Shadow work involves healing childhood wounds, past life karma and other energy restrictions. Shadow work can rapidly accelerate your personal and spiritual evolution. This post ends with links to shadow work resources, all available in the United States and many available internationally.
This post is excerpted and slightly edited from my Sept. 1, 2016 Solar Eclipse interpretation. If you’d like to learn a bit about my shadow work journey, you’re welcome to read it all. If you just want the shadow work links, click here.
I lived in fear of the shadow work I needed to do for my self-healing for most of my life. With my move from Oklahoma to Asheville, North Carolina in 2001 to live my dream at the age of 41, I gradually started to face the darkness that was blocking my inner light.
At that time, publicly proclaiming myself to be a professional singer-songwriter, instead of the corporate foodservice territory manager I’d been for 15 years, seemed like a big deal. After I released music as a vocation, identifying myself as a professional astrologer, a widely scorned and denigrated profession, seemed even gutsier.
I had to step deep into the shadows to face the hyper-intense fast-track healing and awakening catalyzed by shamanic ayahuasca and San Pedro ceremonies … and then to start doing the professional work as a shamanic healer and awakening activator that spontaneously emerged as a result. I stepped into the roles of healer and awakener very cautiously (Virgo Moon). From the start, I always checked in with my clients to make sure they were genuinely being helped by the energies that flowed through me.
During the early years of this process, I had to face more than my own internal shadowland of doubt and uncertainty. I also had shadows cast at me from people I loved and respected. My romantic partner at the time repeatedly questioned whether I should be calling myself a shamanic healer when, in her opinion, I didn’t possess the necessary skill set. And a shaman whose ayahuasca ceremonies I was attending, and whom I profoundly respected, more tactfully suggested that it might be better to keep my professional focus on astrology.
I seriously contemplated their feedback, but something kept me plugging away. Dogged persistence (Capricorn Stellium in the 6th house) has always been my style when I love something, and my skills have always improved over time. If the personal feedback and public testimonials I’m now getting for my healing and awakening work are any indication, then I can confidently say that I’m consistently helping people with what I do. There are undoubtedly more capable healers and awakeners out there. But as long as I’m called to be of service in these areas, I’ll keep doing the best I can.
I expect that I’ll have many more patches of shadowland to cross. But I have faith that the divine help I need to cross them will be there, just as it has always been.
How Does My Story Relate to You?
Each of us has a unique shadowland. We each choose our own time and method of crossing it, or can try to avoid shadowland entirely. (I don’t think avoidance is a workable long-term strategy, but we do live in a free will zone!)
You can limit yourself to doing your shadow work only when circumstances trigger it. Or you can make a lifestyle of proactively facing your shadow in order to accelerate your personal and spiritual evolution. The faster you peel layers off the Great Onion of Consciousness, the brighter the light at the center shines forth! If you’re a fast-tracker like me, here are a few of the many modalities you might benefit from exploring:
- Shamanic ceremonies
- Holotropic Breathwork or one of its many variants
- The Work of Byron Katie
- Hypnosis
- Nonviolent Communication
- ManKind Project (men only)
- Woman Within (women only)
- Group or individual sessions with a certified Shadow Work Facilitiator
- EASE (my Embodied Awakening Support Experience), weekly events via phone or web by donation
- Shamanic Healing sessions with me
Hello Ben.
This is the first time I’ve read about shadow work. I find it so interesting. Thank you so much. After reading about shadow work, I have to get busy and do yhis. I have been struggling with life lately. I now know, that with shadow work, I’ll hopefully be able get free of the pain of the past. I’ve been struggling hard with my life for one yr staight. Now I kinda know what may help to pinpoint the past, bring it to light, and be free of the pain of childhood scars. I’m in fear of letting go of this yucky feeling too. Ttys
Hi Ben: thank you for the resources; however, I’m surprised you didn’t mention Jung, the originator of the term “the Shadow”. Just about anything written by him involves Shadow work, so that if you read his writings, you will have a better idea of how the Shadow works and how to dance with it gracefully.
I hope you consider adding Jung to your list or perhaps starting a reading list on Shadow work? Alice Miller, a Jungian therapist, is also good on this, if you haven’t read “For Your Own Good” I highly recommend it.