Maneuvering A Dark Night Of The Soul through Shadow Work

Shadow Work is one of the most miss innerstood teachings and initiations we must maneuver through as we embark on our spiritual path. 

Shadow Work, as I loving refer to as shadow boxing is also referred to as shadow clearing or emotional wound clearing, the dark night of the soul, and in clinical terms can also be considered an existential crisis. 

For those who are in the midst of dark night of the soul and experiencing a highlight of there shadow wounding, can feel or believe that this is something to ashamed of or that there is something wrong with them. But in reality when one comprehends the real reason why this is happening, you can actually use this as an invitation to empower yourself and more easily maneuver through these stages. 

We must first innerstand that Embracing your shadow will be your biggest gift!!

To get a better innerstanding of what your shadow is… it usually shows up in many ways.. 

• Perhaps it can be the on going war inside (dialogue)
• The inner critic
• The judgments we have about ourselves or others.
• Repressed anger, resentments, sadness and other.
• Selfishness 
• Self sacrifice 
• Self sabotage 
• Lack of boundaries 
• Unable to say no
• Victim consciousness (the inability to take self responsibility)
• And so many other ways..

These can all stem from our unconscious wounding, child hood upbringing, and societal pressures to behave accordingly.

We develop unconscious tendencies, mask and behavior patterns that we use as cooping mechanism to hide our feelings, thoughts and vulnerabilities. Every thing we don’t like about ourselves and all the ways we do not like about who we are all gets reflected back to us by others, these patterns are like mirrors and or projections from our family, friends, coworkers and community. Just take a good look at your relationships and it will tell you a lot about whats hidden inside. 

The beauty about shadow work is the moment we know how to embrace, acknowledge, and innerstand these projections, we begin to alchemize these unhealthy patterns and our relationships with others shift as well, as we begin to become more conscious about our wounding. 

It’s also important to innerstand that your Shadow is just unmet expectations, validation, pain, sadness and anger that is locked inside, the inner wounded child, and it is not evil, even though perhaps some of our judgments and anger can feel horrible. It is nothing to feel embarrassed or afraid of, because shadows live within everyone.

Like most, we are either not ready or terrified of doing shadow work, or don’t know where to start, as I once did. However, you may not realize the benefits of doing shadow work and how embracing your shadow is your biggest gift. But until we do, we will continue to be on that hamster wheel of repeating stories, people, feel victimized by life and unable to reach your highest potential.

Shadow work IS DIFFICULT, I will not sugar coat it, IT IS very uncomfortable and painful, because it entails us looking at all the ways, some more obvious than others, how we navigate in our world and what lies in our subconscious and unconscious programming. The practice of Shadow work requires us to integrate and accept the things we keep hidden or that we tend to judge or dislike about ourselves and others, all that triggers us, and this requires honest inquiry, a lot of self-love, honesty, accountability, and having unwavering compassion for yourself and others. It’s WORK! Shadow Work is the most difficult spiritual work you will do, but when you do it will change your life, this is part of TRUE ASCENSION, all else is false white light teachings, mumble jumble- spiritual bypassing disguised as love and light, positive thinking, mantras, vision boards, etc., that keeps you stuck and your shadow self gets bigger and bigger. It does not go away until you actual heal it, alchemize it into the gift hidden behind it.