Shadow work is a journey inward to reclaim the darkness and light within you.
Shadow work helps you gain an intimate understanding of your inner self. It’s the conscious undertaking of exploring the dark, interior realm of your subconscious mind and the hidden feelings and wounds that reside there. In a modern, spiritual sense, Shadow Work is about uncovering and exploring the parts of yourself that are holding you back. These parts may be preventing you from living in authentic joy. They are created over time through social conditioning, personal fears, and trauma and wounds inflicted upon you by others (from your childhood to the present day).
These shadow aspects of your personality are created when you have a traumatic emotional response to something that was deemed negative by others (and thus, seen as negative by the self). To cope, your subconscious mind locks this part of your psyche away in the “shadow.”
Shadow work is the spiritual work of uncovering and reacquainting yourself with the parts of you that you’ve been made to feel are “unacceptable”.
The discarded parts of yourself that you’ve locked up and hidden away because others (family, friends, society) have deemed them unsuitable or negative. It is the conscious reintegration of these aspects as part of your whole self.
Your shadow self and your light self are two halves to one whole. Re-integrating and reuniting these dual aspects of yourself is important for balance and alignment. After all, both pieces are a part of you and contribute to the uniqueness of who you are. Thus, the Shadow is a necessary part of your being, it is part of your wholeness.
*TIP* I recommend not using black protection stones.
Most people think to use black stones to assist when doing shadow work, such as Onyx, Obsidian, and Tourmaline. If you consider what "protection" means as it relates to your energy, you will find that your energy is actually armoring itself. Which prevents you from going deep within yourself. You will also find that the layers of energy that you need to access in shadow work will be "protected" and inaccessible. In shadow work you actually want and need to go into the deepest parts of yourself, so using a tool to keep you from doing that is actually counter productive. You are blocking yourself more with these crystals than helping with this process. You need to be aware of your shadow, not protected from it.
Best Stones to Assist You Doing Shadow Work: 1. Cordierite (also known as Iolite) 2. Labradorite 3. Both Black and Grey Moonstone 4. Larvikite 5. Seraphinite 6. Lodolite 7. Hiddenite 8. Grey Agate 9. Rutilated Quartz 10. Smoky Quartz 11. Rhodochrosite 12. Black Kyanite 13. Tiger’s eye 14. Apatite
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