Shadow work is so necessary and avoiding it will only keep you stagnant. Happy to see another human that isn’t afraid to face the shadows and emerge a more aware human 👏🏽👏🏽
I had a very similar experience to yours. One of my closest friends in my teenage years had cut me out of her life. We were the best of friends nothing was hidden in our relationship it was real and authentic. The type of friendship that everyone desires in life. When she subtly cut me out I was so heart broken and angry it was a moment of realization were I knew she was simply done being friends with me and I didn’t know why. I didn’t fight to have her back in my life because I knew she didn’t want me in it anymore. This quite literally spiraled me into such introspection and shadow work. At the time I didn’t know what I was practicing was shadow work until a few months later I saw a RU-vid video about it and laughed because I thought wow more people do this? That’s amazing! I saw her three years later at a party and we were both wine drunk. I asked her why she had cut me out. She told me she felt that I was going to succeed so much in my life that I would leave her and deem her unworthy. That blew me away. Which lead to more shadow work as to why I made her feel that. Truth is she hasn’t done her own shadow work and she was projecting her fears onto me. What I had realized in this is I have extremely high standards for myself always and I have them for the people in my life as well. I feel as though I do not do enough or meet my own expectations and what my shadow side did is make her feel the same. That is exhausting to have those standards on me and others. I don’t blame her for wanting to leave. I put high standards on her that she didn’t ask for I wasn’t aware of but she was aware of it so she left. And that was a ground breaking discovery for me. I am an intensely driven motivated person but to me that’s been my normal however to other people it’s just…. well intense lol. I’ve calmed down a lot over the past two years and have become more aware on not setting such high expectations for myself and others. We are all human and we will fall short of our expectations from time to time. But I found a lot of grace and comfort upon those realizations. And you are absolutely right once you start shadow work you never stop, the second I’m triggered by something I immediately say why. Then the process continues. Love this video!!
Yay voor RU-vid. Ontzettend bedankt voor je prachtige inspiratie. Heeft me echt geraakt en is ook weer een duw in de rug voor mij om OOK weer dingen op te pakken. Nieuwe subscriber.
I found your video inspirational and truthful in confronting yourself. I had to do a lot of that in the past couple of years after being abused. I need to do more of it. I know I will evolve into a better person. I did see the shadow side of myself once. The only comparison that I can make is from a movie from the Lord of the Rings - The Fellowship of the Ring. The hobbit offered the ring to the fairy and she turned dark. I saw myself do that in a meditation. I did not imagine this. I wasn't even scared of it. I thought awesome, cool. Bring it on. WOW. I don't have enough information yet on shadow work, but I will do more reading and videos on it. My only concern is that I am very empathic. I don't want to freak out.
Wow Lisa, what a profound experience you've had during your meditation. When we open up to our shadow/dark side, we actually become more light and free. It just sounds quite daunting - and it can be confronting at first - but the result is actually very liberating. You're always welcome to join the Shadow Work School once, of course! (Becoming more aware can be quite lonesome in a dysfunctional society, so having a community/container can be experienced as very potent!)
