Episode 8: The Power of Shadow Work: Embracing Your Inner Light
Mar 28, 2024
In this episode, Colleen St.Michaels discusses the importance of shadow work and how it can help us grow and expand spiritually. She explains that shadow work involves exploring the hidden parts of ourselves and bringing them into consciousness. By shining a light on our shadows, we can release the density and heaviness we have been carrying and create a lighter, more enlightened environment. Colleen shares personal experiences and provides practical exercises for listeners to engage in their shadow work. She emphasizes the power of self-reflection, forgiveness, and self-acceptance in healing and transformation.
Key Takeaways:
- Shadow work is a practice of exploring and investigating the hidden parts of ourselves and bringing them into consciousness.
- Shadows are our unaddressed emotions and aspects that we have suppressed or ignored.
- By shining a light on our shadows and embracing them with love and acceptance, we can release the heaviness and create a lighter, more enlightened state of being.
- Shadow work involves self-reflection, forgiveness, and self-acceptance. It requires us to confront our fears, vulnerabilities, and limiting beliefs.
- Engaging in shadow work leads to personal growth, healing, and a deeper connection with our intuition and spiritual path.
Quotes:
- “When we can allow ourselves to detach from the attachment of what we thought life should be or what our thoughts are, it should be this way, it should be that way, we're now blocking ourselves from actually receiving the next coordinate that's coming through our intuitive impressions." - Colleen St.Michaels
- "We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest and live in the glory that is within us. It is not just some of us, it is in everyone." - Marianne Williamson
- Your response stays within your control. Others' reactions are their responsibility, and they bear the weight of their wounds. These wounds shouldn't become lashes that leave lasting marks on us. Instead, it is our responsibility to begin the process of healing them." - Colleen St.Michaels
- “We cannot manifest the things we desire if we allow the parts of ourselves that need love and healing to keep creating stories of unworthiness within us, preventing us from accepting them.”-Colleen
Summary:
In the journey of personal growth and spiritual evolution, it is essential to engage in shadow work. This practice involves exploring our darker, hidden aspects and bringing them into consciousness. Just as every home has dark rooms, our inner home also has shadows. These shadows are the parts of ourselves that we have pushed aside, ignored, or deemed unworthy of attention. However, these shadows hold valuable insights and lessons to help us grow and expand.
Often, we live our lives based on the pages of a story that we were taught to live, influenced by past events or societal expectations. However, true growth and evolution require us to detach from these attachments and be open to new possibilities. When we hold tightly onto what we think should be, we block ourselves from receiving intuitive guidance and hinder our expansion.
The Power of Self-Reflection
Shadow work is a self-reflective practice that allows us to investigate and discover what lies in our unconscious shadows. It is a process of bringing light into consciousness and releasing the density and heaviness that we have been carrying. By shining a light on our shadows, we can shrink them and create space for the lightness and airiness of life to surface.
Our shadows are unique to each of us, shaped by our experiences and influenced by our early years. Psychologist Carl Jung was a pioneer in the field of shadow work, and his insights have paved the way for integrating psychology and spirituality. Shadow work involves exploring emotions such as fear, frustration, resentment, greed, jealousy, and embarrassment. These emotions often stem from past experiences or societal conditioning that taught us to suppress or ignore them.
The Process of Shadow Work
Creating a list of shadow emotions that resonate with you is helpful when engaging in shadow work. Take a few moments to reflect on what triggers you and ask yourself how you were taught to feel these emotions. Society often emphasizes achievement and success without teaching us how to navigate and process our emotions. As a result, we tend to suppress or ignore them, leading to unconscious control over our lives.
A powerful exercise for shadow work is what I call Soul Scribbling. Set a timer for five minutes and write without judgment or censorship. Let yourself feel and express the emotions associated with a specific shadow. Once you have written, crumple the paper, shred it, or burn it as a symbolic act of releasing the heaviness. Then recite the Ho'oponopono prayer, a Hawaiian forgiveness prayer that lets you let go of guilt, shame, resentment, and other negative emotions.
Embracing Your Superpower
Shadow work is an ongoing process of growth and expansion. It helps us uncover and heal the wounds holding us back. By investigating our shadows, we can release the blocks that prevent us from stepping into our true potential. For example, Colleen shares her experience of doing shadow work around her ADHD. She discovered that her ADHD had a shadow of unaddressed emotions, shame, and feelings of not being good enough. By embracing her ADHD as a superpower, she was able to overcome the limitations it had imposed on her life.
Shadow work is not about eradicating our shadows but acknowledging and integrating them into our being. It is about accepting all parts of ourselves, even the ones we may have deemed unworthy or shameful. Doing so creates a sense of wholeness and brightens our light.
Embracing the Light Within
In conclusion, shadow work is a powerful practice that allows us to embrace our inner light. By shining a light on our shadows and bringing them into consciousness, we can release the heaviness and create a sense of lightness and flow in our lives. Shadow work helps us connect with our intuition, heal past wounds, and remove blockages that may prevent us from reaching our true potential.
As we embark on the journey of shadow work, we must remember that we are not alone. We have the support of our spiritual teams, angels, and loved ones in spirit who are always guiding and assisting us. By embracing our shadows and integrating them into our being, we heal ourselves and inspire others to do the same. Marianne Williamson beautifully said, "As we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same."
So, let us embark on this journey of shadow work, embracing our shadows, and allowing our inner light to shine brightly. By doing so, we create a world where authenticity, vulnerability, and self-acceptance are celebrated, and where we can all live the pages in between the stories we want to read.
Connect with Colleen (your host):
Join us in our Facebook group “Ask Colleen”
Download her Spiritual Hygiene Handbook
Colleen St. Michaels is a renowned Intuitive Spiritual Teacher specializing in Intuitive Development. She is a coach, motivational speaker, author, and a pioneer in the Spiritual Healing community, often called the healer's healer. Colleen works with individuals and groups, teaching tools to help them reach their highest potential emotionally, spiritually, professionally, and physically.
She has worked with thousands of clients for over a decade, witnessing their transformations through her methods.
Colleen has appeared on daytime talk shows and numerous podcasts like The Badass Manifester. As a professionally trained and certified Hypnotherapist and Certified Intuitive and Angelic Therapist, her passion is helping coaches, lightworkers, and wellness professionals develop a deep trust in their intuition. Hence, they make the biggest impact possible.
Colleen's guidance from the Peace Warrior Deck is a source of inspiration and insight in every episode. Her passion for providing tools to shift confusion to clarity inspired her to create these guidance cards to support your daily journey.
She is also the author of The Other Side of Addiction, a Self Help Book and Interactive Workbook. It aims to help people who have experienced the loss of a loved one to addiction and the subsequent grief. Along with these accomplishments, Colleen is a mother to her two beautiful children and her golden retriever, Pierogi. Colleen's favorite place is in nature, whether sitting, walking, or daydreaming by the sea.
To learn how to work with Colleen, visit: https://www.colleenstmichaels.com/work-with-me
