In the spiritual community you often hear a lot about “love and light” and “manifesting happiness”, and other positive affirmations about moving forward on your spiritual path.
This kind of positivity is undoubtedly a beautiful thing, and there is no argument against the fact that the world needs much more of it right now.
But it is incredibly important to not neglect the darker side of spirituality, particularly when we are talking about the process of deep self-inquiry.
We all have a shadow side: the things that we are ashamed of, our demons, our secrets, the patterns we can’t break, habits and addictions, fears, dark thoughts, and much more.
From a psychological perspective, the shadow is that part of us that the ego judges or rejects, and many of us even mentally separate ourselves from our shadow side in order to protect the persona that we are looking to create and project both to ourselves and to others.
But it is through the exploration of our shadow that we can create deep and lasting transformation in our lives, the alchemy that happens in the transition from the dark into the light.
All of my own shamanic teachers from every tradition talk about confronting your shadow, or “owning your own s**t” as the path to true healing (which is also how one becomes a healer themselves btw, through their own journey of healing).
Our past, including our past lives, formed and created our shadow side by way of traumatic life experiences that have remained within us energetically, only unhealed.
Often those unhealed traumas can be carried within us for many lifetimes.
Unfortunately, many of us can be tempted to bypass the work we have to do exploring our shadow, but it is by working with our shadow side that we can experience profound levels of healing.
It is courageous and brave work to stare into the abyss of your own darkness, but it is also incredibly rewarding and beautiful.
And, it is an ongoing process, as we have many past lives and can always dig even deeper and explore more.
Past life work is about exploring your shadow.
