9/22/2014 Shadow Work Notes and Exercises

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Shadow Work Notes and Exercises

May 8, 2014 by Crystal Lynn Bell — Leave a Comment

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The nature of Shadow:

* Source energy is always on. It cannot be turned off.

* The first manifestation of Source energy is Light.
* Carl Jung defined the Shadow Self as “that which we think we are not.”
* Thoughts dictate your vibration.
* We project our shadow onto others
* You either allow source energy or you resist it. Allowing Source to course through your being is
enlightenment. Resistance to Light is shadow.
* Emotions are excellent indications to whether you are allowing Source or resisting Source. The
more positively you feel, the more you are in the Flow or in alignment. The more negatively you feel,

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the more you are in resistance.

* Your dealings with other people, thought patterns, and habits or addictions are excellent
opportunities to observe and work with your shadow.
* It is important not to attempt to crucify or annihilate the shadow because of the profound effect it
has on shaping us in ways that serve us and the world community. For example, perhaps you feel
like you are in Source when you are experiencing your positive emotions. But it is important to look
at the opposite of your positive emotion to see your shadow or where your positive emotion or
behavior came from. For example, if you are really a generous soul who gives of their time, you
might say that the opposite of generosity is miserly– someone who guards their time and feels like
time is money or it’s a-wasting! Your generous nature might have come from a shadow experience
where someone neglected you and told you that you weren’t worthy of their time. Maybe your
parent put work above your school performances; or maybe you were the last kid to be picked up
after school because your parent couldn’t get there. These examples are the positive effects that
Shadow can have on us.

Shadow is turning away from the source.

* It is resistance to the higher Source energy.

* You have the choice to be in the flow or to resist it.
* Shadow lives in the unconscious mind and permeates it like a weed.
* Every negative experience is an opportunity to learn more about your shadow.
* Whenever we judge, we are in shadow.
*
Shadow work is identifying and releasing the thoughts and beliefs which are holding you back from
aligning with your Self. Shadow work is

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* Finding resistance within your mind.

* Discovering the hooks that prevent you from flowing.
* Helping to integrate the ego
* Recognizing self-sabotaging behaviors
* Achieving a genuine self-acceptance
* Releasing negative emotions
* Freeing ourselves from guilt and shame
* Recognizing the projections that color our opinions of others
* Healing our relationship with ourselves and with others
* Opening ourselves to our creativity, our inner teacher, our intuition and our abundance
* Opening ourselves to self love and ascension
* Unifies
* Shadow work helps release us from suffering
* Shadow work sets you free so you can experience everything with new eyes.
* Shadow work is a process. It has no specific goal or outcome, but it is important to be present in it
as a process.
* Shadow work is the partner to Inner Child work.
Exercises:

I. Rooting out Core Beliefs

The core belief is the belief that is functioning behind every thought, emotion or action. To examine
this belief, use a topic or idea that is ‘hot’ for you and ask yourself the following questions:

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* What does this mean to me?

For example, I have a great fear of dirty restrooms.What does it mean to me?
It means that the person in charge of the restroom doesn’t care about the importance of hygiene,
beauty, and safety.
* Why does this meaning seem so important?
It seems so important because there is no need to let the grime get so out of control.
Why is this so important?
This is so important because dirty toilets are harmful and carry bacteria and disease.
Why is this so important?
Because we have the ability to prevent bacteria and disease.
Why is this so important?
Because bacteria and disease can kill.
Why is this so important?
Because I don’t want to die from a dirty toilet.
Do I really think I’m going to die from a dirty toilet? Well, it seems like it because my reaction to
dirty toilets is so strong. Let me look a little further…
I wrote initially that “there is no need to let the grime get so out of control.” What I really feel is that
the grime is not the issue so much as the person who is letting the grime get out of control is the
issue. Also, the person who made the grime is the issue.
Why is this so important?
Because people should care about the toilet.
Why is this so important?
Because people don’t care about the toilet.
Why is this so important?
Because people don’t care about me.
OH. Now this gives me an emotional charge that I can feel deeply. My underlying core belief is that

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people don’t care about me and this is what is brought up for me when I see a dirty toilet.
Where did this belief come from?

Once you have gotten to what feels like a core belief, take a few minutes to meditate on the initial
incident that was the start of this belief system. Look at your early childhood experiences and
explore if there was an incident or situation that might be the source of this belief system. This
exercise is a way to get to the core belief that is functioning behind your shadow actions, behaviors
and expressions. In the above example, when I began to explore my childhood memories, I was
taken to a time when I was introduced to my new ‘step-family.’ I was confronted with a four
bedroom townhouse that was absolutely filthy from the ground up and I was made to clean the
place from top to bottom. It was a traumatic experience because I had never witnessed anything like
that before and that the filthy home became my responsibility at the age of 9 caused me to
fragment– not understanding my truth and the reality in which I was living.

II. Finding the Suppressed Self

When we are in a situation or dealing with a person where our shadow self or resistance rises, on an
unconscious level we are experiencing an extreme emotion or fear. It is from this extreme emotion
that the shadow or resistant thoughts are being produced. The thoughts onto which we latch are
determining the frequency at which we are vibrating. When we recognize the resistance, we need to
find a vibrational counterpoint to raise our vibration back up to the frequency of flow. The tendency
is to try to change the situation or to change the other person, however, this is not a long term or
effective solution since our self is the source of the resistance and our core belief is the root cause of
the dis-ease. This exercise helps us understand the fear that is the root cause of the problem, as well
as, to discover an hidden aspect of ourselves that desires expression.
On a sheet of paper, draw six columns.

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Use complete sentences and describe your problem or situation

Column 1: Begin with a judgment (something to which you respond with resistance). Write down
everything that bugs you about the situation or person. Express freely why it irritates you.
Column 2: Look at yourself from outside of yourself and write down how you might be judged
critically in the situation. If your judgement is about another person, put yourself in their shoes and
write down how they might judge you. If your judgment is about an activity, see yourself in the
shoes of the person who does this activity.
Column 3: Take the judgments you made in Column #1 and write them out in terms of the worst
possible extreme. These words should start to give you an indication of what you are avoiding.
Column 4: Take the judgments made by the other person in Column #2 and write those out in terms
of the worst possible extreme. These words should start to give you an indication of what you are
afraid.

Column 5: Take the qualities or the ideas found in Column #1 and explore how your life would
improve if you took on some of those qualities. For example, might you be happier if you actually
had some of the qualities you fear or resist?

Column 6: Look at Column #5 and see what sticks out to you. See if you can find an identity which
can be found in the words in Column #5. This is a suppressed aspect of yourself. The Suppressed
Self is the identity you really are, but gets suppressed by shadow and shows up as resistance (or
fear, anxiety, desperation) in your thoughts, behaviors and actions.

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When you are in a situation where we are experiencing shadow or resistance, you are experiencing
the feelings in Column #3 (the extreme of Column #1.) At some point in life, you became so afraid of
the items in Column #3 that you developed a dominant self and a suppressed self. The dominant self
is the one who makes the judgments. The suppressed self is the one that was in existence before the
dominant shadow self took over. Repetitive reactions of the dominant self created neuropathways in
your brain that made your reaction to the situation or person automatic and the result is an
imbalance between the dominant shadow self and the suppressed self.

Do you want to express your Suppressed Self? This is a part of the Authentic You.

Next Steps:

Write down the ways you don’t allow your suppressed self expression. Take time to really reflect on
your behavioral choices and journal these activities.

Write down the ways you can let that self express itself in your life.

Express your Suppressed Self

III. Recognizing Resistance– a journaling exercise

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Write down one of the situations that cause your shadow self or resistance to rise. It can be a
person or a situation.

Write down what it is that is making you a vibratory match to that person or the situation. Vibratory
match is when you judge a situation and stay latched to that judgment. For example, when you are
driving and get cutoff by another car. You respond with a negative thought which lowers your
vibration. Latching on to the thought lowers your vibration to the level at which you judged the event
and reinforces your behavior. Releasing the thought from your mind and body begins to elevate your
frequency.

Consider why you might have created this situation and what you can learn from it. Write down
your thoughts.

Reflect and write down the root cause of the resistance. You can use another one of the exercises to
help you get to the root cause.

Reflect and see other circumstances under which this energy manifests in your life.

Develop an awareness of your states that lets you recognize when the root cause of this resistance is
at work.

Get a Reading Now! Clic k here

IV. Shadow Work Guided Imagery

(See SC Shadow Work Guided Imagery)

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V Art Therapy Shadow Exercise

Draw three people who you admire and write the traits that you admire beside them. Next draw and
write the traits of three people who irritate you. Now write: In me are the following traits… and
copy down all the traits in the first group. Next write: In me are also the following traits…and write
down all the traits in the second group.

The truth is we contain all expressions that humans are capable of. All parts of us do not have to be
acted on, but they do have to be acknowledged. I may never commit acts of violence, but I can’t
pretend that the capability to do so is not in me. If I didn’t, I would be creating shadows not light.

Sha r e this:

♥ 3 ♥ 2 ♥  ♥  ♥  ♥  ♥  More ♥

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Crystal Lynn Bell Follow 33

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Thursday 6:30AM Homefun Healing the Shadow and the Mirror Weekly Call 12/14/2013
Assignments of Relationship by Matthew Blais In "A Course in Mircles Community
In "Thursdays 6:30AM" In "Resources" Blog"

Filed Under: Becoming Spiritcentric, Blog & Daily Inspiration, Fears, Intuition, Law of Attraction, Loving One's Self, The Road to Union
Tagged With: shadow work
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