SHADOW WORK

The more aware you are of your shadow, the more embodied you are as a conscious being.  No one ever reached enlightenment without confronting their shadow and exposing it to the light of consciousness. Ultimately, shadow work is bringing attention and love to those things that have been previously rejected. And so, if you ask me, shadow work is in fact the highest form of light work you can do.

Shadow work can be painful. Self-awareness does not come naturally to those who make a practice of avoiding pain because to become aware of those aspects, you must stop trying to escape the pain and emptiness within you where those missing parts should be. But it is also the key to a consciously aware and free life. In summation, shadow work is now a term used often in spiritual and psychology circles to describe any process (of which there are thousands) that makes the subconscious conscious.

To acknowledge whatever we have suppressed or denied or disowned into the subconscious, brings up the same fear of rejection that we were met with the first time around, by our parents and caregivers and so it makes us feel like we are going to be exiled or punished again. It sets off our survival mechanisms and thus, makes us feel like we are quite literally going to die… No wonder self-awareness isn’t so easy to attain. Every human in existence that was ever socialized (which is everyone), went through this process of splitting themselves into parts. Parts that are owned and parts that are disowned. This self-rejection is the birth of self-hate. The emptiness that we feel is the result of those missing rejected or disowned parts of our self. And the soul wants one thing, to make us whole again. We will be provided every single opportunity to become whole again and to make the subconscious conscious. But in order to become whole again, we need to see and accept the aspects of ourselves that we disowned and denied and rejected. This is what shadow work is all about.

Among other things, shadow work entails Inner Child Work and Parts Work.

INNER CHILD WORK

All people on earth hold within themselves the essence of the children they once were. As you matured, regardless of your childhood experiences (good or bad) the adult part of you grew up, despite not getting everything it needed as a child.  But the child-part of you did not die or disappear somewhere along the way.  This child self of yours exists in your internal system. This inner child of yours symbolizes the core of your emotional self… The raw essence and vulnerability of your personal truth.   In truth, people have many “inner children”. 

If you want to think metaphorically, the inner child is the box within your psyche that holds anything related to the child self. Things like innocence, play, wonder, suppressed desire and interests, curiosity, creativity, being in the present moment, honesty, imagination, emotions, traumas that belong to your childhood, childhood memories, the origin of patterns in your life, and even your pre-birth purpose. And those things are just the tip of the iceberg.  Working directly with this part of you (and any of the parts that are inside of it) can go a long way in terms of healing trauma, ending dysfunctional patterns, getting in touch with your essence and personal truth, meeting your needs, finding joy and living according to your internal compass etc.

“Inner Child Work” refers to any therapeutic process that we do to get in touch with early childhood trauma.  In this work we allow memories to emerge on the canvas of our internal “movie screen” and we allow these to be re-lived, re-experienced, felt, and brought into the light of consciousness.  Wounded Inner Children are typically parts that have gotten denied and sent into exile as part of the process of fragmentation and dissociation – common coping mechanisms.  By embracing these parts we also get a chance to validate their feelings, letting them know that they matter.

“Inner Child Work” always ends by reprogramming the wounded parts through imagining a resolution that involves the original participants of the traumatic events.

PARTS WORK

There are so many different philosophies and methods and techniques that fall into the category of parts work. Parts work is simply the term that has caught on to represent the ideology behind them all. For example you have Internal Family Systems, Gestalt, Inner Shamanic Journey Work, Freudian psychology, Art therapy, Play therapy, Acting Schools, Jungian psychology, Inner Child Work, Ego State Theory, Voice Dialogue and the list goes on and on. Keep in mind that shadow work is essentially techniques, practices and processes that make you aware of what is subconscious within you.  Most of your ‘parts’, you are totally unconscious of. So parts work is technically a shadow work process.

If you allow your awareness to touch these parts, the process of integration will already be occurring.  So technically, you could simply become aware of them and make them aware of each other and that will have initiated the healing.  However, the aim of this kind of parts work is to create a conflict resolution between these opposed parts. You can consider your intention to be to bring enough awareness to each part that each part begins to release its resistance to the other and finds alignment instead.  You can go back into the first or second parts as many times as you want to or feel called to in order to create this ‘resolve’ between them. Simply remember to come back into the ‘center point perspective’ each time you do this. By setting this intention, you are acting as a kind of mediator for your own two parts.

When parts begin to merge and re integrate, it can feel like the two have reached peace or agreement.  It can also feel like they are literally dissolving into one. The goal is for the tension between them to turn into relief and alignment.

Eventually, when your system gets used to parts work, your “awakened ego” will become stronger and stronger and your parts themselves will gain awareness and so they will be increasingly oriented towards and interested in finding alignment.  As a result, what you will notice is that they will begin to soften quickly and without having to go into each one over and over, they will begin to merge into one or one may even choose to disappear because that part does not have a role it wants to fill anymore. 

TESTIMONIALS 

 “Thank you so much, it was such a transformative session, I especially felt the effects the next day and I look forward to more.”   Sandra  

“I feel like that breathwork practice today was a beginning.  It changed the whole energy of my own self and my relationships, so thank you!

Hilda 

“Transpersonal states, beingness.  States of no mind and pure presence. At times I felt like a child in the womb.  My body felt transparent.  The sound healing at the end was nice and very effective.  I felt the sweetness of beingess.”

Mikael  

 “I wanted to share with you that I found your breath work and emotional healing session very potent and powerful.  I also wanted to say that you are definitely in your right purpose offering such work.  So much gratitude to you.”

Shanti