The shadow
Your shadow is all the un-looked-at, murky, unresolved and messy stuff inside you that you collected in childhood – and when you were growing up into an adult. We ALL have it. It’s the stuff your parents passed down to you. It’s the stuff you push deep down inside because it is too painful to feel.
It’s the stuff that blurts out at inappropriate moments to loved ones around you, causing hurt. It’s the outbursts, the drama, the pain you seek to escape through drinking, taking drugs, comfort eating or even just scrolling on your phone. It is also the parts you hide from others, the parts you don’t feel you can show: the ugly parts, bad parts, mad parts – the anger, sadness, grief, rage, confusion and hurt.
We are often lonely in our shadows – feeling separated from society and alone in our lives because we have been taught that our shadow is not allowed, that anger is not welcome and that a public display of grief is weird: ‘Don’t look at your shadow’, ‘Keep your chin up and keep working like a good boy/girl, do you hear?’
So, how’s that working out for you? In fact, how’s that working out for the planet? Look around you. If you look at the world from the perspective of our internal shadow being reflected as external experiences, then the unconscious dark shadow is responsible for most, if not all, of the war on the planet.
I believe we are being called to the light. And if we want to go to the light, then guess what? We have to face our shadow. We must bring light to the places inside us that need it – the same places that we see are so damaged in our leaders, those places unmet, the places of pain and trauma. Once we have gone into these places we become lighter, brighter and fuller versions of ourselves and we become more authentic, more powerful and true.
You know authentic people when you meet them because they feel real and grounded. They’re not trying to be anyone else. These are people that have faced their shadows, made ‘friends’ with them. They have looked within, and they have found their gold in there underneath the apparent darkness.
We carry more light when we make friends with our shadowy places. And yes, it takes guts to go there.
I invite you to take a moment to play with this idea. Have a look at different aspects of your life and see if you can spot where there could be dark shadow coming out to play.
Darkness comes before dawn
As I understand it, humanity is currently in a collective ‘dark night of the soul’. This explains why everything is so damn messy here on the Earth at present! It means that we’re on the verge of a massive collective awakening, but it also means we have to ‘go there’ – into the shadow, into our shadows, to find the light.
And let’s face it, the light is a good place to be, but we can’t find the pure truth of it without looking at our shadows and integrating them into our lives. Trust me when I say this, because I am speaking as someone who has and is going there – the light that is awaiting you on the other side of facing your shadow is truly beautiful. It’s worth every effort of going there. It is awesome.
The 13th-century Persian poet and mystic Rumi says, ‘Only through the darkness can we see the stars above us.’ So, go there my friends: be brave, start delving, sorting, re-arranging, looking within and facing. Seek some healing, seek others who are also ‘going there’. Buddy up, help each other out on your journeys, share your stories and your pain. Try not to be so alone in your shadows – ‘air’ them, hang ’em out to dry on your washing line for all to see!
The only way things are going to change is if we start working on ourselves, facing ourselves, becoming more authentic and comfortable in all of our colours. Be the type of person that is going all out to raise their consciousness.
Face the old. Feel it, heal it. Let it go. Then seek the new. Make the changes within and watch the world unfold in a whole new light all around you. Rise and be a part of the changes that are happening on the Earth. Go there. The future is a place of transparency, a place where all is seen, and nothing is hidden. You are the light. You are the dark. Embrace it all.
Spiritual trauma
Parts of our spirit leave us if we experience trauma. It can happen when we are children, or as adults. Shards of us, pieces of our souls, get lost. This is known as ‘spiritual trauma’.
Until recently the word ‘spirit’ has been something of a dirty word in our society. This is a pretty good indication that our society carries spiritual trauma. Most of us carry it to some degree, but our job is to heal it.
So, what is spirit? Well, the modern, scientific world would like us to carry on believing that our physical body and mind are all that we are. They dismiss the presence of something else, something unknown. However, I know through my own experience that there is something else at play here!
You have a spirit. You are spirit. You NEED your spirit. Without it, you could say you are half a person, and who wants to be half a person? We want FULL connection, don’t we? Full connection to our full selves and to be living to our highest potential.
Our job as awakening warriors is to rekindle our connection with our own spirit – to claim it back. We want to start seeking a world that fulfils, fuels and fires up our spirit: that which has deeper meaning, which lights us up with ecstasy and makes us feel ALIVE! It’s a resonance thing. Once we start to heal our spirit – to call it back more fully into our body, then things start changing for us in our experience of the world. Old patterns that aren’t serving us start dropping away, and our outlook on life begins to change. We become happier, more accepting, more ‘Zen’. How does that sound?
Moving out of a spiritually dead world of 9-to-5 boredom and into a world where we feel alive – minute by minute, hour by hour, day by day – is what it’s all about. Seek that which makes you feel inspired, healthy and zingy!
Many people these days are moving away from work and lifestyles that don’t serve their spirit. And the numbers of such people are growing. I try to surround myself with such people, people who inspire each other, laugh with each other and who live inspiring, awesome lives that defy convention. Lives that are less confined, lives where people have broken loose and their spirits are allowed to soar!
Healing our spiritual trauma means healing our disconnection from the Earth. It means grounding. So many of us are entirely disconnected from the Earth and this is a trauma we’re being called to heal.
It means getting into your body. It means seeking out a damn good healer – to help us ‘pull back’ those lost shards of ourselves. So we can be FULLY here. In all our glory. Effective in our missions.
Anything you can do to ‘be in your body’ will help heal spiritual trauma – be it yoga, swimming, jogging, gardening, t’ai chi, meditation or being in nature. Anything that gets you out of your head and into the calm, deep wisdom of your body will help. Shamanic healing (see page 149) is also a highly effective way of retrieving lost parts of ourselves and healing our trauma. Have a look into this if you feel drawn.
Once we begin to heal our own trauma, we can become comfortable in our own skins, so that we can live more in harmony with the Earth and also, therefore, with each other.