Shadow Work
My Process
My husband triggered me last week.
I went into full on panic/anger mode. He used our debit card to buy something and said he’d be reimbursing the main account. Literal panic – my neck tightened, my stomach lurched, and I saw red.
Holy shit, why was feeling this way? There was NO reason in the world for me to have this kind of a gut reaction to what he said. I remained very calm, didn’t react outwardly. But inside, I was in a tailspin.
But why?
I had to figure it out. I’m all about peace, love and positivity and here I am having violent angry girl thoughts – about my own husband. WTAF
I pulled out my journal and free wrote. Until I wrote a statement that clicked inside “I don’t feel safe having money”. I had a feeling I knew where this was going. I put my pen down and sat in quiet meditation. No music, no guided tape. Just silence.
Let me back up a bit – when you embark on a spiritual journey you learn about something called Shadow Work. Doesn’t that sound ominous? Maybe even a little scary. Truth is, it’s just a fancy term for facing the darker aspects of ourselves, past versions of us we’d like to pretend aren’t really there. We are, however, the sum of all our experiences. The good, the bad and the ugly.
And shit, some of mine were ugly!
I know it seems easy and even preferable to pretend that old you doesn’t exist anymore. But unrecognized aspects of ourselves will play havoc on our lives as they hover over us like nasty little specters. 
And isn’t that basically the beginning of psychological thrillers? Abby Coolgirl leaves her past far behind her and reinvents herself, until one day a call beckons her back home and well, we all know what happens next.
Lately I’ve been struggling, falling into old unhelpful patterns. Not because of the incident with my husband, it’s been a slow steady build. Just because I had a spiritual awakening and my focus is almost always on raising my vibration (my emotions) doesn’t mean that I don’t fall into the dark pit from time to time. I’ve said before, (the reason I think the idea behind Toxic Positivity is utter nonsense, you can read about that here.) it’s not about being positive all the time, it’s about having the tools and techniques to quickly shift out of the dark. It simply came to a head when my husband made that comment, and I felt the immediate gut reaction. A deep yucky feeling in my solar plexus. I was triggered, hard. I held back my emotions though, kept my cool because of course there wasn’t an actual problem. So why did I feel that way?
Journaling is always the first thing I should do when I don’t understand the feelings I’m having. I say ‘should’ because I still sometimes forget how much better that makes me feel. This time though, I went right to journaling because this didn’t feel right. I wrote and I wrote, letting everything come out, even if it didn’t seem related. After that I meditated in silence (no music or guides) I didn’t want anything influencing the message that might come through. It didn’t take long to see ‘her’. My old self. My twenty something self. The one that dated guys who always seemed to need the exact amount of money I had in savings. There were a few of them, actually – so I’ll just squish them together and call them Boris for the sake of simplicity. I never met anyone name Boris.
My sweet insecure, dopey, self, believed if I helped in this way that made me a good person. That would keep me from being alone. I compromised everything I was to please someone else.
Ugh! Yuck, haha. This is not an easy trip down memory lane.
Proving my love, that’s what I thought. But when this started to hurt both financially and emotionally, I started to spend my money so I wouldn’t ‘have’ it to give it. I couldn’t say no with conviction if I had the money. So, a pattern was born – I felt unsafe having money.
Wooo, girl. This makes me dizzy remembering it.
But THIS is part of the journey, facing our pasts – our Shadows. Right here is where all the difference is made in shadow work, because it’s very easy to fall into two camps of thought (And I went deep into both of them):
#1: Self Flagellation Mode – I got mad, so mad at myself over the years thinking about how stupid I was. How could I have been SO stupid. I wasn’t raised to be that stupid. I’d get all hot and flushed with anger and embarrassment at myself which left me – stuck & angry & resentful.
AND
#2: Victim Mode – How could Boris do that to me? Couldn’t he see I was giving him everything? He’s such an asshole. Blah, Blah, Blah. Which left me – stuck & angry & resentful.
About how useful is feeling stuck, angry and resentful? Not very. Both scenarios sucked.
To dissolve this shadow I had to shine a big, bright light on this (and for some reason tell everyone I know about it, Ah hahahahaha), these scenarios that played out in my mind over the years are like two huge pimples that needed to be eradicated! I had to get super honest with myself. I did those things, I lived it, I run through as many memories of that time as I can while I meditate for a while. – I see that version of me standing in front and center in my mind, Old Vicki, I see her in all her young, lost, messy glory. I see her exactly as she was; she made a ton of mistakes and that’s okay. It’s time to forgive her. Forgive her for going about relationships in all the wrong ways. I forgive her for everything she’s done that I can and cannot remember right now. I may even have to do this exercise again later. And that’s okay. I’ll forgive her all over again.
Right now, she needs me to see her as she was, I imagine hugging her and thanking her, loving her with every fiber of my being and then I release her. Because if it weren’t for her, I wouldn’t be who I am today. She did something extraordinary – she learned.
Shadow work sounds scarier than it is. And you may not always want to face who you were, but the longer and deeper you bury an older version of yourself the more it can affect your current situation. It can rob you of joy you can be feeling in relationships, your family life and in your job.
Once I forgave her and set her free, I was FREE.
