Shadow Work, a journey towards greater self-awareness.
By reflecting, exploring and integrating our hidden sides, we can create a more balanced and authentic life.
To heal, you must first face what’s hidden.
Shadow work is about exploring the parts of ourselves that we may not be aware of or that we avoid accepting.
Different aspects of our personality that we push away because they don’t fit into the image we have of ourselves. The shadow is an archetype, meaning it has a symbolic form. Shadow work is more than looking at your childhood traumas. Just as your dreams take different forms to share messages with you, your shadow takes different forms to make itself known. The process is a lifelong work that involves examining yourself and daring to face what is less flattering and letting go of what is a lie. It can be about personality traits or qualities we don’t like about ourselves, like jealousy or anger. It can also be about emotions we avoid, like shame or sadness.
The truth is revealed not through words – but through impulses and behavioral patterns
According to Carl Jung’s analytical psychology, the shadow archetype represents the dark side of your psyche and personality. The shadow archetype means everything that the conscious personality experiences as negative. These aspects of the self that we try to deny in ourselves. Before we learn to sneak up on the shadow, it is easy to believe that it is something “outside ourselves”. We see circumstances or other people’s shortcomings as explanations instead of facing ourselves. Maybe there is someone who always interrupts, takes up a lot of space, or does something that arouses strong emotions in you. This is often a clue to something bigger, namely your own “shadow”.
We are our own stumbling block and limitation to development. When we dare to face the shadow and dance with it, we become aware of the ego’s self-defense and protection from these less positive qualities and personality patterns that we do not want to know about in ourselves. Old imprints are shown as having served their purpose and are no longer needed, but unconsciously they keep their tight grip on us. When we become aware of all these aspects, healing comes. At the same moment we also stop destroying for ourselves.
Facing your ego is not easy because it likes to throw up fog curtains to avoid seeing itself in the whites of its eyes. Avoiding making a change is what the ego wants. But what does your soul want? Real shadow work transforms from within and deeply, it doesn’t just relieve temporary symptoms. There is a way to stop hurting yourself and others, and that is to face it truly and fully.
Facing the downside of our personality
Our ego has a psychological substance, which is a completely natural phenomenon that we all have. Healing and changing the dark side that we do not want to show to others, and perhaps even less admit to ourselves, means inviting, to sit with it for a while. Picking it down into its components to realize that it is not dangerous to change and to let go of what no longer serves us. What we need to learn is to dare to explore the darkness and stay with it for a while. We are not our problems, our darkness, our roles or inherited imprints. If we only dare to face ourselves, we can live in harmony based on our dream and in beauty. To heal to be able to live in our heart and our truth.
To the person I was, I love you
To the person I am, I’m proud of you
To the person I’m becoming, I’m excited for you
🍃 You Are Medicine
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This space is dedicated to the art of challenging inherited beliefs & clearing the path for who we are becoming. An exploration of the Shamanic path and wisdom that emerges when the soul is given space to grow. My intention is that something you find here may help you hear your own voice more clearly and recognise the wisdom already within you.
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