Unavoidable Shadow Side Work
by Ask a Healer
Lesson nine of the online healing class about vibrational healing facilitation. In this lesson, we discuss embracing our shadow side, the experience of being in the void and why it's important to own our dark side energies.
What is the Void?
I always inform new healers that anything in their lives, anything at all that hinders their path, may be flushed out simply by the decision to offer oneself in service or to pursue a healing vocation. Any unhealed wounds, unspoken fears and doubts, suppressed emotional imbalances or resistances to individual aspects needing attention may result in painful times of struggle.
One area that eventually will be broached for the new healer is embracing their shadow self, or dark side, and supporting their clients in that same journey of self-exploration and spiritual awakening.
It takes a fair amount of spiritual courage to enter the sacred space of the shadow side. It's lovely to embrace the aspects of ourselves that we enjoy and like; it's sometimes less than lovely to realize that whatever shadow there is must be loved and owned as well.
We don't often call forward our dark side in consciousness. It feels dangerous and unpleasant. Unknowingly, by avoiding the shadow, we give it more energy to navigate us thru the world because we move in ways to not see it.
There is an aspect of becoming more spiritually aware which involves surrender into the unknowing. Facing whatever may be residing in the realms of one's own dark side, getting to know the shadow self, facing what one may fear most about oneself can be a frightening prospect. It certainly held a lot of fear for me.
My Shadow Side Experience
I have been in The Void of Great Mystery numerous times on my path. It seems to me as if I mostly stayed there for two years, wandering and lost -- I am a stubborn little cuss, sometimes, and resisted it mightily.
I thought back on that period of time when I read Eckhart Tolle's book and he shared how he was suffering, to the extent that he thought he simply couldn't bear it anymore. Then, he had the amazing thought ... who is it that cannot bear it anymore?
After that moment, and I'm paraphrasing, Eckhart noted that he mostly just sat on a park bench for two years after reaching his own apex of dark energy. I sat on the park bench, in resistance, for two years and then surrendered.
Entering the void, for me, has been a experience of depression, wandering, confusion, startling clarity, multi-dimensional awareness, elation, high spiritual acceleration, physical illness from resistance, kundalini fire, self-love, self-loathing, unmitigated terror, blandness (that may have been the worst -- when nothing seemed to matter), heart-stopping fear, self-revulsion, and incredible creativity.
This mysterious space has been, at different times, gloriously full of creative potential and reeking of putrid, horrible thoughtforms.
I could see that there is a collective mindset around every conceivable emotion, a gridline of support for that feeling created out of the energy of every being still holding on to whatever the feeling is .... fear, shame, guilt, joy, love, peace.
Ultimately, the thoughtforms I encountered in the Void were still mine, no matter how terribly lecherous or incredibly brilliant they were.
I had a resonation within me, somewhere, for whatever gridline I was tapping into and part of my journey of self-responsibility has been to identify where I am supporting dense, pain-creating gridlines of energy and to make a different choice.
This place of all potential is known, in Native-American tradition, as "The Void".
In my awareness and experience, The Void is where I sent my thoughts of fear, resentment, guilt and shame.
The Void space is where my refused emotions and thoughts and awareness linked up with the collective mindset and gridline of those dense vibrations.
This space of all potential is also where I sent all the joy, peace, love, happiness and creativity that I didn't feel I deserved or that I didn't embrace as mine.
The Void is where I go to lay down the energetic path for creating my most important life moments and generate the knowing of my greatest joys.
The Void is our journey of remembering who I AM (embracing all aspects, even those that seem dark or negative, as part of what makes me Divinely Human).
The Void is where I go to reclaim my spiritual heritage.
To go there involves a willingness to walk into the darkness, meet my own self-created demons and take responsibility for their existence. It is my choice to bring forth that light shoved away, into darkness, because we did not feel worthy or capable enough to let it shine in us.
The Void calls us all, to face our biggest fears and to recognize our greatest potential. As with all other aspects of spiritual awakening, this experience has been, and will continue to be, accelerated.
I believe The Void is within us (others perceive it as somewhere outside ourselves) and that it is part of our job to clean the soul's house whenever needed, as well as to honor the genius residing there.
Whatever is in our little corner of the inner world is our responsibility. It may be full of negative feelings we thought we had sent away forever, or bursting with creative genius we've yet to call into reality on the physical plane. The Void is the home of unconquered demons and unrealized dreams.
"The Void" reminds me of a story I read, called "The Picture of Dorian Gray" by one of my favorite English writers, Oscar Wilde. This man, Dorian, purchases a magic portrait (which he keeps hidden in the attic) that absorbs all the abuse of his party life, late hours, and evil living, so that the man himself appears to be ever young and unblemished.
The years pass. One day Dorian decides to check on the picture. He is appalled and disgusted at what he sees. The portrait, as youthful and fresh when originally painted as Dorian still appeared to be, now reflected an old, withered, exceedingly evil-looking man.
As Dorian had gone his way, with no thought of how his choices were being stored in the magic portrait, every excess of appetite, every cruel deed and every instance of abuse were being meticulously imprinted on the canvas.
When Dorian finally went to the attic, he had to face all that he had become and, what may have been more painful, all the potential that lay wasted within him. Like the portrait of Dorian Gray, our day-to-day lives may reflect an illusion of reality but the truth of all our choices remain to be owned -- in the attic, in The Void.
A journey to The Void, though trying, will always result in new awareness and breakthrough experience. You won't be left in the valley of the shadow. You will be lifted up.
This is the single-most important message to share with those on your table, who may express that they have entered a time in their life when nothing makes sense and they don't know who they are anymore. If they are grappling with aspects of themselves that they fear or that the feel are negative, witnessing to them that the space they are in is Sacred may give them strength and courage.
We are safe in the arms of the Mother when we enter The Void and the words of John Kennedy echo in my consciousness because it is real that we have only fear to fear. Once faced, the fear subsides and we own our power in new and balanced ways.
"Daily Spiritual Practice - Deliberately loosening my own need to control reality, by questioning what I believe is real right now."
Lesson 10 in the healing class involves physical pain and how to approach working with those who want the pain to go away.
Continue ....When the Pain is Physical
Healing Disclaimer: Energetic and Vibrational healing is not represented as any type of replacement for medical evaluation, treatment or testing.
