{"id":12932,"date":"2022-02-13T17:13:02","date_gmt":"2022-02-13T17:13:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/designerofreality.com\/?p=12932"},"modified":"2022-04-13T23:43:37","modified_gmt":"2022-04-13T23:43:37","slug":"soul-repair-and-retrieval","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/designerofreality.com\/2022\/02\/13\/soul-repair-and-retrieval\/","title":{"rendered":"Soul Repair and Retrieval"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<ul><li>It is rather amazing how when you send a thought out there&#8230; &#8220;what is this shadow work stuff?&#8221; they are talking about &#8211; my answer came in my email&#8230; <\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul><li>Your Shadow Self<br>by Danielle LaPorte<br>\u00a0<br>I struggled with the concept of \u201cshadow work&#8221; for so long. The term made me wince.<br>My interpretation was that \u201cshadow self\u201d was my dark side\u2014my manipulative, arrogant, endlessly needy seductress. And actually\u2026 all of that is true. In my shadow (a term for the unconscious self that we all carry), I can also find a few neuroses and this Joan Jett kind of persona lurking. And she has authority issues.<br><br>What I had very wrong about shadow work is the notion that all of my fragmented selves and unconscious behaviors needed to be \u201cmanaged\u201d and sublimated. I thought that I should identify the problematic parts of my personality and give them a stern talking to so that I could then go on to be a more spiritual, loving person. You can see how ridiculous that is. You can\u2019t holler yourself to inner peace.<br><br>Your shadow is the basement of your psyche. It\u2019s where your wounds hide, waiting for the light of your attention. It\u2019s the fear underneath our workaholism and anxiety and bravado. And what\u2019s underneath all of that? The Light of our consciousness. Our Higher Self. And thus, the medicine that heals our suffering.<br><br>Our shadow self is not an evil twin personality that we have to berate and mollify. Our shadow self is our unhealed self. And criticizing her or dragging him to another motivational workshop to crush the fear\u2026 well, I hope that sounds less appealing than it used to.<br><br>I know if you\u2019re here reading this via my friends at Commune, then you may already be doing shadow work and striving to align with your Higher Self\u2026 intentionally confronting illusions of unworthiness and worth, fears and freedom. And you might have some shadow fatigue. And you might want to cry out, \u201cWhen does the hyper critical self-analysis ever effing end?\u201d<br><br>I can tell you my friend! The hyper critical self analysis ends when you love your woundedness.<br><br>That\u2019s shadow work.<br><br>Our fear doesn\u2019t need a motivational pep talk. And there\u2019s nothing within us that&#8217;s going to improve by being shamed or incentivized with a life hack. Manipulation, arrogance, hostility, addictions\u2014these are not irreversible soul defects. They are behaviors that temporarily override our inborn integrity. These negative actions are expressions of the wounds we haven\u2019t healed. Crappy behavior is our unhealed self acting out, screaming for any kind of attention it can get.<br><br>Our fear and neurosis need compassion. Without loving kindness, the shadow self clamors louder. The fear grows, the anxiety flares, the setbacks pounce\u2014all to say, Heyyy, I\u2019m down here in the basement and I want into your heart. Pay attention to me.<br><br>And rightly so. The fears are of our creation. We crafted the mini monsters, and we can heal and mature them.<br><br>Nothing changes or goes away until you give it the love of your attention.<br><br>This sounds simple enough, but we tend to avoid our Shadow by\u2026<br>\u00a0<br>Overachieving\u2014spiritual bypassing under the guise of self-improvement. We can\u2019t tend to our pain if we\u2019re shellacking it with positivity.<br>Overworking to stay distracted from our perceived brokenness. If I just keep working hard, I\u2019ll get what I want. I will be so industrious and devoted and good, that God will deliver me\u2026 because that\u2019s how karma works, yeah? Nope.<br>Overconsumption and addictive habits\u2014from using mood-altering substances to buying stuff we don\u2019t really need in order to feel and \u201clook\u201d better\u2026 temporarily.<br>Hanging out in superficial relationships to avoid being truly seen-felt-heard or intimate.<br><br>So, rather than trying to overachieve, over-analyze, or paper over our shadow with more shadow work (yes, that\u2019s possible!) \u2014 instead we make the unconscious conscious by being gentle and understanding with it. That\u2019s the \u201clight\u201d in the &#8220;light of consciousness.&#8221;<br><br>So we say to our abandonment issues (that are always derailing our relationships to get our attention), \u201cOkay, I have compassion for you. And I have so much Love to give you, even though you\u2019ve been derailing my relationships and causing me a lot of embarrassment. I\u2019ll stop judging you and I\u2019ll be curious and compassionate when you flare up.\u201d And then your abandonment issues relax.<br><br>Shadow work is love, you see.<br><br>You could have a different conversation with your fear or shame or your punk authority issues. It might go like so:<br><br>\u201cAhhh\u2026 fear, there you are keeping me up at night\u2026 Okay, what do you want to tell me?\u201d And you listen, curiously, like you would listen to a friend in pain. And then you carry on, with your fear in your heart, not relegated to the basement of your psyche. You take your fear with you instead of sending it back to the shadow. And then your fear actually starts to calm down. And you carry on, more whole and together.<br>\u00a0<br>When I finally shone some light onto my psyche, what I found was a bruised little girl who needed more love and care. I had been neglecting her anxiety and pain on the way to Enlightenment. My inner conversation went something like this\u2026<br>\u00a0<br>I see you. I see your fear, shame, terror\u2026 and I\u2019m not judging you anymore. I\u2019m going to embrace you. In fact, I\u2019m going to listen to everything you need to say.<br>\u00a0<br>I know I\u2019ve neglected you. I\u2019ve overworked when you needed rest. I\u2019ve gone out with men who didn\u2019t fucking get it. I know it might be hard to trust me, but you can trust me now because I\u2019m here to do the work. I\u2019m going to take care of you\u2026 and I have the Great Divine Mother helping mother me, so that I can mother you.<br>\u00a0<br>So, do you need me to stop overworking so that we can rest and be well? Okay.<br>\u00a0<br>Do you need me to get into nature more, so that you can feel nourished? Okay.<br>\u00a0<br>Need me to break up with situations that are insensitive to your very deep sensitivity? Okay.<br>\u00a0<br>I\u2019m going to value your life with my compassion and love.<br>\u00a0<br>I\u2019ve got you.<br><br>Go fetch what\u2019s in your dark nature, the stuff you keep hidden from your \u201cspiritual\u201d overachiever self. (This is the work of our lives.) And let it sit next to the more obviously wonderful parts of yourself.<br><br>This is what it means to live a heart centered life, to be inclusive of yourself\u2014and of others. The shadow, the light, the fear, and the freedom.<br><br>In the heart, it all belongs. Your greatest power move is very, very gentle.<br><br>Always with Love,<br><br>P.S. I think that if we practice being more kind to ourselves, then we can melt the pain of these times. We need to have a kinder relationship with our actual feelings.<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Here is something very special if you made it this far in the post&#8230; <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>https:\/\/designerofreality.com\/VISIONS\/Soul%20Retreival%20with%20Jill%20Kuykendall.mp3  &#8211; hope you enjoy and are nourished by what you find. I will look forward to discussing with you when that opportunity arises. Cheers!<\/strong><\/p>\n<span class=\"et_bloom_bottom_trigger\"><\/span>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>It is rather amazing how when you send a thought out there&#8230; &#8220;what is this shadow work stuff?&#8221; they are talking about &#8211; my answer came in my email&#8230; Your Shadow Selfby Danielle LaPorte\u00a0I struggled with the concept of \u201cshadow work&#8221; for so long. The term made me wince.My interpretation was that \u201cshadow self\u201d was [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":12933,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/designerofreality.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12932"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/designerofreality.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/designerofreality.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/designerofreality.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/designerofreality.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12932"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/designerofreality.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12932\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12936,"href":"https:\/\/designerofreality.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12932\/revisions\/12936"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/designerofreality.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12933"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/designerofreality.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12932"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/designerofreality.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12932"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/designerofreality.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12932"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}