What Is Shadow Work & Why Is Everyone Talking About It?
Ladies and gentlemen, pardon me while I rant.
Please let me direct your attention toward the Light.
I listened to how life coaches spin “shadow work,” and it makes me crazy. I’ve heard so, so, so many “coaches” and “healers” speak on and about “shadow work.” The term originated with Swiss psychiatrist and psychoanalyst Carl Jung.
According to Jung, shadow work comprises the aspects of one’s personality that are deemed shameful, unacceptable, and ugly. It can be envy, jealousy, rage, lust, desire for power, or the wounds incurred in childhood – all of those darker aspects of ourselves we keep hidden.
Jung believed everyone has a dark side to their personality.
He maintained that when the human shadow is shunned, it tends to sabotage our lives. Repressing or suppressing one’s shadow can result in addictions, low self-esteem, mental illness, chronic illnesses, and various neuroses.
That’s all well and good coming from Jung. But his concept of shadow work has been hijacked.
Many life-coach, dark-energy healers, and marketing-sales-pitch people offer to guide clients through healing the shadow or darkness within others, which scares me.
Here’s why:
I’ve seen people claim they have mastery of shadow work when they don’t.
What does that mean? It means they can kick a hornet nest, but no way to appease the bees. Or they are beginner healers who can access the dark, but have no way to heal, add Light, universal love, or CLOSE THE DOOR so other dark entities can’t come through.
When a “healer” cannot manage dark energy, terrible things happen. Healers claiming to be able to lead another person to health get depressed, bad things start happening, and they can’t control what happens next.
It takes a special kind of healer to help a person remove dark energy once it attaches to you. Trust me, I know. I’ve dealt with dark energy and needed the help of extraordinary healers to free myself from it.
Healing is light work. Lightwork isn’t all butterflies and fairy wings. It’s a process. It has stages that lead up to your healing and happiness. What do shadows have to do with that?
I’ve repeatedly seen people claim they can help people move through “shadow work” by wrapping self-love language around whatever the shadows tell them you need to hear. That is not healing. That is manipulation.
I’ve seen shadow work turn good people into depressed people, turn people against others, and I’ve seen shadow work destroy friendships, partnerships, and relationships. When these practitioners of Jungian shadow work begin coaching, they plant a seed in a person’s mind and heart that some part of a person is dark, wicked, and wrong.
In reality, they are gaining your trust, discovering your greatest insecurities, and using them against you.
Energetically this feels like the worst kind of manipulation.
This energetic contract is like candy for dark energy. As a woman who connects to the spiritual realms and has felt the infinite love in the world for people, I can’t get behind this morally. How can you build healing from a place of shame?
I cut cords, heal the past and present, and always cope with the darker elements during healing sessions. You don’t have to welcome darkness into your life to heal your pain, shame, or guilt.
It’s always Light that heals.
Do you have questions about shadow work verse Light work? Ask me!
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