Shadow work – the road to a successful life

In our temple one of the things we offer to our clients is a deep transformational shadow work. This is something which is very important to do, if you really want transformative and significant changes in your life. Yes, in the western spiritual world, most seen in workshops, there is a lot talk about love, light and bliss, about being open. In the end of the road of Tantra, we connect to the light, but before that, most people have quiet some work to do in the realm of the shadow. In the shadow there are our deepest wounds, mostly created in childhood, but sometimes also later in the adult life due to traumatic events.

Consious and uncouscious parts

We are born whole, but there is a short time only to enjoy this state. We as small children are relationally independent from our family. We as youngsters, are being formed in a society telling us that some aspects of ourselves are acceptable and some are not. The aspects that are not accepted, both negative and the positive, are rejected by our family and sometimes culture. So what happens over a longer period of time is that we suppress our parts that are not accepted. Moreover we exaggerate the parts that are approved. This causes a split in our personality, it creates a conscious part and an unconscious part in the psyche. The conscious part is the part we are aware of, these are the parts which you could put on a paper as being aspects of you. The unconscious part is what we call the shadow part.

Want it or not, shadow defines our life

First, this continuously suppressed parts of ourselves based on self-rejection costs a lot of energy. We don’t allow ourselves to be who we are. To become who we are, doesn’t mean smiling all the time and pretending being happy, neither by repeating positive mantra’s. Of course it can be helpful, but let’s face the truth – it is not enough.

Secondly, these shadow parts define a lot of how your life looks like. It can be for example that every time you start a love relationship, there is something you do to spoil it. For instance, you cheat or you’re being dishonest. This causes a chain of reactions and eventually you end up alone again. The thing is you don’t know why you do it, you could even feel you are a victim of your own behaviour. This mechanism is the shadow.

Shadow holds your hidden potential

Our shadows holds us back from achieving personal success, being full and whole as a being. Shadow is an equivalent of struggle. You find yourself to be a struggler, then you know now the type of work that should be done. The both of us have had a lot of shadow work done ourselves, that is why we talk out of experience. Our mission is to help everyone ready to uncover all the hidden potential and make your life a magic one you wish for.

Transformation through body work

When you feel you are ready to transform the parts you didn’t want to see, we advice to do shadow work in the form of body work. Everything we are and everything we don’t want to be has its connection to the body.

So how does shadow works?

Another way to see what the shadow is, you can see it as everything we neglect or do not want about ourselves. Everything connected to ‘I am not’ is shadow. So we talk about the parts of ourselves we do not like. The thing is, these parts don’t even feel as being parts of our selves. But they are, and they become our biggest obstacles in life.

Inner conflict

Shadow creates an inner conflict inside the individual, which after a longer period of time can lead to illness such as a burn out, but also to repeating conflicts with other people. Shadow is represented by the biggest struggles in your life. The simplest method of describing how the shadow works is to imagine we have a demon or an ugly deformed creature inside ourselves. This creature sabotages every time we are on the way to achieve something, for example by saying ‘you won’t make it, your effort is worthless’.

Mirroring effect

We can identify a shadow very simply by seeing what we do not like about other people, as most probably they are just a mirror of our own parts. So suppose you have a dog and you walk your dog every early morning in your neighbourhood. And every morning you notice there are voices in your head, obviously. You notice some people that look very alive and happy, bicycling to work, and it upsets you. You find yourself thinking negative things about them, not knowing why exactly. So, this is a shadow part. The people around you are fine mirrors showing what’s inside of you. In this case, there could be a part of you which has a problem with happy people in the early morning because you don’t allow yourself to be happy and expressive about it. Maybe this now happens to you because there was little or no space for it in the early childhood.

Negative emotions – how to deal with?

Most of the people do not live their dreamlife, because there is fear, self rejection, self suppression and thus little believe. Fear and all the so called bad emotions are also shadow. They deplete our energy resources, they make us feel weak and incapable. So think of it: what would become possible if you work on it and get the opportunity to get rid of the fears, moreover to become brave, courageous and determined to achieve everything you want? Shadow work is really life changing.

Inner power – unlocking full potential

We help people to overcome and transform the negative emotions into the light, so that the individuals gets stronger and all of their dreams come true. Does it sound like a fairy-tale? Well yes, but this time it’s real, and it is not far away. The thing is, you really need the right approach for working with the shadow. Some might meditate for days and take a look in their shadow side, some go to group workshops and confront each other. We like to work on our shadows in a one-on-one session using the bodywork method. By this we unlock big amounts of energy recourses, and transform the parts of people that caused them repetitive struggles into inner power. This work happens in layers. So you start working on one layer and when done, you proceed to the next, deeper one till the full transformation.

The good news

All those so called inner demons, negative emotions or shadow will be, when transformed in a healthy state , our helpers and strong protectors. A healthy state is a state of mind which has no lower energies depleting your system. When we accept all of our parts, they get transformed into protectors, and they will support us in our daily lives. One of the goals of Tantra is to transform all of the demons into protectors. Unfortunately most of the people do not deal with their shadow because first of all you have to know it’s there, and second, you should have the courage to encounter your unwanted parts. The more we are afraid of our shadow or demons, the stronger they become, the weaker we are.

Looking into the demons eyes

Even if it looks scary to look into the demons eyes, to embrace your deepest fears, the reward is very big and blissful. It’s a guarantee. It gives inner and outer freedom, we become bigger and powerful beings. That is why Tantra is called the path of liberation, because all of our obstacles are transformed into freedom and joy.

Are you ready to encounter your shadow?

Think of the obstacles in your life that keeps on repeating. If you have something you cannot get rid of, you definitely might want some shadow work to be done. We offer healing sessions that could be helpful to resolve your issues.