What is Shadow Work
“Put your ear up close to the heart of Mother Earth. Listen to your inner whisperings. Awaken daily, no matter how sad, angry, or doubtful you are. Like Moses waiting at the Mount, like an innocent child, anticipate a miracle. Let your body feel the direction. Feel the guidance. No words, no language.
A wise teacher (John Welwood) once said, “Reality only happens now. Everything else is either a memory or an expectation.” Another wise man (Bernard Phillips) wrote, “Reality can never be known advance. Living truth is discovered in the act of living. If you know what to say, it is a lie. If you know how to teach, you’re a propagandist. If you know how to get along with another, you use psychology.
Reality is not gained by know-how; reality is freshly born each moment. You have to give your whole being without strategies, and then something new and real will reveal itself. No technique will achieve relatedness, no ordinary resourcefulness, no ordinary ideas, no system, no gospel, no how-to’s, will affect the entry into reality, nothing but complete giving of yourself.”
- from Conscious Companion by Marta Luzim
How does shadow (unknown, mystery, and hidden trauma) help heal trauma?
One of the main ways shadow work heals is by allowing for catharsis—or the release of pent-up unconscious emotions and repressed memories. This can allow people to heal their trauma and pain, which may improve other areas of life, such as relationships, health, and careers.
Where is trauma stored in the body?
Trauma is physically held in the muscles and bones and emotionally in the body. Memories are held in the psyche or subconscious, where creative, emotional, and spiritual experiences are stored. To travel into this unknown part of the brain takes slowing down, moving beyond judgments, somatic experiencing, creative expertise, and non-linear emotional experience
It is a sense of energy that we feel in the body that causes hypervigilance, fright, fleeing, and fighting. Tightness, perspiring, shaking, nausea, lightheadedness, and other sensations show that a wound or trauma is surfacing. You either shove it down or allow the physical sensations to guide you toward the emotional memory to be expressed and released.
When emotions are frozen in the body, it can cause chronic illness, mental illness, addiction, and unhealthy attachments. The need to protect oneself from perceived threats is stored in the memory and emotional centers of the brain, such as the hippocampus and amygdala.
What is an example of shadow projection?
We engage in shadow projection when the memory of trauma is frozen in the brain and body and placed outside of ourselves. The parts of ourselves in darkness include blame, shame, judgment, isolation, control, and unacceptable feelings, i.e., rage or sadness. You may have unconscious envy or deep hatred, even though you consciously see yourself as a loving, magnanimous person who doesn’t ever feel those darker feelings.
What triggers shadow work?
Triggers include anything that brings up an emotion, whether positive or negative. Not addressing negative triggers—like words or phrases, routines, or even places—sights, smells, tastes, and sounds can increase stress and allow your shadow.
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