Shadow

Being “on the Spiritual Path,” we are told repeatedly to focus on Love and Light.  There is nothing wrong with this, per se, as the truth is that we are Love, we are Light, we are Source.  We are One with All that Is.  For people like me, this is simply the truth and what we hold on to.  So, what happens when you go through an extremely difficult and traumatic experience?  What happens when, despite having been diligently doing the work, monitoring your thoughts, focusing on the positive, feeling appreciative for all the good in your life, everything goes to hell?  What happens when you feel cheated, lied to, betrayed by the one thing that was a fundamental part of who you are: your spirituality?

It’s not that you really believe you have been cheated and lied to; you know better.  You know that this is your Ego, or your Negative Ego, asserting itself. You know that these are ancient programs that are being activated, and that quite possibly you intentionally activated them in order to facilitate a spiritual crisis, which would lead to soul growth and development.  You trust, deep down, that this is part of your Soul’s Plan, and that you will emerge from the darkness stronger and better and wiser.

But this doesn’t stop your darkness from emerging and making itself known loud and clear.  This darkness that you thought you had eradicated, or risen above, transcended… comes back in full force, mocking you.  You thought you had gotten rid of me?  Silly fool, it whispers to you.

Many healers, shamans, and other people who devote their lives to Spirit experience at some point a spiritual crisis, perhaps more than once.  This often comes after a period of intense spiritual growth. It’s as though we put a check on ourselves, that we can only advance to a certain degree, and then have to put the brakes on.  I  don’t know if this is due to self-sabotaging programs in our subconscious minds, an implant that was put into us to prevent our spiritual growth, or simply a need to re-calibrate and adjust to the new frequency.  I suspect in most cases it’s a combination.

In my case, since my spiritual crisis last year, I have experienced depression, despair, a resurgence of negative thoughts after years and years without them, jealousy, pettiness, resentment, anger, and other assorted unpleasantness.  It’s not all at once, and it’s not constant.  Most of the time I feel appreciation, peace, joy, even bliss, as well as a deep empathy and compassion for people.  I am more patient.  I am more centered.  I am more present.  I know this progress is the result of years of very hard work, and a shorter period last year of intense and rapid growth.  So I find it very disconcerting to have these moments of darkness suddenly rear their heads, Hydra-like, and to be staring full on at my monstrous Shadow.  I don’t like it.  I feel guilty and that I should be beyond this… I feel shame.  But then it occurs to me that these responses are part of my spiritual growth as well, and that the big lesson here for me is to learn to love ALL of my parts, unconditionally.  Those of us Wounded Healers who are so hard on ourselves must learn, ultimately, to have unconditional love and compassion for every single aspect of ourselves.  To love ourselves as a whole.  To understand that within each human there is and will always be a shadow side, and to stop ignoring it, pretending it isn’t there, or believing we have somehow transcended it.

This is not “embracing the darkness.”  I have a problem with that phrase. It feels off, and an easy way out of an uncomfortable and very complex state, and I don’t trust people who tell me to “embrace my darkness.”  To be blunt, the energy of that phrase feels Satanic to me. I’m sure many people will disagree with me, and that is their right.  This is simply my truth.  I’m not going to embrace, mate with, or become a Lover of my Darkness.  What I will do is look at it, listen to it, try to learn from it with as much love, compassion and neutrality as I can, and appreciate it for its role in my soul’s evolution.  It can be my greatest teacher, I think.

One of the things I do best is space clearing. I am expert in clearing negative energies out of spaces, and have done this is some situations where it was actually quite dangerous for me to go in.  What I started to realize is that it is actually quite easy for me to do this, and, I find it to be, believe it or not, a very joyful process.  During a space clearing, I simply go into a state that feels very natural to me, and that is a state of unconditional love towards the space and everything and everyone in it.  I get out of the duality and into a state of Oneness, perceiving everything to be simply different manifestations of Source, and therefore perfect.  So, negative entities are perfect.  Ghosts are perfect. Negative energetic residue from traumatic experiences in the space or on the land are perfect.  And because I am in that state of unconditional love and neutrality, the work is done quickly, joyfully, and with relative ease.  I realize that any resistance I experience during a clearing is usually something in myself that it’s vibrating with, some frequency that I am emitting, and so I love those aspects of myself unconditionally, and then notice how it all clears rapidly, now that I have understood what was causing the resistance.

Doing this for others, however, is much easier for people like me than doing it for myself.  What I realize now is that I have to apply the same principles I use when confronted with darkness in a space clearing to my own darkness, my Shadow.  I have to do this for myself out of unconditional love and compassion for myself.  No one can do this for me.  I can’t lie on a table and have someone work on me.  This is my own work, and perhaps the greatest, most difficult work of all.

Anna Pavlakis – Seville, Spain, May 24, 2017