Shadow Work
Earlier this year I had the opportunity to work with a shaman named Kaleo Selah and I was introduced to doing shadow work on myself. Shadow work is the process bringing to awareness hidden elements of yourself that you've had to deny or hide in order to integrate into culture and cope with trauma. These hidden parts of self are all connected to hidden core beliefs that affect our behavior, thought patterns, and emotional patterns. These beliefs are based in protection, they cause us to live in a reactionary state of being, running on auto pilot and hiding all the ways we sabotage ourselves and our relationship to the world. For anyone who's gone through considerable pain in their life it's important to become familiar with shadow work because when we experience pain we develop protection mechanisms to prevent further suffering. Allow me to use myself as an example, one of my shadow core beliefs that have me on auto pilot is the belief that my life is going to be difficult which generates a set of behaviors that work counter to my goal of wanting to heal. This belief most likely developed from being a child and realizing it was harder to do certain things because of my condition and being in those situations also led to pain. So to prevent suffering I adapted this belief to either always be prepared and braced for pain/difficulty or to not even try things in avoidance of pain/difficulty. Now knowing the origin of that belief isn't of much importance in comparison to being aware that it's there and understanding the patterns of behavior, thought, and emotions it creates in my life. I can use my want to better manage and heal from sickle cell as an example. I say I want to heal but since I hold this belief it causes me to behave counter to my goal, because I believe my life will be difficult I procrastinate, and sometimes I can be so intimidated by the belief that I don't carry out most of my ideas at all, or having a high level of perfectionism that stifles the elements of my life.
I believe this is an essential practice in my process of thriving with sickle cell. And bellow I posted examples of my shadow work. I've also attached a video explaining more and Kaleo Selah's information. It's great to be able to do this on your own but to really be initiated into the practice I highly recommend working with a professional.
A brief overview
Working with Kaleo Selah
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My personal Shadow work
This is a recording of a session I did with my friend Kate Phillip, through asking the right questions and taking the time to answer them without thinking no matter what came up we we're able to get deep into the core beliefs that are creating a lot of internal conflict for me in this stage of my life.
After the session I wrote down these hidden core beliefs and how they affect my behavior and thought patterns. Then I evaluate how each belief can be calling me to expand in a positive way, the opportunity of it, and focus on applying my hidden beliefs to those areas rather than my self sabotaging behaviors. This practice naturally leads me to new and better beliefs about life rather than repressing myself or shutting down from shame—because anything you repress or shame only appears in other areas of your life, like the saying says "what you resist persists". I also list the signs to look out for when I'm reacting from a situation based on these beliefs in a negative way, knowing the signs helps me stop, relax, and re-approach the situation using the opportunity perspectives of the belief or ask questions.
You say you want to heal and reach for these goals/dreams outside of what you've experienced so far, shadow say you have to look at yourself, where you are, how you've gotten here, and accept the truth of who you are right now first.