Three Step Shadow Integration
Q: I had a breakthrough while shadow that every single rejected aspect of self that I could come up directly points back to my fear of being anything like my mom. Every word that triggers me is a word I've used to describe her. I realize I need to do a lot of work and re-parent, but when it comes to shadow, how do you integrate the aspects of the entire person?
A: You've got to start accepting your mom and loving her for exactly who she is. This is hard and it takes a lot of work. It's where I'm at with my mom and that's taken a lot of time. I've spent a lot of my life running away from being anything like my parents or the lifestyle I grew up with and the values I grew up with. Then, I had to get to a point at around 27 where I had to actually start accepting those things and owning those things. Great examples are words like a hillbilly or white trash, all of these kinds of things that I used to reject. In order to really integrate within yourself, you're going to have to fully accept your mother for who she is regardless of how toxic she might be. My mom's an alcoholic who can't show up for me in any way shape or form and I have to love her and accept her at that point and show up for her when she asks for help. I have a close friend who is constantly in conflict with her mom and her mom's also an alcoholic and never can really show up for her. This particular friend craves that attention from her mom. The best advice I could give her was stop requiring anything from her and accept her for exactly who she is. Then, you'll start to see her come around a lot more because right now, you're putting all these expectations on her. Whatever your capacity and dynamic is with your mother, if you really want to integrate this shadow in order to be very whole and magnetic, you are going to have to start falling in love with everything about your mom. It doesn't mean that you have to have a closer relationship with her. You can still have very strong boundaries. It just means you need to accept her for where she's at and then in shadow, once you've done that, you can split the focus back over to you to accept yourself for embodying and integrating those aspects of self. Once you have that all taken care of, watch how much opens up for you. You’re so unblocked at that point, but it takes time. It takes diligence. When you're around her, if you do still spend time with her it’s a good time to take note of every single thing she does that triggers you and you have to do some work. At the end of the night, it could be going in your room and journaling all of the reasons why the things that she does are positive and beneficial or why she does them and can't fully show up. Maybe she never matured past a certain age. But, you need to start to rationally see why it's okay to be those things and why it's okay to accept her fully for those things and own it, not run from it. Then, you can turn the mirror back on yourself and start doing that and watch the unblocking happen
Q: I’ve discovered a shadow aspect that doesn’t allow me to be seen. How do I program this
A: As long as that stays in your shadow and you’re rejected by it, it dims your magnetism. In order to own your power, you need to have your full spectrum of the human self. If you can be activated by everything in the world, that’s owning your power. It’s playing you like a puppet. It’s keeping you small when something feels really big and grandiose. When you do the work around it and integrate it and bring it back into you then you accept it. Doing the shadow work allows you to start accepting everybody in the world that is triggering this inside of you. The biggest thing it’s going to do for you is it’s going to allow you to start accepting yourself to be seen. Pick up the book The Light Side of the Dark Chasers and really do the work out of it.
