“The more closely I look, the more obvious it is that the Old Economy fails because it is based on false values, assumptions, and logic. Those who are working to create a New Economy from the bottom-up intuitively recognize and act on 10 common sense truths foundational to a sound economy.” ~Dr. David Korten
If you haven’t read the previous articles in the series, you can do so here:
Shadow Work 1: An Introduction
Shadow Work 2: Healing the Inner Child
This is a powerful time for shedding light onto some aspects of our own personality that we may have lost contact with. The soul is always longing to be healed, integrated and brought into more awareness. I thought it would be appropriate to focus on how to work directly with our painful life challenges. I would like to offer some insight into my beliefs about why we experience pain and challenges to begin with from a spiritual perspective. As someone who believes we create our own reality, I believe everything that we experience is always in a state of divine perfection. That being the case, everything the Universe offers to us is neutral in its meaning. It is our judgement of the experience and thus, our resistance to the flow of what is, that causes suffering.
One of the questions that I get asked most often in relationship to the belief that we create our own reality is, “how do you make sense of the fact that there are children suffering all over the world, are you saying they deserve that reality and they themselves created it?”
Let’s first do away with the idea that life is about deserving, this a construct of the ego. The Universe however is finely ordered, on some level whether conscious or unconscious, we all co-create of our experience here. Consider the possibility that there are no accidents that everything is always going exactly as planned. That we are always on path. We are each a unique expression of the Universe/the Creator/Source energy/God that is expanding and coming to know more of itself through all that we are. My belief is yes, not only has a soul created the life they are experiencing, but that with the help of several spirit guides, each soul has created a well thought plan for exactly what they want to experience while in the physical body.
We spend many lifetimes often choosing to incarnate into a physical experience in order to have the opportunity to bring more consciousness to all. Unhealed emotions are deeply embedded in the individual and collective unconscious. To heal something we need to experience it. This includes false beliefs. Things that we judge from the personality egoic mind as imperfection, from the perspective of the soul we can never be less than perfect. We live in a reality of illusion, a constant dream state, behind a veil. This is part of the soul contract that we have agreed to when we decided to take part in this Earth School experiment.
We created the illusion that we are separate (ego). We place some of our consciousness into a physical body and focus solely on the physical reality. We agreed that we would experience a collective amnesia, we would forget who we are and through our life experiences we would have the opportunity to once again discover the truth of our divine nature. The reason we chose to spend time in this physical incarnation is that contrast of this sort does not exist in the spirit and other non-physical realms. We plan experiences in order to know ourselves as love, compassion, and deeply connected to Source. Through these opportunities of contrast we are awakened to the deeper truth of who we are.
By immersing ourselves in experiences lacking in compassion, we create an impetus to develop internal compassion. This is a life of learning through opposites, a path of profound spiritual growth. The soul plans may include handicaps, illnesses, limitations, physical accidents, drug addiction, homelessness, or many other types as challenges. All That Is benefits from the expansion that we create. So not only do we karmic ally benefit our own soul’s lessons, but we offer insight and inspiration to the entire Universe through this great work.
As souls we do not judge. From a spirit perspective, all judgement is self judgement. This may be due in part to the fact that on a subtle level we are aware that we chose the experiences we have lived. Judgements however, while in the physical body are not the result of separation but rather the cause of it. Through projections we continually blame the other, and attempt to separate ourselves from the discomfort that is created. This again is simply a tactic of the ego to prevent us from seeing ourselves.
To release judgement and offer compassion is to return to who we are. When we come into the awareness that none of what we have experienced is by accident, that we are living out our own souls plan exactly as it was written, this opens up the opportunity for profound healing. The way to do this is through recognizing the lesson that we set out to learn. This will be the source of our highest wellbeing.
In learning the lesson we gain an immense amount of self-esteem and self-love while still in the physical realm. Rather than waiting to enjoy the rewards of our hard work in the spirit realm we can welcome all of the blessings now.
From my own research and experience with past and parallel life regression, I have learned that we truly love the souls that we plan our lives with. We hold on so dearly to this misconception that a soul mate it this ideal romantic partner who comes into our lives to complete us. This could not be further from the truth. No other being can love you enough to make up for a lack of not loving your own self. In addition, all of the people who play key roles in our lives are soul mates. During our earthly experience they may be the ones who complicate our life, or even play the role of an “enemy” or abusive parent. Soul mates often incarnate together to master lessons. To speak even further about soul mates, many of our spirit guides are disincarnate souls who are also in fact soul mates.
Once you recognize that an individual is not a true enemy but rather a member of your soul family simply carrying out the request you made from them to live our your plan you realize there is no need to hold onto any bitterness or resentment.
The depression, the anger, the “why me” feelings are important stages of acceptance as part of our soul lesson. They are necessary in order to reach a higher state of consciousness. It is very important to forgive yourself at each stage of the process and to even share your story with others who may be going through the similar experiences and may be able to benefit from your insight. Forgiveness of the person you shared the lesson with is key because it allows us to release and balance the karma for which we may have come together with another being.
We may assume a relationship ending is some sort of failure. Often it is pre-written that we meet for certain period of time in our life related to the intended lesson. Once we have honored our contract all parties can move forward. Forgiveness allows us to fully close the chapter and enjoy the benefits of vibrating higher in our present lives. The souls that stay focused on the traumatic experience lose of a sense of clarity. They may decide to carry self-blame, punishing themselves, and prolonging the lesson. Self-forgiveness is a step towards Enlightenment because it is derived from self-love.
Along with forgiveness, gratitude is a sacred vibration. It immediately aligns us with a flow of All That Is. We express gratitude not to say that we are happy for our suffering, but rather for the growth we have experienced through it. Stay in gratitude that you have been given opportunities to awaken to higher levels of consciousness. Many do not have this consciousness available to them. Staying a state of gratitude helps the shift the focus to healing. The ongoing practice of gratitude has proven effects on the wellbeing of the body including being linked with lower rates of heart diseases.
Free will is always available to us at any moment in which we chose to no longer wish move through the experiences (that we set up to learn) in the exact same manner as was written. We can do this by increasing our vibrational frequency. By practicing compassion, gratitude, forgiveness and taking more loving actions towards others. In my belief everything has a higher meaning. I have learned to trust and surrender my limited understanding of the true meaning behind all of my experiences. I simply practice going with the flow. Knowing that in time, all truth will be revealed.
Our challenge is to find the beauty in the midst of all of our challenges. The true mark of an enlightened being is their ability to turn a negative experience into a positive one. Each of us has a divine purpose. Often the specific challenges that you planned will have a direct correlation with what we want to share with the rest of the world. I pray this work brings you closer to all that you desire to know.
By: Ascension Lifestyle Contributor Hasnaa
http://www.twitter.com/thatgirlhas
http://instagram.com/vibrationalmedicine
(Art by Jeff Sullivan)
If you haven’t read the previous article in the series, you can do so here:
Shadow Work 1: An Introduction
Our feelings and emotions matter far more than we ever imagined. Much of our society has been taught that emotions are something we need to suppress or to control. However, the latest research says quite different. We are learning that on a quantum level, our emotions are a direct indicator of the vibration that we are offering to the Universe. Long before our thoughts manifest into physical reality (where we are able to visibly see what we are attracting) the emotions indicated physically in our body can tune us into exactly what signals we are sending out. This serves as an emotional guidance system which will allow us to learn more about our own individual and true divine nature. It also gives us much deeper insight into our lives, beyond the lies that we tell ourselves about what is right and wrong, and all of our personal preferences.
Once we learn to recognize the sensations associated with various emotions we will begin to receive a clearer understanding of our true and authentic feelings. Feelings about our job, where we live, our friends and family… everything, even down to the foods we eat. These preferences are coming directly from our eternal self rather than filtered through the logic of the egoic mind. The key to understanding emotions is to accept them as they are. Contrary to what we have been taught, they are a powerful ally on the path to living an authentic life from an enlightened perspective. They provide us with instant and clear feedback about our state of being, whether we are in alignment with our Higher Self or if we are in a state of resistance to All That Is.
For now it’s important to understand the connection to the practice of Shadow Work and our emotions. Many of us are extremely emotional and inclined to “sense” our way through life. To some it sounds strange, because they believe that “truth” isn’t a feeling, but rather a mental understanding. However, to many of us, it IS a feeling. In fact, almost all things in the lives of empaths and highly sensitive people, are feelings (or emotions) rather than intellectual or practical processes or constructs. I always have said I recognize truth by how it feels.
So the question we are all being asked is; Can we balance getting our own needs met within the needs of everything and everyone else? This is a perfect segue into inner child work.
Many of us become deeply triggered in our lives by unhealed experiences from childhood, experiences where we did not get our needs met. We learned to silently suffer and were taught in many ways that we weren’t deserving of the things we wanted; whether it be love, affection, attention or simple validation.
When we are triggered into the fight or flight response based on a perceived fear or threat of being hurt, our inner child becomes activated. This can often be the case when we have not learned healthy ways to express our needs. We move deep into our unconscious where core beliefs such as unworthiness, shame and abandonment issues take over our awareness. Many of us may have learned that love was conditional and based on behaving and acting in certain “preferred” ways. We may have learned that love is not safe. Often we have been taught that our emotions were simply invalid. We very well may have internalized messages that did not speak to our true nature as a sacred, beautiful, holy child of the Divine Source who deserves love unconditionally. All of these experiences further to deepen the personality split that creates the Shadow.
This healing process of recognizing that we all still possess an inner child who is looking for our needs to be met is deeply transformational work. For myself as a holistic practitioner, as well as many healers that I know, inner-child work has created some of the most profound shifts into well-being and wholeness. A profound relationship develops between you, as the nurturer, and your own inner child who is still seeking a safe place to be heard and receive unconditional love. You realize that you do not need to seek the support and validation from those who may have caused you pain as a child; whether it be your parents, family, or close relatives, but that you can absolutely give it to yourself. It is empowering to understand that you can truly create that healing within yourself by turning inward, and utilizing the new level of understanding that you now have as an adult.
The following are key steps that can be utilized to begin this journey.
Developing Trust
For your wounded inner child to come out of hiding, he/she must be able to trust that you will be there unconditionally. Your inner child needs a supportive and loving space in order to be heard. An opportunity without the fear of being shamed in order to validate his/her abandonment, rejection, neglect, abuse, and enmeshment. These are the first essential elements in this work.
Validation
If you’re still inclined to minimize and/or rationalize the ways in which you were shamed, ignored, or abandoned by your parents or others, you need to now accept the fact that these things truly wounded your soul. Understanding that the people who wrong us aren’t always bad, and likely have just been wounded themselves. Continuing the cycles that they themselves were taught, and doing the very best that they knew how given their experiences.
Anger
It’s okay to be angry, even if what was done to you was unintentional. In fact many would argue that from a place of being dis-empowered, getting angry is actually a sign of taking your power back. I know my parents did the best that two wounded adult (children) could do. But I’m also aware that I was deeply wounded spiritually and that it’s had consequences for me. What that means is that I hold us all responsible for breaking the cycle of dysfunction.
Sadness
After anger comes hurt and sadness. If we were victimized, we must grieve that betrayal. We must also grieve what might’ve been, our dreams and aspirations. We must grieve our unfulfilled developmental needs. In grieving childhood abandonment, you must help your wounded inner child see that there was nothing he/she should done differently. This helps to address and self-blame that may still be carried, and unconsciously creating a strong vibrational point of attraction. These deep core feelings of self-blame often create shame. When we feel shame we cover up our true self. Various parts of our personality become suppressed and abandoned. We in turn ended up abusing ourselves in many of the same ways that we were taught abuse by others. We also came to identify with a false self. While the true self remained alone and isolated. Staying with this last layer of painful feelings is the hardest part of the grief process. “The only way out is through,” as we say in the healing arts. As we embrace these feelings, we come out the other side. We encounter the ‘self’ that’s been in hiding from others, as well as from ourselves.
The truth is you are more powerful than you have ever been shown. The truth of who you are is something that is beyond many peoples current comprehension. Now is the time to tune back into your emotions. They are the key to pointing you in the direction of manifesting successfully in every aspect of life. Your emotions are always the indicator of what you are offering vibrationally. Once you have the opportunity to experience the vibration of who you really are and tune yourself accordingly, no other feeling will quite measure up. We incarnated here to enjoy the flow of that part of us that is eternal.
Tune yourself to the vibration of the center of your being and live a life filled with ease and joy. We think loving someone else is the highest emotional experience there is, only because experiencing a true unconditional love of our divine self is so rare. But this deep self love is truly why we came here, it is our birthright. Inner child and shadow work serve to remove the emotional blocks that prevent the light and love of Source energy to flow though us. This is why this work is so profound.
Stay tuned for the final installment of the series, Shadow Work 3: Healing Grief
By: Ascension Lifestyle Contributor Hasnaa
Please sign up for my newsletter
http://www.twitter.com/thatgirlhas
http://instagram.com/vibrationalmedicine
(Art by Jeff Sullivan)
The brightest flame casts the darkest shadow. Maybe the only thing each of us can see is our own shadow…
Welcome to my three-part series on one of the most profound healing practices you can learn and implement into your life.
Carl Jung called this shadow work. He said we never see others, instead we see only aspects of ourselves that fall ‘over’ them. Shadows. Projections. Our associations. Shadow work is one of my favorite practices to share. I have found it to be one of the most challenging, yet simultaneously the most rewarding of the many types of healing modalities that I utilize on my path to Enlightenment.
This work is for anyone who truly wants to come to know all aspects of their invisible self. Both their light and their darkness. What I have found is that by embracing the darker aspects of our psyche, we in fact become more open to receive light. We begin to uncover more of our hidden gifts and talents. The unconscious mind, as many refer to it, is in fact a gateway that opens up to the infinite possibility of all that we have the potential to become. But before we can access that windfall of inspiration and abundance from Source Energy, we have to face what many refer to as our own “demons”. This is why many stay clear of this type of work, it’s not easy. Mainstream religion and dogma teach that our demons or darkness should be cast away, banished, or exorcised as if it is somehow a source of evil that can affect us outside of our own will.
This first part of the series will focus on what the shadow self is and how we have come to from the dark parts of our nature. We all have aspects of ourselves that we wish to see grow, mature and evolve. Far too often however, instead of showering these aspects of our self with love and acceptance, so that they may come more fully into light, we have been taught to cast them away or suppress them to please others and gain more acceptance. Maybe we grew up in a home where talking about feelings frustrated or annoyed our parents. We may have been told that crying is a sign of weakness. So in order to create a scenario where we can receive more love, we slowly begin to suppress the aspects of ourselves that want to express emotion.
Another example might be that we were teased when we were younger by other kids for openly expressing preferences for the things we liked. However if these preferences do not align with mainstream ideas, we may have been taught that in order to be more accepted we should hide these preferences. In order to make more friends we then begin to assimilate the preferences of what all of the other kids liked.
Unfortunately not many of us were taught to have a strong sense of self. So these types of experiences where we reject aspects of our self in order to be loved and accepted continue to accumulate far into our adult life. All of these abandoned, rejected and banished aspects of our soul that have not been receiving love and acceptance create a shadow in our psyche. They create what we refer to in healing circles as an block (or resistance). You see, there is no true source of darkness. There is only being in alignment with Source (light) and being in resistance to or the absence of light (what we call darkness).
From the perspective of the quantum universe we create our reality from our subconscious mind. The subconscious is hundreds of times more powerful than the conscious mind. So that being said, it is only natural to then understand that these suppressed aspects of our psyche that reside in the subconscious would play a huge role in the world that is reflected around is. They create what is often referred to as energy patterns. These energy patterns become a powerful point of attraction. In other words, the people we encounter who we have resistance to, are actually projections of our own shadow. Being in resistance to any aspect of our true self drains our life force energy. These experiences take us out of alignment with our Higher Self and Source energy. This is why it feels so draining to be in these types of interactions.
The goal of working with the shadow is to integrate and come to know and accept all of those parts that we have attempted to hide or run from. To make that which has been operating at the unconscious level, conscious. Some may not be aware that these aspects even exist. However these aspects will continue to appear in order to become noticed. The higher self will always orchestrate opportunities for us to come to know ourselves more deeply, in truth, and for the purpose of nurturing wholeness. It is always up to us if we chose to answer our own soul’s call and turn inward. Shadow work, if practiced properly, can help us to create not only more compassion for others, but also for ourselves. It helps us to change our views, perspectives and beliefs. It asks us to embrace what we consider to be our weaknesses and turn them into strengths. When we work with the shadow we begin to reclaim the projections we put on others. We turn inward and begin to gently listen and heal those aspects within ourselves, instead of casting someone else as the bad guy and us as the helpless victim.
With continued awareness and inner healing, we will no longer need to attract into our experience people who trigger those energy patterns. We will notice that the people who we attract into our lives are whole and healed as well. No longer looking to blame our parents, others, or the world for our misfortune. We will be able to look back with compassion on all of the experiences that we have chosen (consciously or unconsciously) and see that there was a lesson and purpose in it all. Within shadow work the practice of forgiveness helps to fully empower us.
Through this series I will be teaching the step by step process of going deeply into this work. This week the homework is as follows: Take a few minutes of quiet time somewhere where you can connect to your higher self and ask for the support of this work you are about to begin. Set the intention that you will begin to call back all aspects of your soul that you have misplaced, rejected, suppressed or abandoned. Understand that people along the way who have caused you conflict have provided your soul a unique opportunity to learn more about your own personal truth.
Connect to a situation (or situations) in your life where you have been in discord with someone. One quick and easy way to locate those unclaimed aspects is to look at where and how you are judging others. We will begin to recognize that judging others is a shadow aspect of how we are judging ourselves. Ask questions inwardly such as; Why am I so irritated or annoyed with that person? Where does that live within me? What frightens me about that person? Who do they make me think of? Some other questions that you want to ask are; Why is this so bad? What does this mean to me? When was the last time that I felt this way? When was the first time that I felt this way? Begin to write down what comes to mind.
The ultimate turning point in shadow work is when we recognize the root or core belief that has created the shadow to begin with. Once we have identified the core belief that we have been holding on to that created a shadow, we can easily become aware of how this is creating resistance within us. Often what happens when we start to ask these questions is we are brought back to a time in our childhood where we can identify the original “trauma” that created the personality split.
This might be a bit hard to grasp, so for now you will have to just trust me. In truth, time is not linear, everything is happening simultaneously. What this means in terms of healing the past, is that you can actually connect to the parallel aspect of yourself that is experiencing this “past trauma” and envision a different outcome. What happens when you do this is that you experience the past healing benefits right now, because all things exist in the present moment. I wont get into the quantum physics of why this is so, however all you need to do is keep an open mind.
When you are able to identify the time/space when you began to create a split in your psyche between good and bad, dark and light.. you want to visualize yourself with the understanding that you have now. We will discuss more of the healing techniques in the upcoming parts of the series. For now, focus on identifying those shadow aspects of yourself that have been projecting onto others. The patterns should be fairly obvious. Because we are holographic by nature, we manifest the same patterns in various areas of our lives, work, home, relationships, etc. Start there.
And as always please check in with your own intuition about when and how much of this work is appropriate for you to start at this time. Self care is always the highest focus.
Stay tuned for the next piece in the series, Part 2: Healing the Inner Child.
Namaste.
“How can I be substantial if I do not cast a shadow? I must have a dark side also If I am to be whole” ― C.G. Jung
By: Ascension Lifestyle Contributor Hasnaa
Please sign up for my newsletter
http://www.twitter.com/thatgirlhas
http://instagram.com/vibrationalmedicine
(Art by Jeff Sullivan)