Shadow Work: The Subconscious and Core Beliefs
Life is beautiful in the way that it flawlessly orchestrates the unearthing of your deepest wounds and traumas.
As desperately as we try to avoid the darker aspects of ourselves life always finds a way to make us face them over and over again until we learn what we need to learn from them and then it is on to the next layer. Physical existence is the playground of growth that our souls chose to inhabit at this time. It is a special time to be here. The frequency of the planet is raising and with it new realities and possibilities are being born.
The catch? To embody and act from these higher frequencies we must let go of older core beliefs that hold heavier frequencies that no longer serve us. These older beliefs are what are commonly referred to as the uglier bits of the darker subconscious.
Our core beliefs determine what thoughts we attract in to our life. The thoughts we have attracted manifest certain emotions that we feel within and the combination of the thoughts and emotions create our vibration. Our vibration is what creates our experience of reality.
Essentially, our core beliefs are directly responsible for our experience of reality. If we have core beliefs like ‘I’m not good enough’ ‘I’m not worthy’ ‘I don’t deserve love’ than we attract a reality where these beliefs are reinforced.
The difficulty with these stubborn core beliefs is that even after we think we have faced them and let them go they keep coming back and sometimes with even more potency. Ultimately, this is a really good thing and is an indicator that you awareness and vibration are expanding, otherwise you would still be unconscious of these beliefs.
If you noticed, I never wrote Shadow Work Part 2. Every time I sat down to write the post it felt like something was missing. I wanted to share but my heart wasn’t in it.
Not too long ago I had a friend email me about the fear of allowing the dark recesses of the mind to come up. He felt as if maybe those ugly bits were buried deep in the subconscious for a reason and he was better off leaving them unprovoked. I wanted to provide a helpful response but nothing came to me. I knew the intellectual dynamics of working with the darkness of the subconscious but I wasn’t finding a meaningful way to communicate it to him, so I just left the question temporarily.
I wanted to dive deep in to the darkness with him but I didn’t feel I was prepared enough to navigate those buried aspects of ourselves. I had worked with my own subconscious ugly bits but not in a way that I was completely conscious of. I feel like the Kundalini was really guiding me through the process early in my awakening while I was just an idle witness.
Now, as I’m writing this, I’m coming out of one of the most intense encounters with the darkness of my subconscious that I have ever experienced. The energy bursting forth from my shadow was so heavy, constricting and disorienting that I felt like a zombie for nearly a week. I was completely disconnected from my higher self and had unknowingly given away all of my power.
Out of necessity I reconnected with somebody who used to be a huge part of my life. Reconnecting with this person triggered an avalanche of old wounds and traumas that I was almost completely unconscious of and not in any way prepared for.
It was like a geyser of suppressed energy in the deep recesses of my subconscious was released within me.
The feelings of anxiety, fear and worry reverberated powerfully through my being for the better part of four days. I kept closing my eyes and following the feelings, not resisting them, and allowing them to transform on their own.
At one point I came in to the realization that this was how I was feeling for the better part of my 20’s. I wasn’t even aware at the time of how much fear and anxiety were running my life. The feelings were so persistent that I thought they were normal.
I had this deep urge to react negatively towards what was happening. I so wanted to blame how I was feeling on ‘the other’ person. I just knew I was feeling really good and free until I had reconnected with this person so obviously they must be the reason I was feeling so awful.
But of course, I knew that this couldn’t be true and that no one ever asserts anything in to our life. Somehow I had attracted it. Of course blaming always feels easier in the moment than introspection.
While the strong feelings of negativity were coursing through my body and the fearful stories, images and projections were running on a loop in my mind I concluded that I must be experiencing this because life is giving me what I need. Something within me was resisting ‘what is’.
And when we are giving resistance to ‘what is’ the resistance makes it a lesson, otherwise it is just an experience.
I began to realize why so many of us are terrified of the darkness found deep within. The shame, guilt and isolation I felt were almost too much. I got just as much of my darkness as I was able to process and integrate.
That is the other thing we learn when our shadow reveals itself; our being is un-harmable. We try to escape our darkness in a bid to protect ourselves. But in actuality nothing needs protecting. Through our protective measures we only serve to keep ourselves enslaved to the core beliefs that we are running from.
The mind has made a scary story about our ugly bits that exist deep within the subconscious to keep us from exploring them and realizing that they exist for our growth and expansion. The ego feels like it would be obliterated if it were to allow all of those darker aspects to surface.
All that is needed is that we observe our core beliefs and become present with the feelings and emotions that they are bringing forth. Just the act of becoming a witness to them instead of ‘being them’ takes away a huge chunk of their power.
Once we have found the courage within to bring awareness to the darker recesses of our subconscious, the false core beliefs days become numbered.
Here is the step by step process I went through that eventually provided me clarity and transformed the experience in to one of growth and maturation.
*First, I asked myself, “Why does what this person says about me make me feel so anxious and worried? What am I afraid of?”
I am afraid of this person not loving me. I’m afraid that they will not ever validate me.
*Why am I afraid that they won’t love or validate me?
A lot of my day dreams and fantasies involve others validating me. To externalize my validation is to always be a prisoner to what the external world feels about me. It is to give away the key to my own happiness. It is a habit I have had my whole life and a prevailing theme of my awakening experience
*Why do I externalize my validation instead of draw it from within?
Because I still have lingering beliefs of ‘I’m not worthy’ and ‘I’m not good enough’.
This last question instantly triggered the realization that I had attracted this whole experience because of a core belief that was still active in the deep recesses of my subconscious mind.
I realized that not everyone is going to love me or know the truth of who I am and that it isn’t necessary for me to keep punishing myself for my past unconscious actions. We are always doing the best we can to meet what we feel our needs are in the moment.
I realized so clearly that it’s just me! I have a core belief and EVERYTHING emanates from that belief! EVERYTHING! It is never about anyone else!
Everything I had just went through was to focus in to existence all of the fears that I was trying to avoid. Initially, this can feel unfair and cruel, but after reflection you can see it was to provide you the opportunities to transcend your fears about what you think are lurking in the dark depths of your subconscious. And this is a very good thing that is liberating and allows us to embody more of who we truly are.
The reason I was feeling so terrible is because I was operating from a false belief and therefore disconnected from source energy. Energetic dissonance comes when we are acting on a belief that isn’t true.
Energetic dissonance just means anxiety, depression or anything that feels ‘not quite right’. ‘I’m not good enough’ or ‘I’m not worthy’ are beliefs that are not rooted in the truth thus whenever we choose to act from them pain will always follow.
Our higher self cannot stick around and co-create with us when we are acting from false beliefs. It leaves us and watches over us while we resist and go through another lesson. Once we learn the lesson and release the limited beliefs we feel the joy and love of our higher self return and then inspired actions begin flooding back in to our being.
It is always a choice to leave your intuition and presence in favor or compulsive thinking and worry. The more you allow your mind to dictate to you the more impulsive and reactionary you become.
We will never feel ready to allow the uglier bits of our subconscious to come up to be healed. Sometimes life puts us in a circumstance where dealing with our limited beliefs becomes unavoidable.
In these times we must show courage and the willingness to face those aspects of ourselves to see what they have to tell us about ourselves otherwise we will have to keep facing similar scenarios until we get it.
Do you find that the same issues keep surfacing in your life? Do you recognize certain patterns and behaviors that seem to repeat on a loop? If so, it is an indicator to dive deep in to your subconscious and bring awareness to what you find. It isn’t easy but if you truly want to be free, it is essential.
