#shadowwork shadowself introspection blackmoonstone dreamwork

[inkblotsandeggshells]

Me and my Shadow

Hey everyone,

Lee had encouraged me to talk about my experiences with shadow work. So I decided to do so here. It would be a long blog to describe how my shadow work process has gone, but I can give a few details as to how it helps me and what tools I use for the purpose.

I should probably give a little bit of a back story first.

I grew up in a religious family, so I had never been encouraged to dig deep into my shadow and my inner darkness until I became an adult and moved to Georgia for a job. Regardless, my shadow would show itself through different aspects of my personality, from my anxiety and over-sensitivity as a child  to my pride and judgmental attitude as a teenager.  I think it also came out in my fear of violence, gore, and the creepiness attached to the holiday Halloween.  As a kid, whenever my mom took me to a grocery store during October, I would cling to her side with my eyes closed so I wouldn’t have to look at the lines of masks in the aisles. If I looked at anything that scared me for too long, the images would get stuck in my head and it would lead to nightmares.

Even as an adult, I still don’t enjoy horror in any form of media, and although I enjoy action movies, the violence in dramas bothers me more than a superhero battle. I think this is because in dramas, the kind of violence displayed there can be more likely to occur in daily life. You’d be more likely to see people yelling and hitting each other than see a man smash through a brick wall with his bare hands.

However, when I moved to Georgia and met more women who have similar sensitivities, they taught me a few different ways of raising your vibration to maintain a healthier state of being. The topic of shadow work eventually came up. Here’s how I would define shadow work: it’s the process of recognizing and reconciling those unlikable parts of you, the parts that have been ignored or rejected for one reason or another. In my case, being a quiet, anxious girl who closes her eyes to scary pictures was somewhat unpopular. If I cried or walked away from a scene in a movie that distressed me, I’d get laughed at, because my mom and siblings saw it as me taking it too seriously. Additionally, I also had a judgmental streak and saw myself as being superior to other people who weren’t raised Christian, or who didn’t fit my definition of a Christian.

Shadow works helps me come face to face with those aspects of myself. While I am capable of doing so much incredible good, I am equally capable of doing evil. I’m not totally sure if I believe in past lives, but I do know that in this current one, I’ve both helped and hurt people, accidentally or on purpose.

During my education in magic and energetic vibrations, the women I met in Georgia taught me how certain crystals can help with shadow work.  For example, Lee encouraged me to use a selenite crystal to help bring some balance to my darker energies, so the nightmares would be less troubling.  I now have two, a rough one and a smooth one, and each night I put it under my pillow to help improve my sleep and give me better dreams.

Along with the selenite, I put at least one other crystal under my pillow. Most of the time, it’s a moonstone, because the energy is gentler and more soothing than previous crystals I’ve tried. For example, a gabbro or Mystic Merlinite would give me headaches if I kept it on me for too long. SO the moonstone has been a breath of fresh air.

However, for specific shadow work, I’ve also enjoyed using a black moonstone. I bought one when I was in Portland, and it has a darker coloring than a normal moonstone, hence the name. I’ve used it to meditate with on nights of the new moon to help me acknowledge where growth still needs to happen and what I may be ignoring about myself. As a dream crystal, it can be even more affective for dream recall than my normal moonstone, though that may be because it’s used less frequently.

Lastly but never least, if I really want to work on crap that needs to be addressed, I ask for help from guides.  I found out about one of them while I was in Sandy Springs, taking a free class on tarot and oracles cards. At the time, Lee has brought in a deck with heavy Celtic Druid influence that featured spirit animal guides. The other students and I got to flip through a few of these cards and the picture of the Boar stood out to me. I admit I was a little bummed that it wasn’t a more popular spirit animal, like a hawk or a wolf.  But the image of the Boar still fascinated me. When we meditated later during the class, that same animal appeared again in my daydream. This one was huge, standing as tall as my shoulder, and very dark, with what looked like a gold ring on its nose. After talking more with Lee about it, we deduced that he was specifically meant to guide me with my shadow self, to help me see who I really am when all the facades are removed. Sometimes those truths hurt to learn, and at other times they sound less impactful than they are, at first.  But the Boar gives me courage to face what scares me about me, and so much maturation has resulted from that, thanks to his help.

It’s been about a year since I started the journey, but I can’t say that I’m totally healed after working on my shadow self. For one thing, I still struggle to forgive people who shamelessly hurt me. I also tend to run painful memories through my head over and over again, filtering out the healthy moments shared with those who truly love me. I do like some darker books and movies, but I still have a limit with how much horror and eeriness I expose myself to.  It takes patience and courage to work on your shadow, and you may still have things to heal for years to come. But it’s still a part of you, and it needs to be acknowledged and loved, as much as any other part of you.

So how have you worked with your shadow over the years? What have you had to face about yourself? How have you begun to love those rejected parts of yourself?