I will be very honest and tell you that when I started my healing work, I thought it was beyond great, but after a while I started to feel guilty about doing the work. I would find things that would shake up a persons inner world and when you locate things you must be very careful!
I can see a clients’ shadow, their pain points in life. And when I pointed it out, I felt bad. But after a decade of work, I also realized that that was my Light helping them see their Light as it was in the shadow. I am a shadow worker.
We all need to do the work. Many people see the shadow side of us to be scary and fearful, but in fact your shadow loves you. It is showing you where you can transform yourself back to the Light. It helps you if you are willing to become aware, work with it and move through it.
When I see clients, I can pin point an age, an event that occurred or their deceased family/friends will come in to help them connect the dots. But the reality is most people don’t want to face their shadow. It’s scary. It’s filled with judgements, fear, childlike beliefs, patterns that were once programmed and no longer serve them. But we must take a step. We must start the work.
The past is where we hold our programming. It can be unconscious to the point we don’t even know it exists! That’s how much the shadow is affecting us, but here lies in all the answers.
How the Shadow Works
There is always an original imprint in the field. This will look like a memory that has triggered some internal way of you feeling you are not worthy, not good enough, not bright enough, not strong enough, etc. It is the original root from which a pattern is formed. Because of our experiences and how we internalize them, we carry them with us on a deep subconscious level. Doing this work, I can tell you that there are memories that arise that I feel have nothing to do with how I’m responding in the present, yet when I allow the images to flow, I can see the connection.
When we are in flow, we don’t hold onto impressions throughout our body. We allow the feelings, emotions to flow through. When we become stuck and stagnant, the impressions will end up in our field. If they are their on repeat, they become part of our physical body. It’s why there are so many books written on body, mind, spirit connection. Illnesses will have a spiritual or emotional aspect to them of how they become stuck without motion.
The Three Levels of Shadow Work:
- Conscious Whole: This level of work is the larger conscious at play. It tells us what is wrong vs right through society. This is where whole judgements are placed in society and taken on by an individual such as “woman are worth less than men” or “you will never make anything of yourself unless you go to college.” These are set programs by society of how a person should act, feel and be.
- Family Level: This is where you learned specific rules of how you should act within the family. Many family shadows are passed down and become a persons individual shadow, however they don’t have to be. We choose if we want to play into that aspect or not. It begins with awareness.
- Individual Level: This is the level where we internalize what’s wrong and right. If our needs were met, why and why not. This is the deepest level of shadow work.
Here are some shadow work examples.
The Spiritual Release
I had a client come in who didn’t understand anything I did, but wanted to experience the work. As I got to his sacral chakra, I saw he was sexually abused. I didn’t say anything to him about it, but called in Crystal Reiki, Spirit Teams to work with me to release this guilt and shame he has been holding onto for so long. As I started my work, I looked up at his face, the silent tears were rolling down. It was unspoken work but extremely powerful. I never shared with him what I saw however the healing process already started. He didn’t have to hold onto the low vibration of shame anymore. The work of the shadow, started on a spiritual level to assist him in freeing the burden he has been carrying.
The Ancestral Lineage Work
I had a client call me and said that her husband years ago (in her teens) cheated on her and she still hung onto it after forty years. She wanted to know what she could do to let it go. She was tired of holding onto the shadow that plagued her for so long. As we chatted, I felt a deceased father presence make his way into our session. She has many sessions with me and has yet spoken to her father even though I tell her he’s in all her sessions. She would dismiss that he was there, so finally I asked about him. I then learned that her father would cheat on her mother. The situation with her husband was not her main problem, but an unconscious pattern that needed to be shifted into the Light from the inner child wound. We then started the work.
Its difficult to acknowledge the shadow
We all have shadows! I don’t know about you, but my shadow follows me everywhere 🙂 It’s an excellent reminder for me to keep loving myself. Because again, that’s what the shadow is. It’s an extension of you. So let’s get deep. Why do you…. go shopping? Feel guilty about doing things for yourself? Not keep your health in check? Scroll through Facebook all day long to the point it has become an addiction? Well because your ego is trying to keep you safe.
When you learn how to make the part of you that feels hurt, lost, rejected, abandoned and/or abused feel safe, your life will change fast. This life is a daydream and we create our stories and reality. Remember, we started from a blank template then accommodated life by the patterns, beliefs and systems that were presented to us and internalized by us.
Let’s not be controlled by unconscious pains, fears and judgements!
Healing the shadow is shamanic in nature because we are going in between worlds to heal ourselves. When our soul is not in alignment or we have experienced things that we feel is “bad” or “negative” in our psyche, we need to bring them to the Light to transform them.
Why can’t you get out of bad habits?
Why can’t you find that relationship?
Why can’t you have the job that is your purpose and makes money?
Because we have to integrate the shadow! When the shadow is fully integrated, we can find the Divinity, the Light within us to love ourselves.
Our Inner Child
We need to allow our inner child to speak up, the part of ourselves that we have been silencing our entire lives. These problem are our inner child saying, “Please pay attention to me! Validate me! Listen to me!” The shadow allows us to make space to end of the war from within and find true inner peace.
This isn’t about the blame game!
So many times people want to be justified for their circumstances. We want to blame our parents, upbringing, the systems, our friends for providing the situations for us to play into our shadow. But we must realize that as human beings, we have a choice. To work in the Light or our Shadow. We need to acknowledge that we are in an imperfect world, played by imperfect characters, raised by imperfect people, just as we are imperfect ourselves. Reclaiming our ability to see the imperfections without anger, hate, without it taking “away” from ourselves and who we are, is the gift of the shadow work. When we can acknowledge that we are all on the path and move towards the Light together. We also need to have the awareness that we cannot force others to walk their path. They must learn it themselves, but we can be the guiding Light to assist. This work is about you and your relationship with yourself.
What Crystal Reiki and Shamanism has taught me….
That as we heal, we are able to manifest. Healing and manifesting are one in the same. Once we are in alignment through our beliefs, desires, subconscious patterns, then we are powerful beings. We can enjoy stillness and silence. We can enjoy peace and harmony. We are no longer separate. I believe this is the work for the world. You are literally healing and repairing your soul.
Crystals assist to find the truth of where you are (healing) or where you would like to be (manifestation.) As we heal on the spiritual level through reiki (assisting the fragmented self) and shamanism (soul retrieval), we can then go deeper by releasing the patterns and blocks to become free.
