The divine energies are moving us toward awakening and embodying our soul’s wisdom, vitality, and guidance. The shadow is being pushed up to be seen, healed where necessary and integrated into our aliveness. The mind resists this out of a perception of protection. Learn to befriend your habit-mind by retiring the judge and implementing the practice of compassionate witnessing. Remain kind and curious, open, and deliberate about witnessing your habit-self and opening to your true essence.
This is how you create a world of conscious flow.
The solar eclipse, new moon and other frequencies on the earth plane are moving us to illuminate, heal and integrate our shadow. This energy is amplified right now and may be felt very intensely by sensitives. The denial of our personal shadow is what allows darkness, war, addictions, war, injustices, racism, and other suffering to persist on the planet.
What is the shadow?
Carl Jung, the Swiss psychiatrist, is the one who coined the concept. He referred to the shadow as the part of ourselves which we disown, deny, repress into the background of the unconscious mind. We do this because we have learned it is not safe to bring certain aspects of ourselves out into the open. This energy has power over us, while it remains in the dark. It can drive us without us realizing it. Other cultures identified the shadow as a demon or entities controlling people. But usually, there was no outer force at play — it is the inner, unseen shadow that is driving the energy. When we are unable or unwilling to discover our shadow, we project it onto others. Shadow projections have created wars, racist behaviors, witch hunts. Having a martyr die for your sins is a prime example of a shadow projection. Scapegoats within family systems or society are another form of shadow being projected onto an individual or group.
What does the shadow reveal?
Nothing that you despise or react to exists outside of yourself. Wars reflect internal warring. This understanding can be highly triggering for those unwilling to own their shadow but for those willing to accept radical responsibility for their creative world, diving into the shadow for healing and embodiment will be profoundly empowering and liberating.
The shadow is not bad. It is just hidden. It forms as we develop our psyche — our sense of self. As the ego forms, our persona takes shape around the world in which we are evolving. It responds to our caregivers, their attachment to us and ours to them. The ego reflects THIS WORLD and our persona or strategy for surviving the world in which we are immersed. It did not come into the body with you and most of it will not persist after you die (though releasing the ego after death takes some time if there was no liberating from it in life). Your ego gives you a “Space suit” for breathing and living within 3D reality. It becomes your identity that allows you to know “this is me” and “that is not me”. It allows you to feel love, but through the human filters. It gives you a sense of what is “good” and what is “not good” or “bad”. You will learn quickly what you can be and not be, what you can say, not say; how you can navigate your world safely. Over time, you will identify with this “ego” as YOU even though it is not “you”. Your conditioning will teach you to identify with qualities that are acceptable to you and reject those qualities which are not acceptable to you. Whatever you identify with becomes your personality. It develops into your ego. Whatever you do not identify with, but is part of you, will become your shadow.
There are numerous shadows being amplified for illumination on the earth plane right now. Our personal shadows must be revealed, healed, and integrated for our awakening and liberation to manifest into a fifth dimensional expression. There is also a Collective Shadow which is shared by groups, cultures, countries. These shadows are being illuminated in a very intense manner around the globe. America is being asked to face its collective shadow.
Collective shadows, like personal shadows, can manipulate us into having strong blind spots. We see these shadows rampant throughout politics, for example. The polarization manifesting in the world of politics around the world reflects the clinging to the shadows we do not want to see and project onto others. “They” are the problem is the call of the disowned shadow being projected onto a group.
Shadows reflect aspects of ourselves that we may view as darker, negative, unwanted. But we have a lot of gold within our shadows as repressed positive qualities that we were unable to express. When we project this shadow, we can worship others or place them on a pedestal because we are disowning these positive aspects within ourselves. When we perceive someone as elevated or better than us in any manner, we are usually projecting that disowned self onto that individual.
How do you illuminate your shadow, especially when it is trying hard to remain hidden?
You can begin with:
- Noticing what bothers you about others.
- The personalities we despise, the actions we judge harshly are often the qualities we had to deny, repress within ourselves. The more intense the reaction, the more deeply it is held in our shadow.
- Impulsive behaviors
- When we act against ourselves or in ways we do not really want to act and say, “that’s not really me,” “that was a slip of the tongue,” “I don’t know what came over me” our shadow is leaking out. It is trying to be seen so it can be free. We may not have been allowed to want or speak up or say things that make others uncomfortable, but everyone has these aspects of self and many of these feelings, needs, wants and truths have been repressed into our shadow.
- Consistent, prevalent negative feedback from others
- Often (not always) negative feedback from others reflects our disowned self – our shadow. We bump into this over and over because our shadow is trying to be seen. Some feedback can be the shadow projection from others. But when a certain type of interaction happens repeatedly or often, it can be a strong opportunity to explore how it is showing us our shadow self.
- Opposites of your Core Values
- The qualities we own are part of our light, our personality, who we accept within ourselves. The qualities we hold dearest have shadows. If one of your core values is honesty, you probably do not like dishonesty in any measure. You will then perceive yourself as honest. You may be honest but fail to see any aspect of yourself that is not honest because that has to live in your shadow. People who have a core value of “giving” will then see receiving or wanting to be given to (or acting on their own behalf) as selfish because that aspect lives in their shadow.
Integrating your shadow requires deep and courageous work by becoming willing to see your whole self. It requires you to explore the dream that another person is having – the way they perceive reality that is not about you but allows you to understand life through their lens. “That person exaggerates their accomplishments all the time because they are so fearful of being judged and seen as less than. I understand that fear. I am that person too. Parts of me are fearful, parts of me are inauthentic too.” If you are certain that you are never “that,” then you are bumping into the blind spot hiding your shadow.
The shadow is not negative. It holds a tremendous amount of power. As we own and integrate these lost aspects of self, we heal our soul. This can allow us to discover our creativity, reclaim our authenticity, restore our vitality, step into our intuition. Integrating our shadow stops the fear of being seen and allows us to accept and become our most authentic expression. It will heal our relationships with ourselves, others, with the Divine.
As long as you are alive, you will be discovering your shadow or living out its energy unconsciously. We are beings of light and while we live within a human form, we will have a shadow seeking expression through clear channels to liberate its power and integrate this energy into gold.
Shadows are the parts of your psyche, which if not integrated will drive our behaviors unconsciously and become projected onto others. They are formed as a natural part of human development where we allow the accepted beliefs, behaviors, values into our ego and everything unwanted forms our shadow. Every person has a shadow. Humanity has a shadow. Societies have shadows; your family has a shadow. We bump into our shadow all the time, but meeting people whose behaviors bother us; patterns reflected to us, habits and addictions, impulsive behaviors, and the opposite of what we value most. Shadow work is an essential aspect of spiritual evolution, because without it, you will be ruled by what lives in your unconsciousness and experience it as fate, soul lessons, “the way things are.” By integrating your shadow, you unleash the potential hidden within it. You can reclaim your creativity, unlock your authenticity, discover your personal power, free yourself from addictive or unwanted habits, gain vitality and clarity, expand your intuition, accept your beautiful wholeness, and heal your relationships.
Leave A Comment