Shadow Work
Shadow work is challenging!
But avoiding it is far more damaging!
You cannot positively think it away!
Pollyanna mindsets do not work for shadow work; it is simply more lies you are forcing yourself to think and believe when, deep inside, the trauma still hides and continues to control. It turns into anxiety and a closed-down reality.
Witnessing, Seeing, and then Integrating the shadow is the only way to heal the parts as they arise.
It takes much time because there are many layers to the shadow and how it has played its part throughout one's life.
The patterns and cycles are hinged in the past; the truth of our pain and the healing that follows from its discovery is always found held within our history; this is why studying how the patterns have taken hold is crucial to overcoming them and taking back our power from the clutches of the trauma and the disempowerment that has taken place.
Talking about them with others instead of examining these patterns first can lead to distraction, misleading one away from the most profound truth.
Others can listen and may offer supportive opinions, though, until you, the person who is having the experience/ or breakdown breakthrough, can recognise the feeling of the trauma, tracking it back to its initial infliction, noticing where one may have sold out to believe someone else’s opinion over their personal feelings, abandoning one's truth in exchange for the listening person’s approval (falling into the pattern of shaming yourself for even feeling this way) essentially following their dictation instead of ones own inner guidance will continue to inflame the trauma instead of assisting it into true healing. Shadow work is very layered; learning to listen and hear yourself and not shutting down your voice is critical to this work’s success.
Sometimes we have been programmed to believe that talking about our pain or fears out loud is wrong because it will attract more of it towards you is incorrect! We cannot heal something if it’s kept quiet and hidden; it must be brought to the light of our consciousness; if we shut down to appease others' opinions, then the suffering will continue, and so will the conformity to calm, bringing forward more harm to one’s psyche via thinking the enemy is going to hear you and now know your pain to be used against you. This creates more fear, trauma and oppressive controlling beliefs within one’s body, mind, soul and energy.
Trauma pain must be felt, recognised and spoken out loud to be understood and for it to be integrated and truly healed, healing occurs as soon as we have become cognisant; once we know it and fully see it, we can then manage it, we are no longer unconsciously in the karmic matrix game of oppression to appease and then act out through the shadow boxing process of a karmic life unaware and asleep to the deeper patterns at play.
The shadow is not a weakness; it’s your most significant strength you used to survive and manage a situation, though because it was attached to a programming of shame, it’s become suppressed in fear of it being used against you if it were to become known outside of its hiding, creating even more trauma of disempowerment and disembodiment.
There is no healing to be found in hiding trauma shadows.
The truth is that our bodies show us our daily traumas and beliefs; we have just become excellent actors, pretending and pushing down the reality of our ways and habits to avoid doing the necessary work to heal our physical body, mind, soul and energy. When our energy is heavy and dense, so will our body be heavy and dense, and so will our mind be heavy and dense with beliefs, dogma and programs from all our past and continued environments, habits, beliefs & attachments to perhaps worn & outdated conditioning and programming.
This leads to the quote:- to change and heal first; we must recognise where we originally sold out and continue to sell ourselves out by continuing the habits that lead to the heaviness of body, mind soul in the first place. The body doesn’t lie, only the hand that feeds it and the mouth that speaks to it.
Medicating, through poisoning, (be it alcohol, drugs, pharmaceuticals, food, cigarettes, exercise, starving, working, sex, porn, gossiping, righteousness, judgement, religion, spirituality, new age, and it goes on and on humans use and have many, many escape routes at their disposal) all so we can continue the Oppression, Suppression, and Silencing of our voices for the sake of staying safe, of another, ’s opinion at the sacrifice of one’s liberty is a no-win unhealthy plan/ path, as it will show it’s truth through the physical health.
[ Let’s face it, words can be twisted into any form humans want and choose to believe. And soon, we will have AI taking this role to a new level, as its already begun.
Unless it is your known and experienced truth, all words become opinions written by people we’ve chosen to accept as absolute truths to live by and heed by discounting our own experiences in favour of another opinion.
I’m challenging many things here, like how do we know our bible has been interpreted correctly? I mean, there are so many, many thousands of religions and beliefs; how does one know for sure which is the truth? Is it because you were told it was? Or were you there at the time of its scribing to fully see its true intent and meaning?
Is God a force outside to look up to? Or is God truly an energy we are all connected to from within?
It’s all provoking and worth considering where one has attained all the teachings and beliefs and how accurate those casts were with this interpretation. ]
What I’m trying to say here, honestly, is that we all have an internal compass, and we are conscious and have a conscience. Still, at most, we have thrown away our trust in ourselves for faith in another’s word instead. However, we can only heal ourselves by listening to our internal compass and building awareness in understanding our most profound truths and realities regardless of the force-feeding of another’s words. If we align with those words and feel solid in doing so because it is our most profound truth, and we are not escaping by looking for a saviour to rescue us from doing more profound work to raise our consciousness, then so be it; follow you must.
Though only some are convinced, this is the only way to enlightenment. We are meant to lead ourselves to enlightenment, not blindly follow along, believing something purely because they said so, and hoping for the best. We must invest time and energy to challenge things, ask questions, be discerning, check in on our compass, and ask if this is our truth.
In alchemy, we have a creed, ‘ take no man’s word’ the journey is to find out for yourself, for you are always your experiment and understanding!
Even the greatest healers have pain that continues to rise from within. They, too, must confront and see. ( No One is a Pure Guru on this Earth, even if they pretend they are; the wisest recognise no one truly knows the way of the individual journey, no one can, as there are always so many variables, and it takes a very savvy person with strong discernment to navigate this very personal process,) They, too, must stop and be brought to their knees to heal a deep pain that’s surfacing from within or without as the two are always connected. Many things can trigger unhealed memories, emotions and feelings.
There is no definable explanation for why this surfacing pain occurs when it mysteriously arises at what feels like the most inconvenient times. It could be attributed to many factors, either planetary, events, people, memories, or simply it was time. Etc.
The point is that shadow work is messy and cannot be understood by others looking from the sidelines, nor can it be understood by those who do not understand their own shadow; yes, we all have one and many, and no one escapes the shadow.
Good therapists who have come to understand their shadows and who continue to work with their shadows know we are never fully complete with the shadow work whilst we live on this planet, as this planet is all about shadow work now more than ever before as we are waking more and more to see all the lies and masks that we and many wear.
The willingness to dig into the truth is the only way to free yourself.
And so it is.
Peace and Love
Delahrose
