Our shadow can be defined quite broadly, to include everything that is hiding, hard to get to, and that we avoid. This includes both general traits, things we\u2019ve inherited, and the results of trauma. Shadow work is anything that addresses our darkness or our hidden parts, and will include pain we\u2019re carrying, any stuck sense of shame, our judgements, fears, anger, and hidden nice bits that are sometimes hidden because they are delicate or powerful. A lot of the parts and emotions that show up like this are actually protecting some other parts of ourselves that is vulnerable and\/or valuable. We might also have to address internal monologues of negativity and patterns of finding ourselves in despair. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The general approach to working with our shadow requires a great deal of care and diligence, as well as pacing ourselves because it is tough, and forgiving ourselves for not always making the process easy. We must be willing to lean in to what has arisen, sit with and process, face and engage with the shadow parts and emotions. It\u2019s important that you don\u2019t fight violently with these parts as they are in fact bits of you, even the means ones. This doesn\u2019t mean that you don\u2019t assertively stand up to them, their behaviour is often harmful and unhelpful, but remembering that they are in their original purpose intending to help, you can determine ways of asking them questions that turn vitriol into dialogue. Bringing the shadows into direct, open, and trusting conversation is key to finding understanding, resolving the tension and creating transformation. When things get to be too much, remember to breathe, tend to yourself, and connect to safety, always having a way out if needed or a way to put the difficult and overwhelming thing into an internal container you can close. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
All emotions have a purpose and are expressing some information, and they can usually all be reduced to fear or love, and even fear is usually born out of love and then grows out of proportion and turns monstrous when unattended. Bringing our fears back to their reasonable size helps them return to their original purpose. The more surface level hard things include facing our pain, anguish, grief, anger and fear. This requires making space for them, feeling and validating emotions, witnessing what was or is off balance, finding our what is needed, returning to love and making agreements to move forward differently. Shadow parts tend to be a step or two (at least) beyond the surface level unpleasant things that hand around, it is the stuff that hides from us, that we really don\u2019t want to look at, or that quickly runs away when we notice it. We really have to remember not to dig, for we can hurt ourselves by prying ourselves open to try to find things that aren\u2019t yet ripe or surfacing. Instead we want to watch for what is surfacing already, in our patterns, behaviours, and thoughts. In particular to find the shadows by watching for them and catching them when they\u2019re passing by. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Fears – When facing hidden, or shadow fears, the really intense ones that take intention, time, and focus to be present with, it can be useful to visualize and personify them so we can converse directly, the goal being to ask what they\u2019re trying to protect us from and think through the things we\u2019re afraid of. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Anger – Our anger can be really intense, especially if it has been ignored or suppressed. What can be useful is letting out the energy of it physically, not in a destructive way but in a directed way, using exercises that get us to acknowledge the anger while tensing our muscles or pushing against solid surfaces. We can also recognize that anger comes from feelings of injustice or wrong, and is linked or twisted from compassion for self or other, while st other times it is a reaction to fear. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Judgements – Our shadow can show itself in the ways we judge ourselves and others, and we can watch and listen for them there. The way we judge others is how we are judging ourselves and vice versa. We can ask ourselves what we would feel if we were the ones doing something, or conversely if we would feel the same if someone else was doing the thing we were. Judgement of the world around us is a defence mechanism, so we can also search them for what we are afraid of and go deeper into those fears than the surface level notions. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Shame – Feelings of shame are really hard to handle because it is a really powerful emotion. A little bit of shame goes a really long way. It has a reason to be there, being the thing that keeps us from doing horrible things to one another and maintains social fabric, but misused it becomes toxic and overwhelming very quickly. This one requires intense love to counteract, and it can be helpful to ask why or how these feelings first showed up. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Protectors – Sometimes we have what seem like horrible bits yelling at us, or asking for nonsensical things, or repeatedly pushing us into one way of reacting. These parts are likely hiding something from us, protecting it from a past situation or even how we are treating ourselves. Meeting these protectors with respect, questions, and trust that they mean well can really help, and knowing they are protecting a valuable or sensitive part of yourself, which we\u2019ll talk about more next week. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Other hidden parts exist, not necessarily fitting into any category, for there are myriad reasons why we avoid things or don\u2019t have the immediate awareness to handle. Many of these will still be showing up but we have to watch carefully for them and if they pass by try to grab or on follow. And since people so often think of shadow as darkness or negative we can more easily miss the hidden parts that are positive in nature, it\u2019s not unexpected that in a world of fear and violence that delicate and beautiful things feels unwelcome. Bringing these things to light takes a different sort of attitude too, and though all of this requires creating safety, there can be an extra special kind of welcome that is needed for our deepest treasures to emerge. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
All of this work takes energy, but shadow work can be especially intense and tricky, it requires agility, honestly, open inquisitiveness, and non-judgement. It is especially worth remembering for shadow work not to take our thoughts seriously at the surface level. Some things are hard to love and intense pain and experiences can show up screaming for attention as horrific thoughts about violence or disgusting desires. Our instinct in feeling this disgust or being scared by the violence can be to shove it down or away because we don\u2019t want to think of ourselves as the kind of person that would think these things let alone do them. With these thoughts we can instead approach them with curiosity, asking what it is they are actually trying to show us, realizing that we don\u2019t actually want to act out what our thoughts are saying. Our mind is interpreting internal pain signals into these patterns, and we can disrupt the assumption that they define us in any way, and instead listen to what they\u2019re trying to bring our attention to. When we suppress these thoughts they are more likely to express themselves without intention. Denial is more likely to create a tendency out of our dark parts, and being honest and letting them exist and be healed will keep them from expressing. In this way integrating our shadow helps it not be expressed uncontrollably. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Even after doing a lot of shadow work it is good to stay vigilant, always being conscious of the possibility that there is more that is outside our view. Over time this work will help us become more and more self aware and integrated, allowing all our parts to exist, and we will develop resilience. Our shadow is also likely to express itself when we are under stress or pressure, or pushed to our limits, developing resilience gives us the capacity to respond to situations with our full presence of mind and self. We can think of resilience not as a protective rigidity, but as a malleability, the ability to return to our proper shape after being disturbed. In this way to golden transformed self may be sensitive and pliable like gold, but can very easily also come back to it\u2019s original shape and re-polish away anything it takes on from the outside environment. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Our shadow can be defined quite broadly, to include everything that is hiding, hard to get to, and that we avoid. This includes both general traits, things we\u2019ve inherited, and the results of trauma. Shadow work is anything that addresses our darkness or our hidden parts, and will include pain we\u2019re carrying, any stuck sense […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-142","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/loveheals.lucidcocoon.scot\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/142","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/loveheals.lucidcocoon.scot\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/loveheals.lucidcocoon.scot\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/loveheals.lucidcocoon.scot\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/loveheals.lucidcocoon.scot\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=142"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/loveheals.lucidcocoon.scot\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/142\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":143,"href":"https:\/\/loveheals.lucidcocoon.scot\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/142\/revisions\/143"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/loveheals.lucidcocoon.scot\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=142"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}