Let’s talk about one of my all time favourite subjects ... shadow work.
Shadow work refers to spiritual healing that happens through the depths of our darkness. It is our trauma, our grief, our programming, our internalised understanding of all the bad that has happened to us and around us during our lifetime. The shadow is where we keep our deepest wounds and traumas hidden, where we swallow our pain and heartbreak, its all the parts of us that we refuse to bring into the light, that we hide from the surface, the parts of us that are so upsetting or uncomfortable that we don’t even allow ourself to see them.
When we dive into the shadow we are allowing ourself to revisit all this darkness, to rediscover all the trauma that still lies within us. We are asking ourselves to not only understand how others have hurt us, but how we have hurt others and the role we play in our own trauma. It’s absolutely brutal work, I am not going to lie to you - it is horrendous and hard, it will flip you upside down and shake your entire sense of self and soul, but the darkness of the shadow is the only way to truly access the love and light aspect of spirituality and speaking of love and light… lets talk about spiritual bypassing.
Spiritual bypassing is when you completely forgo shadow work or addressing the darkness within, it is toxic positivity at its finest. It’s where you choose to undermine difficult conversations or refuse to speak on topics that may be perceived as uncomfortable, negative or low vibrational because you don’t want to accept or understand the parts of you, or of life that do not perfectly align with the whole “love and light” energy.
You have to understand your darkness more than it understands you…
The thing about healing trauma is that the trauma has already happened. You’ve already experienced it, felt it, swallowed it back down into your soul hoping that it will just go away with time - but I promise you, unless you sit with it, unpack it, completely shred it limb for limb until you can see and feel every part of it - it will sit and fester and continue to rule over you. The longer you wait to explore it, the longer you wait to heal it - the worse it’ll become until it literally eats you alive.
We don’t experience anything new when we begin to heal old wounds, we don’t have to endure the trauma again we just have to understand it. We just have to release it.
There is no manifesting without first, releasing fear and doubt. There is no light work without first enduring the shadow. There is no understanding of miracles without first, understanding misery - how will you know the difference between a blessing and a lesson if you never allow yourself to learn from your pain. How will you ever grow or evolve if you never address the cycles of trauma that continue to move through your life. How can you appreciate the light, if you do not know the depths of your dark.
So go into your darkness and bring with you blinding light. Go into your losses and bring with you overwhelming love. Be the person you needed thru all of your trauma. Imagine the advice, the care, the words, the support you needed to hear from others through those times and then say all of it to yourself. Sit with your demons and speak to them of God.