When you are into spirituality in one form or the other, you mostly will read about Light & Love. Everyone wants to get enlightened as fast as possible and be absorbed by Love, Bliss and Happiness for all eternity.
Well, these are nice goals to have, but most people don’t learn how to handle the dark night of the soul and are surprised or even discouraged to continue on their path to the Light, when they experience much darkness and suffering.
Let me tell you: If you don’t experience lots of these dark emotions and energies on your spiritual path, you have not been on one.
What you feeling is what you are healing. The more pain you feel, the more you are healing out of the collective field of consciousness.
But the shadow is even more. It’s sometimes hidden and doesn’t show itself obviously.
In the end, it’s a necessity in your development and here are some reasons why and how to see the shadow differently….
1. The Shadow is a reminder
Think of the shadow as one reminder of your light. It’s like a red warning lamp, that alerts you to be attentive. If the little warning sign in your car goes on and alerts you to refill the oil, you don’t take a hammer and smash the lamp. You don’t scream at it and wish it would go to hell.
It’s the same with the shadow. It only wants to alert you and not harm you in any way.
2. The Shadow is the gift wrapping
The shadow is even more. It’s a gift in disguise. Think of it as a gift wrapping. Again, you don’t smash it or burn it in full rage mode.
You gently put it aside, to discover what lies behind…
More about this and the Gene Keys work, that made this a living realization for myself and many clients in later parts of this series...
3. The Shadow is not here to be killed
Concluding from the first two points, the shadow is also nothing to be eliminated. As obvious as it seems, most spiritual seekers who meet their shadows for the first time, have a serial killer mentality about it. It’s like the Ego - bad reputation, but lovely and innocent in nature.
We have invented countless spiritual and psychological methods, that are basically covering up our killing spree. Don't try to kill the shadow - it has important lessons in its bag...
4. The Shadow wants to be invited into the Light
Have you ever thought about, that maybe - just maybe - the shadow comes to you, because it needs something from you?
Maybe it’s not here to haunt you, but it wants to enter the Light through the doorway of Light, that is called your heart?
So there we have this poor shadow coming after you to enter the Light, all the while you are running away and refuse to grant him the wish only you can provide…
5. The shadow is the unloved part(s) - and maybe not even yours
Another way to see this is, that the shadow is the unloved part(s) in you.
Maybe they are not even yours in the first place.
Maybe they belong to others or the collective.
Why do you care?
Make this your mantra:
„Maybe the shadow is not mine. Whether it’s mine or not, I love you unconditionally and may all beings be liberated and healed from the effects of this shadow! “
A must read (if you want to take this understanding deeper)
If you want to take this understanding even deeper - into the male & feminine sides of the shadow - I can only recommend you to read this article by Matt Kahn
Read it slowly and repetitively - this is deeeeep and important stuff, that I also personally experience in my life. Since I couldn’t say it better than Matt, digest it in your own time and let there be room for resistance, that will even take you deeper on this journey…
This is a difficult truth to process when your waking up. The more you deny it the further you are from your truth as denying the polarity is an instinctive collection of masks that we use to deny something that is apart of everyone. Integrating it is a difficult process. I’ve had a few nightmares where it comes and frightens the life out of me like look here i am.. whats so freaky is that it feels like a part of you but not at the same time i feel like its old emotional energy that has to come up to be healed because the more you rise the more fluent your energy is so it brings up the repressed so it can be healed. Maybe it is collective, personal or even from previous lifes. The fact that its coming up is a good thing to keep hope and courage to go into it takes time to understand and remember that in your darkest moments this is what needs to be done. What you say is true.. waking up isn’t easy its constant clearing making way for more growth
Absolutely! ...and most of all, during all these phases and challenges, the one thing we always need more not less is Love.
Especially in hard times, the Love we give our own heart as the center of all hearts of the universe, is what makes any integration possible.
Thank you for your reflections and your sharing. ❤️
Indeed.
I will add this - there are basically two ways to handle the darkness/shadows. First is to process it, why it happens, what is the lesson for me, what are the reasons this shadow is in my life, etc.
The second way is to avoid mental processing all together and breathe it in and then release.
It's interesting to note that there's a great gift in traumatic events which comes in the first moments of the occurrence, when we are surprised and caught un- prepared, so the mental guards are massively forced to come down and new energy enters. It's like when we hit our small toe. The pain is sudden and sharp and for a spilt second we lose all thoughts. Darkness does the same for our psyche!
Your darkness is your divinity
Thank you - especially for "Your darkness is your divinity" that totally resonates with me!
I have to say, that I´m not a big fan of the first way of asking "why". I also followed this path many years ago, but it just led me to even more "whys" and get lost in the endless space of finding more reasons.
Instead I ask myself, what I can provide for this situation to be healed completely for myself and everyone involved. Then I follow the answers that arise naturally from my heart space. That brings up the topic of intuition, which I just wrote in another comment, seems to be the topic for part 2 of this series. 😀
Thank you and may you be blessed! ❤️
Like you, I did the analysis way in the past. Served me then, not any more. The allowing method without thinking is far better. The catch is that at first there are no noticeable results and the mind gets upset 🤤. Then, after a while the energy structure is changed and things begin to shift.
I hope our little chat here will help other readers.
👍💙
Wow! This was an incredible article my friend! I have been long searching to understand the shadow and why it haunts so many people. Along my journey I have learned that it wishes to work with our light selves in unity, but it is up to us to accept it and let it in.
I loved what you said, "The shadow wants to be invited into the light," and "The shadow is a reminder." Those caused so many pieces of this puzzle to click for me! It is helping us to see an aspect of ourselves that we would not otherwise think to look at. Just like you pointed out, if your gas light comes on for your car then it reveals that something needs to be fixed. But as divine beings our tools for understanding these signals lies within our shadow, which is often communicated through our intuition.
Our intuition is what gives us access to things that are unseen. There are so many things we are told to believe and so many people to convince us that they have the answer, when in reality no one has the answer, except ourselves. The answer we seek lies within us and oftentimes, it is found within the depths of our shadow that not many dare to even consider looking at.
Namaste, love and unity my friend! <3
Thanks a lot for you sharing and your deep insights! Yes, I may share some of my insights about the true meaning of intuition in my next article in the series. Thank you for the inspiration, where the series should head next ❤️
This definitely resonates. Beautifully said and the mantra was a humbling touch. Thank you for the recommendation as well 🙏
Thanks a lot and blessings! I followed you too - great to find more and more fellow spiritual people here on Steemit! ❤️
@atmosblack this post is so poignant and something I believe to be true so I am surprised that someone else thinks the same way. Where did you discover this knowledge?
If you like psychology I would love it if you gave me your opinion on my latest post https://steemit.com/life/@t8scones/life-always-finds-a-way-fighting-loneliness STEEM ON!!
Thank you so much! ❤️
Everything I write here comes from my own experience. I started my spiritual journey (or better: the spiritual journey started me) in a very young age. Through many teachers from psychology to spirituality and many encounters with enlightened being I´m very grateful for, this path shaped and transformed me.
Much of my experience with shadow work comes from the Gene Keys material - a sacred wisdom teaching founded in the I Ching but brought to life in recent days in a new form.
The Shadow is just one puzzle piece in the ever enfolding deepening of my insight into the nature of this universe. Blessings and I´ll have a look at your article now.
Oh gosh, this is why I didn't like that deductive meditation I got into last year. It's like your shadow is the enemy. It felt violent to do that kind of meditation so I had to tweak it and use it in a different way for me to get the most healing out of it.
I'm glad I did not continue after one month. Other people like it but I don't. Then I discovered transcendental meditation but I think it's expensive so I won't be doing it anytime soon.
That article you linked to is kinda deep indeed. Some parts I get, others not yet.
Sometimes I think being human is such a hard thing to do. It's easier to not be human and just go back to being energy or soul but I guess enlightenment is the reason we became human? I guess we should just enjoy the life we have and have fun being alive while we're at it.
It's true that if we do not experience suffering and pain, we will not be able to grow spiritually. A romantic relationship is the quickest way to enlightenment based on my experience. We all want to avoid the pain but in truth we have to experience some pain in order to grow too. The more we avoid it the more we prolong the inevitable.
Thanks for sharing this.
If you like TM it's not really expensive - you don't need to learn it in the "official structures". In the end, it's just mantra meditation with a fancy name and enhanced with some mystery elements for better marketing. 😉
The reason for being human depends on where you are at your journey. There are people, who have yet to discover, that they are not their physical body and that they are beyond mental constructs (enlightenment) and there are people, who have already finished this part of the journey, are already totally aware of their light and are now here as a human to integrate the Love and Wisdom in the 3D world.
It's important to find the right path for you. Many empath who are already aware of their light try to follow paths from the old paradigm and get confused, because they follow the wrong path. I will write an article about this later 😀
Oooh. Are you clairvoyant? Looking forward to that article then.
As for TM, well I don't know if I can trust the free videos on YouTube so I inquired locally and that's how I found the price.
In TM you basically get a mantra (mostly a very basic one dependent on your age), you invoke it, let it vibrate in you and then going beyond it (transcending it) into a place of stillness - the seat of your beingness. Rinse and repeat. There, I just summed TM up in one sentence and saved you lots of money! lol
Now you have only to do it - which is unfortunately something I can't do for you. 😀The alternative is to read my post from today and watch the video there, which basically saves you not only lots of money, but also years of practice! How awesome is that?! 😂
Am I clairvoyant? Well, if I focus on the sense of inner sight, then I am, but feeling is much more "natural" to me. Some feel, some hear, some see. I don't think the sense through which you realize something is that important though. I guess, you can too. Oh... and if this was just a rhetorical question, because I could foresee your interest in "new paradigm teachings*, then you just got the proof! 😀
Yes that's right. The chant will be given accdg to the instructor. The process though is what they teach.
As for my question, i only asked because you mentioned empath. Thought you might be one or something related.
Great post. I have recently been going through the dark night of my soul and it can be very hard. The hardest part about it is probably that I often get very confused about it...Sometimes my energy just gets completely zapped and idk why or how to fix it. But, I am also very close to my mom who has Alzheimers and I have been learning so much about her and her disease while being amidst this darkness. I have never felt a closer connection and understanding of her until now. It's a very deep dimension of my consciousness I am tapping into but it is also very dark. Thank you for your post.
Thank you for your authentic and personal sharing! ❤️
Yes, it's hard to face someone with Alzheimers, who may not even remember who you are today and maybe not even who she is - someone without a (hi)story.
On the other hand - as tragic as it may seem - you are invited to meet her right where she is and where you are: the present moment.
Right here, right now in this shared moment - eye to eye with the big and threatening emptiness of not knowing - this is were you meet in truth...
May you and your mother be healed and free from forgetting who you truly are - a knowing, that does not depend on the mind or a "working" brain, but is the silent knowing of the heart.... ❤️
I really appreciate this man, thank you <3
It is great to look at the shadow and it can even be fun. In the work I do with EFT, I call it the Power of negative thinking and it is without doubt that within this dark side, the greatest gifts are found.
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