When I started my healing journey following a diagnosis, I was laser focused on healing my inside and finding that root cause, believing that it was one root cause and healing my inside meant healing my gut. I’d later learn to realize, we are talking many years later, how wrong those early assumptions would be. On a side note, I don’t speak of what the diagnosis is because claiming any ownership or connection to it is not conducive to healing, but that topic will be for another article. This is about why shadow work works, and how it helped with my healing.
I didn’t learn of the term shadow work until towards the end of my healing journey, which makes sense as it was the most important part of my path, with the most swift and impactful results. For so long I tried changing patterns, changing diets, trying to bring in meditation, detoxifying my home, and countless other changes. They are all incredibly important parts of healing, don’t get me wrong, and part of the layers I speak about, but my illness kept returning. It wasn’t until the year that I had moved away from everything and everyone I knew, giving myself the time and space to just work and improve myself, that I made drastic improvements.
That was the year I was working weekly with an intuitive coach and learning to face my deepest fears and shame and bringing in tools to allow trust into my life. It was my realization at how fearfully I had been living, and that others weren’t living life this way. It was connecting the dots that my fears, unhealed trauma, fight or flight mentality, a nervous system so far out of balance, and testosterone totally depleted from living life in survival as if I were being chased by tigers for over 40 years, were contributing factors in my illness. It was my realization that those past traumas and patterns had created a life that was lived solely in my head, very disconnected with my heart, trust, imagination, goals and more. It was a time that I was able to bring in enough connection and trust to quit a job that was also wreaking havoc on my body.
The reason I know it worked was because I healed that year. The year of doing the work, having what I now know as a dark night of the soul, hitting absolute rock bottom facing all the deepest fears, traumas and more, finally gaining enough self-respect and trust to quit a job that was so toxic for me that I was having panic attacks from, would be what would bring about my healing. Following six months of intense weekly sessions conquering the latest fear I had, traumatic memory, or facing shame head on and turning it around, I quit my job, moved to the mountains, and my inflammation hasn’t returned since. That is how I know shadow works; I am living proof following over 8 years of on and off inflammation, trying everything along the way, to later discover and witness the power of healing your mind to help heal your body. That is why I don’t think there is a root cause, rather, many, many layers of healing to unfold, discover, witness, and alchemize.
The proof of how important this work is and how big of an impact it can have on healing is me. Moving my arms, legs, and fingers is proof, no longer on crutches is proof, seeing out of both of my eyes is proof, being able to get out of bed is proof, being able to not faint or have panic attacks is proof, and having the courage, self-love, and self-worth to write this article and follow my passion is proof. I am the living proof this works, having tried nearly every healing modality. The swift healing that occurred following this work is all that I need to know that this is an incredibly powerful healing tool.
What I learned from healing my body directly following my time spent facing my fears, bringing in trust, connecting with my body, and leaving a job that wasn’t fulfilling and causing me to wake up stressed every day, was that choosing yourself was healing. Self-love was healing. Facing trauma was healing. Connecting with yourself was healing. Unburying stuck emotions, feelings, memories, events, and shame was healing. Removing toxic patterns and stress was healing. Like detoxing your body with food, or detoxing unhealthy products from your home, you also need to detox thoughts and patterns from your mind. If we are looking for true healing at the root level, you need to get to those layers within you. And as the saying goes, the only way through it is through it.
In the beginning of learning shadow work, I wasn’t really grasping the concept of focusing on the bad, the toxic patterns, the fears, the shame, the trauma. Afterall, weren’t we supposed to be focusing on the good stuff, manifesting money and abundance and staying all high vibe to live a happy life? Well, yes, kind of, but the true high vibes and manifesting comes when you become untethered by what has been keeping you down, stuck, heavy, in the lower frequency feelings of fear and anxiety. The way to “raise your vibe” is to start to release these lower frequencies by truly letting them go. The more we let go, the lighter we feel and the higher we rise on the frequency scale – that’s how this works. You can’t just try to feel good when your subconscious knows the real deal. You cannot fool the subconscious and what is buried in your body. True healing and vibe raising comes from facing what is buried and releasing it.
Shadow work, or looking into the subconscious reasons for limiting beliefs or unhealthy patterns, is the art of diving into the reasons behind why we may act or think a certain way. It’s facing the uncomfortable, the scary, the shameful events, memories, or beliefs that we may have buried within us to get through that time. I like to picture shadow work as shining a flashlight within my body to all the nooks and crannies where I may have stored an emotion, energy, feeling, or event, and kept it stuck within my body to let it know that it’s time to be released. The idea is that once you face that shadow you may have subconsciously buried, you can alchemize it and it can finally be released. And don’t worry, by focusing on it you aren’t bringing more of it in; it is just wanting to be witnessed and seen, to be released.
You can take it a step further and witness how that feeling or limiting belief may have helped you in that moment, but then also let it know that you don’t need it anymore. You can thank it for how it served you and then let it be on its way. You can use the Hawaiian hoponopono healing technique at that moment, “I’m sorry, please forgive me, thank you, I love you,” repeating the phrase to that shadow. You can also take it a step further and try to envision a better outcome, more safety, sending love to yourself in that moment, it will all help with the healing. I also envision that feeling or energy leaving my body and replacing it with a gentle healing energy. All of this helps you heal. All of it is removing something that isn’t serving you and replacing it with gentleness, understanding, compassion, acceptance and even self-love. And it’s proven that the feeling or vibration of self-love is a high vibration and can bring healing – just look at the studies on plants that were spoken to negatively or positively. Our thoughts have a massive impact on our health, and healing our mind and raising our frequency will have a huge impact on healing.
I went from waking up with joints that were stuck in place, to a fully functioning body following shadow work and quitting a job. I look back on that time and realize that I had to remove that mental toxicity from my life to give my body more resources to heal. I’ve also later learned that the body cannot heal when it doesn’t feel safe, and my nervous system sending signals to my body that tigers were chasing it when it was filled with fears, anxiety, stress, limiting beliefs and more, was not signaling to my body that I was safe. The fears were running rampant in me, and doing the work to release them was how I healed. And it is true work – you may be facing the scariest, most traumatic, shameful periods of your life, so I do recommend that you work with someone during this time to help guide you into the light. You will get there, but it could be a very dark period when you are in it. I can assure you that once you are on the other side the world is so incredibly beautiful and bright.
I once lived with debilitating fears to the point of fainting, panic attacks and more, and now I have trust and love on my side. I have self-love, self-worth, trusting the universe and things greater than what I can see, seeing the beauty in things, believing in the magic of our healing body, no longer fearful or ashamed of any parts of my body, with connection to it, trust, and love. I am absolutely night and day from where I started, and my healing body is the proof that it works. Shadow work can be another tool in your healing toolbox, or a helpful step along your healing path, when you feel ready to reveal and heal another layer of your vibrant self.