How to do Shadow Work?

From what I understand, shadow Work is the process of taking a deep dive into your SubConscious. How do you do it? Hypnosis? :thinking: DreamWork?

5 Likes

It’s a form of meditation where you would sit across from yourself and work through trauma or other life issues. It’s about accepting all the parts of yourself and learning who you truly are.

11 Likes

So basically, you talk to yourself, about yourself?

Makes me think of this proverb…

7 Likes

Carl Jung wrote a few books on it. He called them archetypes

7 Likes

Psychoterapy has worked wonders for me. You need to find the right professional to help you.

12 Likes

Shadow work is basically about taking the traumas and bad things in life and looking at how they still affect us today, and learning what we need to from the situations we have been through and apply it to life, rather than getting stuck because of something that happened to us.

You can do this in many ways, there is not a right or wrong answer. Some people do it through artwork, others through meditation, therapy, journaling etc.

It’s really about understanding how things affect us, but they don’t have to. We don’t have to let some asshole who didn’t see us because we were in his blind spot, so he cut us off when he pulled into traffic- ruin our day. We can instead choose how we react, because we’ve taken time to reflect on why that person’s mistake bothers us. Surely, we have made similar mistakes, was there something on our mind? Could we really not, see? We have no idea what was going on for that asshole driver- but we hold it against him like it was a personal attack.

This is what shadow work is about, understanding our triggers and working through them and learning how to deal with them rather than be ashamed that we struggle. If we always work ourselves into negative thought circles, why do we do that? What causes us to react that way? Should we be reacting that way? How can we change this, so we are not affected negatively by it? What does it say about us that we do this?

Or at least, that’s one way to approach it. Like I said it there’s many ways and sometimes the lingo and the work are lite version in comparison which is okay too if that’s what needed for that individual.

9 Likes

I understand. It’s not complicated, thank you. It’s something I’ve already been doing.

4 Likes

I think that’s what sets some magician a apart from the average person really.

A lot of us do the the self reflection because we have to, life doesn’t let us shut down because someone pissed in our cheerios. We had to keep going and part of that included having to learn to work through things as they came up.

Some of us were also taught to question how we could do everything better- and so we do it for that reason too. To understand how things- including our own mind works.

I’ve done it much more intentionally the further I’ve gotten into my path, but it’s something I’ve also always naturally done, so sometimes I’m like okay… I see why make a big deal of this, but why is everyone making it so damned hard. :rofl:

But I too also over complicate things! So I guess I get it, and if the goal is be edgy then I suppose I understand meeting your own standard even if it’s ridiculous :rofl:

7 Likes

I was gonna say what Cuervo said here, I started psychotherapy a few months ago and I guess it has the same goals.

I also want to talk about my therapist about all this and see where that goes. I’ll let you know in the future.

5 Likes

Moved this to the Psych & Philosophy section for ease of search, hope you don’t mind :blush:

1 Like

Psychotherapy or therapy is an alchemical cauldron

1 Like

Psychology: That Old Black Magick

The apple never falls far from the tree and psychology has its root in the same soil as Magick. The Black and White Mirror is a tried and true device both of psychology and the initiatory path. The mirror can be as simple as a piece of paper with a vertical line down the middle. On the right-hand side are your strengths. On the left-hand side your weaknesses. Everybody should have more weaknesses than strengths or alternatively they need help of a kind I am not qualified to offer. I remember a young Magician who filled up his weaknesses side with about fifty (50) different negatives but only one strength – which was ‘Honesty’.

The Black and White Mirror is a device to allow serious analysis and concentration whereby you can find strengths and weaknesses you have never really appreciated before. Once constructed the Black and White Mirror effectively allows the magician to use the fire of Will to burn away the weak and temper the strong. It allows you to decide what you wish to become from your fragmentary self, for a unified self can command more power in the multiverse than an individual who is constructed from whatever they have managed to pick up along life’s journey.

It must never be forgotten that enlightenment is an expansion of consciousness, a change in the levels of functionality that leads to a new level of awareness. Your authority – Magickal or commonplace – must be earned, not conferred. In this, the Black and White Mirror is the tool to use repeatedly. Decide how you can best re-integrate yourself.

This task of creating a Black and White Mirror is easier than using it to gain the power, knowledge and pleasure it will give, but by meditating upon it regularly and recording progress in your Magickal Journal you will have begun the momentous task of re-entering the world as a stronger, braver and more focused individual – try putting a monetary value on that!

As you progress it is important to be inspired by other successful people for the might of Satan is manifest in the confidence, glamour and strength of others. By finding strength through joy you will discover what you love within yourself and exalt it and how to transform your weaknesses into dark strengths.

Many lesser magicians are seduced by sorcery. The true magician uses Magick for the hardest task in the multiverse: changing themselves, because when you are a successful, confident and glamorous individual everything you want will come to you – one way or another!

With pen and paper to hand undertake the following exercise:

  1. Describe your Ideal Self.
  2. Describe your Present Self.
  3. The interferences you perceive in achieving your Ideal Self.
  4. The actions and inactions which need to be implemented to become your Ideal Self.
  5. Augment the Mirror with the Taro.
  6. Keep notes!
    
2 Likes

No lie i thought it had to do with you working with certain spirits.

This is something that tarot and oracle cards are really good for as well. I like to utilise my cards and the void to do shadow work.

1 Like

The left-hand path isn’t about involving spiritual entities, it’s about involving you in a processes of achieving singular divinity to the levels possible in this life and then ‘that I will become greater than the mortal I am leaving behind; the mortal which must die that a God(dess) will be born!’
Well, that’s my approach anyway. Sad, isn’t it?
Involving spiritual entities as a default position reminds me of right-hand pathers, but with different deities/entities. “Please help me because I’m just a little turd…[insert name of spiritual entity]…”

2 Likes

It can. But usually shadow work is about the self and self reflection. It’s a lot about why you are who/how you are and what made/makes you this way. It’s looking at the darker parts of the self, at least that’s what I’d say about it.

Yes! Agree completely.

2 Likes