DENYING + HEALING OUR SHADOW
“So long as we live in a world of projection, denial, and rationalisation, we can stay safe and cozy in our own delusion”
Shadow work is hard. Yoga is hard. To look into the nature of our own delusion, our own veils, and look clearly at where they come from and what parts of us they are trying to protect – it’s painful.
I remember one of my spiritual teachers once saying ‘yoga is the hardest place you’ll ever go because there is no one to blame but yourself’.
I’ve come to a place where I am intrigued by my own delusion, and that of others - especially those of us that proclaim to be spiritual, yogic, or ‘doing the work’.
The denial of our own shadow is a form if spiritual bypassing, and I hear, too often, of many who are bypassing their own healing by proclaiming to be ‘having boundaries’. We’ve become so proficient in upholding our own self-fulfilling boundaries that we’re missing the point, and we’re missing the opportunity to heal the parts of ourselves that are ready to heal.
I’ve had two opportunities in the past week to see into my own shadow. Two friends, both men, triggered the shit out of me on separate occasions. In my anger it would have been so easy to point my finger and say “you did this to me and made me feel this way!”, but instead I took my pointy finger, placed it against my heart and asked, “How is this making me feel?”
When I sat with the stirring of emotions and the physical sensations in my body, in both situations I felt undervalued, disrespected and unsupported.
It all ties into a core belief I created when I was 6 years old that I’m unworthy, I’m a burden and I’m not good enough. You can read about how that belief was created here.
The two people involved this past week in absolutely no way were trying to make me feel that way. But I viewed their actions from a veil of illusion which caused my subconscious mind to perceive their actions as “being against me”.
More accurately, my perception of their actions poured salt onto a wound that is healing.
In this knowing, I placed my hand on my heart and acknowledge myself as a 6 year old little girl when she felt unloved. And then I used meditation, journaling, breathwork and EFT to help my little self, and me today, to feel loved, supported and valued. I helped those feelings integrate into wholeness, and carried compassion for myself, and the people that were mirroring this part of me.
In doing so, I was able to free the others of the burden of my pain because it had nothing to do with them.
They were just holding a mirror up for me to see this part of myself that felt unloved, so I could love that part of myself again.
How easy it would have been for me to project, blame, shut out, reject, and make them responsible for my feelings. But in doing so, I would have given away my power and the opportunity to grow and see clearly into a part of my subconscious mind, core belief and healing that was ready to be seen.
Instead, I have so much gratitude for them shining a light on this piece of me that needed love.
I’ve spiritually bypassed in the past - many times. Any time I felt unworthy (by my own projection and perception) I cut people off. I was convinced by my pain point that by shutting other people out I was ‘upholding a boundary’.
But in fact, I was just protecting myself from that place of fear and pain from feeling unworthy and rejected.
This is the work – it’s noticing how other people’s actions make you feel then taking your pointy blaming finger and turning it towards your own heart and being curious with questions like, “what is this teaching me about myself?”
This work, this yoga, the depths of this self-inquiry, is really really hard. To be so brutally honest with our own pain and take full responsibility for it. My god it’s hard.
Thank you to the two loving people in my world that held up that mirror (unknowingly) and allowed me to see a little clearer into the nature of my subconscious patterns and beliefs. And to all my teachers who educated me on how to take radical responsibility, and heal these parts of my self that are ready to integrate.
If you’re currently cutting people out, shutting them off, projecting, blaming – can you be willing to place your hand on your heart and ask yourself, what I am feeling right now, and what is this teaching me about myself?