The liberation of shadow work.
Shadow work is a process of unwinding between our conscious and unconscious selves to free ourselves from our own constraints.
It’s work that I honor, cherish, and see as central to the work the Marigold Women are made of, but the dark side of shadow work is that it can be seductive, addictive, and toxic keeping us stuck in exactly what we need and want to break out of. Shadow work can be confusing in this way, especially when we feel like we are working so hard to heal, move on, let go, succeed, or find freedom and joy, and instead, we find ourselves stuck in murky waters.
What’s even more important than doing shadow work is understanding the shadows of shadow work.
Shadow work is something we all naturally face — some of us fight it with all our might and resist it more than others, but it’s unavoidable. It’s life’s natural process of pain and growth, and the cycles we all go through. Shadow work is feared and misunderstood by many, but it’s medicinal at heart. The more conscious we are when we face it, the more leverage we have for freedom, but for those who know this, it can be easy to think we are doing the right thing pursuing it when we are instead digging ourselves a trench.
To understand why this happens, let us begin with the depths of what shadow work really is.
Shadow work is ultimately rewriting our story, and shifting the narrative. It’s a process our outgrowing what has kept us small, or constrained and blossoming into a more authentic and empowered version of ourselves each step of the way. There is no end game, this is a life-long process.
Shadow work begins with the awareness of who we think we are, and who we perceive ourselves to be and it’s then a process of opening ourselves to meeting the person inside of us who we don’t necessarily associate with as ourselves. It’s awakening to the parts of ourselves we'd rather not come into contact with, and it’s also awakening to the untapped potential and power within us. Shadow work is witnessing the parts of ourselves that we’re afraid of, scared of, ashamed of, or judge, and it’s also witnessing our gifts, beauty, and medicine yet to be claimed. It’s seeing all that we deny within ourselves — for better or worse, and consciously or unconsciously.
Shadow work is a process of seeing our life and ourselves with veils lifted. It’s seeing ourselves and our lives beneath the stories, wounds, experiences, identities, and narratives that distort our view of the world and ourselves. It’s the realization of where we are disembodied, and not claiming our entirety.
Shadow work is then about accepting both the dark and light that we find. It’s an acceptance of all that is there so that we can move forward with clear sight.
Shadow work is all about clear sight of what is.
Shadow work is about finding clear sight regarding how we truly feel, what we really think, and believe. Shadow work is about tapping into the authentic energy, persona, and expression within us. Shadow work is about finding clear sight regarding the stories, wounds, and experiences that we haven’t realized are saturating, shaping, and defining our lived experiences. It’s from only here that we can begin to shift the narrative. But sometimes we try so hard to let our story go and move on, and we try so hard to be the bigger better person, and we try so hard to liberate ourselves that we actually engrain what we are trying to let go of more deeply.
We all self-sabotage. We all think and play small, and get stuck in stories and wounds in some way or another. We all have our imperfections. We all have traumas, and complicated histories that are not meant to be, or able to be entirely shaken.
We also all self-aggrandize and resist claiming our power and magnitude to some degree. We all hide to some degree. We all put on an act to some degree. We all have self-delusions. And we are also all empowered beings with a well of untapped capacity.
Shadow work is how we become more conscious, and in a deeper relationship with our truth, and with our authentic uninhibited selves. Shadow work is so profoundly important, but we must not be swallowed by false motives. The first significant shift in claiming or embodying our power is shifting from shame to self-love, it’s shifting from self-denial to self-embrace, and this is a form of shadow work in itself. But, the second significant shift in claiming or embodying our power is liberating ourselves from the shadows of shadow work.
The intention of shadow work is not to fix something wrong with us — because we are not broken.
The intention is to feel the truth of what is, rewrite the story, and shift the narrative moving forward so that we can live in a landscape of possibility and not limitation. Even though shadow work is becoming aware of our wounds or habits that don’t serve us — this is not the access point. The access point is becoming aware of the stories, lenses, and beliefs we see the world through.
One of the biggest misconceptions about shadow work is that it has to be heavy and it does not.
Yes, sometimes it will feel heavy and uncomfortable. Yes, sometimes it will feel like we are drowning and can’t do it. Growth and change, and death and birth are uncomfortable, and trying, and there will be waves of grief, rage, letting go, and losing control, but we also know it’s for the best — because the risk of not facing our shadows is nothing will ever change. It’s that we will live in our limitations of what has been thus far forever more.
If we refuse to face the shadows that are haunting us, or if we refuse to face the truths within us, we will live in our limitations of what has been thus far forever more — and that is much heavier than the pain that can come from the risk of following the beckoning of our soul.
Shadow work is liberation.
The other side of shadow work that people don’t often think of as shadow work are those moments of epiphanies, where your mind is blown with realization, breakthrough, and understanding. It’s those moments of awakening. It's those moments where your heart cracks open and is flooded with love and adoration for yourself, your beloveds, your life, and your bravery. It’s those ah-ha moments that feel like a huge weight has been lifted, the veils have been lifted, and you are now left with a clean slate of possibility and potential, invigorated, inspired, renewed, and full of clear sight to forge ahead, inspired and in ease. This is the high of shadow work. It can be incredibly liberating, and shadow work at its heart is liberation.
The biggest reason why shadow work can feel heavy — is because we’re focusing on the negative and we aren’t coming from compassion.
Shadow work feels heavy when you haven’t done the first shift of shame to self-love — when you are constantly seeking to fix yourself, instead of accepting yourself — the process will be heavy. The shameless woman knows there is nothing to fix or deny, and that there is nothing wrong with her or her life exactly as it is. She trusts the process. Yes, there is room to grow, and there is beauty in seeking — but nothing about her is faulty or missing.
When you approach shadow work, healing, or rebirthing because you think you aren’t whole as is, or that you’ll be enough, or happy after you accomplish, embody, or become x, y, or z, it will be heavy.
If you approach shadow work steeping in what isn’t, or self-judgment, criticism, self-berating, and shame, or are rooted in anything other than radical self-acceptance, and self-trust in your becoming — shadow work becomes a recipe for disaster.
Without the first shift — this is how you engrain the heavy stories, shadow work is supposed to transmute.
Shadow work is all about first, seeing what is, and secondly, it’s about possibility and expansion. Shadow work is about breaking through the glass ceiling, and the limitations your reality has paved thus far. It’s seeing beyond what you’ve experienced to be true so that you have the where with all to step beyond it and start living in alignment with a life beyond the reality you’ve known to be true.
Shadow work is often a shift of perspective more than anything.
This is how shadow work goes from heavy to light, you shift from resistance to acceptance, and you shift from wanting to change what is, to accepting what is. Then you shift your perspective from limitation to possibility. You get curious. You start questioning everything — not from cynicism or desperation, but from innocence. And this is how you rewrite the story and shift the narrative naturally.
You don’t shift your experience by denying it, but when you accept it, and then lean into a state of possibility, and curiosity — rewriting the story happens naturally. Because now you are operating in a state of receivership, you are operating in a state of abundance, now you are open to receiving these new experiences and receiving the untapped potential all around you and deep within you.
And then — once you start having experiences through new eyes — you’re developing new cellular memory, you’re developing new associations, and your neural pathways begin to rewire themselves. Your life will naturally shift because you are looking through a different lens. You have started to foster a life that is resonating in a new frequency or new vibration that will then attract new frequencies and vibrations in return creating a snowball effect of expansion beyond what you’ve known to be true.
This shift from resistance to acceptance when it comes to our truths, and then the shift from limitation to possibility — this is how you activate your untapped potential and start making magic.
Shadow work is not only burning what does not serve or what is no longer in alignment into ashes — it’s the Phoenix rising. It’s the rebirth, the renewal, and the transformation that comes with letting go, and shedding, and releasing what’s ready to be liberated. Shadow work is liberation. And having our roots in compassion and self-love is the only way to find this.
With love sweet one,
Abby and the Marigolds
