spiritual growth…
Yes, Shadow work is challenging and usually uncomfortable, as the surpressed energies move through our chakras, or energy centres, and need to be felt in order to be released, or transmuted… emotions are energies in motion and energy needs to go somewhere… but it's definitely a liberating, and self-empowering therapeutic experience which brings us closer to inner alignment, balance and harmony... 🤯 we feel lighter afterwards from releasing heavy energies...
Essentially shadow work is about letting go of the past, peeling back the layers, finding the source of the issue, even from other lifetimes, facing our wounds to find inner peace and balance and step confidently into our most authentic, joyful self 🤗
Our shadow is meant to be embraced… I’ve learnt to dance with my shadow… it’s empowering and liberating… it’s transformed me from a naive people pleaser into an empowered and awakened empath, in a positive, balanced way… 😱 🦹🏼♂️ 🦁🗡️
People who are open to doing their own shadow work are known as Shadow Workers 🙏🏻
Over the years I’ve attended various courses and had healing sessions with other healers and therapists, and over time I’ve developed my own self-taught healing techniques for doing my shadow work and inner child work, which I will share in future Posts…
Healing is a never ending multi-layered journey, like peeling back the layers of an onion, we peel back a layer to look for the source of an issue, and then reveal another layer to look at … its an ongoing journey of self discovery… which is self empowering if rightly understood…
The key is 'feel to heal'...
Victoria Webb 🦋
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Artist, Spiritual Therapist, Hypnotherapist, Ascension Guide, Awakened Empath, Starseed, Retreat Owner SW France for Restorative and Spiritual Retreats 🙏🏻
