You will never learn how to do Shadow Work by reading about it.

It's something you need to need to EXPERIENCE.

I created a healing circle where I lead you through the process, and you can access it for free, by registering right here:

 

Learning how to do Shadow Work is less about perfecting a specific technique and more about staying open and being willing to feel, explore and experience whatever it is you encounter in the process.

Because Shadow Work is about facing your own shadows - the places inside you that you would rather avoid - it's just inherently uncomfortable.

I mean - you avoid these places for a reason.

And in order to do Shadow Work, you've going to have to come face-to-face with that reason.

There is no one perfect way for learning how to do Shadow Work, but there are two things to keep in mind while you're exploring:

• An open mind - you don't know what you're going to discover. If you go in already thinking you know what's going to happen then you close yourself off from possibilities.
• A willingness to feel your feelings and be uncomfortable. You don't have to LIKE your feelings you just have to be wiling to HAVE them.

It's pretty amazing how easy it is to trick ourselves into thinking we are doing these things when we are actually totally NOT doing them!

How to do Shadow Work: Sitting with your feelings.

Sitting with your feelings means making space for yourself to feel how you actually feel, to explore that feeling and find out more about it.

This tends to be the opposite approach from what most of us are taught about how to handle feelings.

So it's uncomfortable and it feels awkward. Which means - if you feel like you're doing it wrong, you are probably doing it right.

Unfortunately, if you feel confident and sure that you're doing it right, you are probably doing it wrong. This is the nature of Shadow Work. It just feels uncomfortable.

It takes practice and patience to get to a place of actually being open to feeling your feelings.

Your reaction to your feelings tends you get in the way of feeling your actual feelings.

For example: You dream of being a best-selling author. You are afraid that you're not good enough to do this.

Your inner critic reacts to that fear with a "Why bother? No one cares?" story and you get caught up in your feelings about that story. But the "Why bother? No one cares?" story is NOT your actual feeling.

So being with that story just makes more space for your Inner Critic to put on a show for you.

And it feels uncomfortable and scary so you think you're feeling your feelings but you're not. You're staying in this untrue story about your feelings. Your feelings are fear of not being good enough.

Sitting with this fear would feel terrifying in comparison to sitting with the "Why bother? No one cares?" story.

That's the Shadow Work.

As you sit with the feeling without trying to do anything with it, you actually move through it.

And on the other side of that terror there is something else. And once you've experienced that, you'll have a deeper understanding of yourself.

Once you sit with that fear and move through it, you start to see that this fear comes out of the fact that you're not writing regularly! So of course your writing isn't up to par with what it needs to be to be a bestseller.

No need for a song and dance about "Why bother? No one cares".

All you need to do is get to work.

Create a writing schedule and stick to it.

This is the magic of Shadow Work: When you work through the shadow and are able to reach the guidance of your True Self. 

In my example you had to first be with all of the uncomfortable stories that your Inner Critic throws you way and then you have to face that unimaginable terror of feeling your actual feeling.

This is a simplified example, you may have layers and layers of feelings and reactions and stories. Your Shadow Work process will likely become VERY convoluted and weird.

Shadow Work means bravely and honestly facing what you find. Exploring by feeling your way.

You don't have to solve anything.

You don't have to discover the gift or perform a healing.

If fact it's best if you're not trying to make those things happen, and focus solely on exploring and feeling your way.

The solutions, gifts and healing are already there - on the other side of the thing you least want to face.

So you know you've successfully done your Shadow Work when you find them.

Again. You will never learn how to do Shadow Work by reading about it.

It's something you need to need to EXPERIENCE.

I created a healing circle where I lead you through the process, and you can access it for free, by registering right here: