Deep into my personal development journey, I came across this concept of shadow work. Also known as Inner work, inner child healing, or “getting to the core of your deeply rooted problems.”
For a while, I was hooked. Convinced that the only way I could move forward in life was to go deep inside and heal. After experimenting, educating myself, and reflecting I came to my own conclusion.
In this blog, I will discuss my findings. The goal of this is to shed light on a toxic cycle of looking for problems that may not exist and finding them anyway.
What is shadow work?
Shadow work is the name for a process that people go through to understand and heal from their past. Shadow work in itself can be achieved through therapy, journaling, or mediation. However, in my personal opinion, therapy often brings up issues without stitching them back together.
Someone like a hypnotherapist has the tools to go deep into your mind and create the change you may seek. Of course, a professional is not required in either case. Still, having someone help you through this process could be helpful.
The idea of shadow work is to help people understand themselves on a deeper level. Self-awareness is very important and shouldn’t be underrated. Doing proper shadow work can help someone get more clarity on their behaviors and self-concept.
Once the root of the problem is better understood, theoretically someone should be able to move past it. But often in the self-development community, there is a tendency to seek the next best way to improve.
This may correlate to the still ever-present hustle culture in the United States. Hustle culture isn’t just about working. It’s about our constant need to be doing something productive in order to avoid the feared L word.
Why too much shadow work is a bad thing
While some people have completely written off the hustle and opted for simple lives, they haven’t completely escaped. They have instead swapped the addiction of working for someone else, to working on themselves.
The irony is that too much shadow work appears to be another form of procrastination. The exact opposite of the productivity most of us chase; even in our unconscious states.
The constant need to perfect yourself can be another way you avoid taking action toward the things you really want. Many of us can probably think of cases in our lives where we have delayed doing something because we didn’t feel ready. Ultimately, we decided to just go for it once we were fed up enough.
As humans, we tend to look for the negative. Helping to seek out threats protects us on a physical and mental level. This is based on some evolutionary trait that was once detrimental to our survival in a harsh world.
While threats are still common today, the rise of social media and technology brings a different kind of unease that we still can’t comprehend.
While I agree with the eastern philosophy of preventative care rather than treating symptoms, the case of shadow work should be met with balance. We won’t know everything that may come between us and our goals in linear order.
Embracing natural progression may be more beneficial than attempting to control all possible outcomes. The beauty of life is that you don’t know exactly what is going to happen at every moment. Life is less boring with a bit of spice every now and then.
How to escape the cycle
Looking for problems will result in exactly what you ask for. More problems to solve. The imaginary issue may even manifest just to prove the subconscious of your new beliefs. Real cases of the nocebo effect can be found in people who have conjured symptoms of diseases they never truly had. Trauma and so-called limiting beliefs can be manifested in the same way.
The constant need to heal trauma and dig deep stops us from living our life as is. Sometimes I wonder if the self-development movement was intercepted long ago as another way to push us further into the matrix.
We have been brainwashed into thinking that we can’t start unless we are 100% healed and at our best. The truth is that there are people more successful out there that have done zero healing work and are doing just fine.
Obviously, success doesn’t come from what we are being told if there are so many paths to it. Like many things, the idea of needing shadow work 24/7 is subjective. It is about our perception of ourselves and what we feel we are capable of having and holding in our lives.
Dance around the idea that you were already healed and whole. Doesn’t that feel good to ponder? You’ve done everything that needs not to be done at this moment. You know that it’s never truly over, but you feel good enough to move forward. When something comes up, you will face it with new confidence and mentality.
The best way to escape this toxic relationship with shadow work is to stop. It’s really that simple. What if you decided that you no longer had to do anything because it’s already done? What if you allowed the divine to take care of this for you?
Alternatives to shadow work
One of my favorite alternatives to constant internal work is to affirm that everything is taken care of. I love to use the word finally in my affirmations. It offers me a feeling of relief instead of the anxiety I would normally feel in a state of neediness.
This is by far the easiest way to shift your mindset. It is proven that we sit in between infinite realities all at once. Theoretically, if you focus intently on a state of mind for long enough, you can shift into the subtle plane where it exists.
This is the true alignment that LOA gurus were talking about. Alignment between you and the reality you want to live in. Despite a new trend of bashing the law of attraction for the law of assumption, they are truly one and the same. Align your mental state and assume it is done.
You will feel the difference a small tweak in your self-talk will make even after 10 minutes of repeating your new story. Sustaining the mental state can take time. Some days may feel closer than others. The main goal is to build your way up to more good days than bad days. This is when the magic will happen.
Conclusion
I challenge you to give these kinds of living-in-the-end affirmations a try. No matter if you’re reading this in the new year or the middle, you can create meaningful change anytime you want. I also encourage you to start where you are at, even if you do feel there one hundred percent.
As someone who used to be obsessive with self-development books, I can relate to everything discussed here. I believe a part of the journey is realizing that you can pivot at any moment. I am grateful that I got off the wheel and realized that I didn’t have to stay. The next question is, will you?
