Into the Darkness
I took a mental health day, wore all white, went to a garden & did the work. I am three parts: love, light, and darkness. I embrace my shadow.
We are expected, by some, to live our lives in a way that only focuses on the positive things. Everything is “love & light” or rainbows & sunshine but what about darkness? Light and darkness exist because of each other. One does not exist without the other.
Our darkness is just as important as our light. Our darkness contains the things we dislike in others as a reflection of ourselves, our shameful desires, the things that make us tick. That darkness is our shadow.
I have been working recently to embrace my shadow. According to Carl Jung and many others, our shadow side is the part of ourselves we don’t identify with. It is our dark side.
I was watching my usual monthly tarotscope and @_spiritualsiren mentioned shadow work for Virgo this month (my moon sign). How timely is that? All the signs to get shit done were definitely aligning for me.
I would say I was a helpful person who uses their own resources to help others flourish. I love to be there for people and make them feel good. These are some of the good things. These are the things I used to use to describe myself to others negating the things that would be jarring or upsetting.
My dark side is vast but some of the things that I have been working through are opposite of what I say of myself. I can be manipulative, smothering, detached (fickle), and someone who gives people just enough to feel important for the moment. I can make others feel like they are the one when they are the one of many. These are a few things I tried to ignore.
Shadow work is just that, work. It is hard, exposing, grueling, and sometimes draining. It can leave you feeling shitty and even like a terrible person but the work has to be done. In order to be your full self, you have to recognize the light as well as the darkness. You have to take that “mirror” I am always referring to and shatter it to see what lies behind it. You have to be vulnerable with yourself.
There are several ways to do the shadow work and everyone will have their own method. You know that I am a firm believer in tailoring your healing practices to your own lifestyle. To help encourage you and maybe provide guidance, here is what I do to get down to the dark side.
I read an article recently that talked about 4 steps to shadow work. It suggested that we do 4 things to identify our shadow and work through it. Recognize, reverberate, reintegrate, repeat.
We must recognize what we dislike in someone, make a list, identify the similarities, repeat the process with each person you meet.
I did this on Saturday after talking with a friend about my own nuances. I went on a nature trail and with each step, I listed things I liked/didn’t like about them. I then thought of instances where I had embodied those qualities myself, and then I identified those parts of my shadow, accepted them, and released (through meditation).
Another way I have done shadow work is by journaling in a list format. I will write two lists. One contains positive and one contains things I don’t like. I then process each, good and bad, and see how they are both needed to exist. I do this in order to stop myself from projecting onto others what I don’t like about myself.
I found a really awesome resource that gives 6 different ways to do shadow work. I have tried them all and I believe they are extremely helpful and easy to follow.
I don’t want you to think this will be a breeze because it will not. What I can say is that it will help you react to things differently, gain clarity, and accept that you are both lightness and darkness without feeling ashamed.
Are you ready to do the work? You deserve to be your best self even when things aren’t rainbows and butterflies. You deserve to be yourself. You deserve to just BE.
Come shine with me!
Sex·u·al·i·ty and Spir·it·u·al·i·ty
Photo from my sister studying abroad in Paris.
I am spiritual, yes, but I am also sexual. I am a woman who is attracted to the inner workings of others, not just what they present on the outside, no matter the “classification”.
So when I think about what it means to be a sexual being and what sexuality is I cannot see it in terms of just physical. I see it in terms of purely spiritual now. I am looking at this from an aspect of what serves the spirit, intellect, and your sexual desires.
We are sexual beings and sometimes physical attraction can supersede your best judgment. Being self-aware makes it difficult to give into those ideas about sex that used to drive you. Spirit/soul, whatever you call it, is genderless. It is a compilation of everything but gender. Every person has both masculine and feminine energy in them which is what their spirit may present. For a lack of better words, the spirit wants what serves it.
As you go through your journey and begin to heal those parts of you that determined how you looked at sex and relationships, you will see that although someone is highly attractive, if it doesn’t feed that spirit, then it stops at the attraction.
It is nearly impossible to force yourself to be attracted to what doesn’t serve you when you are on your path to ascension. Your body will not experience arousal the same. Physical touch will not feel as heightened unless your spirit is moved. It will be difficult to fuck dummies. I am being quite frank here but people will not be able to lure you in by just their outer appearance.
I am not saying that you will only be sexually aroused by someone you love but I am saying that your arousal will come from the spirit to the flesh. Discernment is the key here. Use your light to figure out what serves your sexual urges.
I have a task for you all this week that may or may not push boundaries. I encourage you all to try intentional masturbation.
Here is my take on what it is and how it works:
Intentional masturbation is something that I roughly coined myself. I am not the first person to think of it, I am sure, but I stand by it. It is setting intentions prior to arousal and manifesting during orgasm. It involves setting the mood. Scents are super important. If you are prone to nervousness when masturbating, I suggest lavender for it’s calming factors. Once you begin your session focus on how your body feels and listen to it. When you are about to climax, stop. Mimic the concept of edging. As you begin to edge allow your intentions to come back and as you climax release that intention.
I believe this form of arousal allows you to fully be in tune with what your body wants while also being in tune with what the spirit wants. The climax allows you to release not only physically but spiritually which provides a natural high feeling.
I used this method a lot during the healing process of my sacral chakra and heart chakra. It helped me do a lot of healing. Most of my intentions were centered about sexuality, trauma, and releasing what no longer served me.
I suggest this to most of my clients because it can promote clear and healthy decisions, especially sexually.
What are your thoughts on spiritual vs physical attraction? Do you feel like you can differentiate between the two? Comment below, tweet me, or email me your thoughts.
I want us all to have better sex with people who serve our spirits.
Come shine with me!
*I am doing a birthday giveaway. Here are the rules.
Go Outside
Being self-aware is bittersweet. Sweet because you get to grow and evolve, change your school of thought, and really understand whom you are. Bitter because shit ain’t always love & light, rainbows & butterflies, or easy.
The journey to being self-aware is exhausting & exposing. It can seem like you can’t catch a break. The healing journey never ends and that is what makes being self-aware so important. Being self-aware allows you to look at yourself in a mirror and be honest. It pushes you to think through things and to be able to identify your triggers. Being self-aware allows you to reach a higher consciousness of who you are.
Over the last few weeks, the word “baggage” kept coming up. I was involved in situations where others projected their own problems onto me and attempted to leave their problems at my feet. In the words of the late great Mac Dre, it is “not my job” to deal with your problems in that capacity. These bags that we carry around prevent us from reaching that level of self-awareness that is important to grow. They prevent us from moving forward.
I had a shit ton of bags on me. I had bags full of horrible things that happened to me and things that I had done that I wasn’t so proud. I projected those emotions and that pain onto others and out into the world. I was not self-aware because I was not doing the work to work through my past problems. I was simply ignoring them and allowing them to tell me who I was.
My self-awareness stemmed from a few things – therapy, healing sessions, crystal healing, oracle/tarot readings, and exhaustion. I was tired of carrying not only those bags but also the burdens that came with having them. I wanted to feel lighter and be able to find my own inner peace & happiness.
Now, I am self-aware. It is an everyday process but I have my “toolkit” to keep me in check. I revisit old journal writings and see where I have grown. I listen to certain songs to see what emotions they provoke and dissect the memories attached to them. When I feel myself getting anxious about the past I talk myself through it with questions like “why do you feel this way?”, “What does anxiety feel like right now?”, “What does your breathing feel like?”, “What sounds do you hear/what do you see?” in order to ground me. The biggest self-check tool is paying attention to how I handle things. Am I being reactive in a way that does not serve me? Am I approaching the situation with grace? Those two questions let me know if I am embodying old habits or embracing new ways of thinking.
Grace is what keeps me from projecting past pain onto others. Grace is what guides me through my day-to-day interactions with others. Compassion also assists in how I handle myself and how I embrace those around me.
Self-awareness is about reaching a point where you can look in the mirror and say, “this is who I am and that’s okay”. It is reaching the highest form of you. It is self-love in my opinion.
This past Sunday I went on a nature hike at Rock Creek Park and I sat by a body of water. I sat and I talked and I listened. I took in the sounds around me, I studied the way the water moved, I even acknowledged the way my body felt in that element. Here are some photos from that hike.
I encourage you to shine your light in nature this week. Find a park, trail, or sit on your front steps. Take a journal or your notes section in your phone and identify what you see, feel, hear, etc. Identify what parts of your surrounding align with who you are. Does the sound of cars passing remind you of how busy you are? Can you hear the tree leaves moving? Take the time to go outside and inhale the fresh air.
a time to release and a time to heal
Writing has been an outlet for me for most of my life. I wrote because of sadness but never from a place of happiness. When I would be in a good mood, I had no words.
My stories were heavy, introspective, and exposing but all created some form of release. My stories allowed me to express my deepest secrets in a way that made me feel free, but only for a minute.
Once the story is told and the world knows my side of the story, I had to ask myself "what now?" I believed that my stories would act as a supplement to my therapy and that was the only way that I could heal. I was wrong.
This blog is not a blog of my stories. This blog is not a blog of my pain. This blog is a chronicling of my healing and that healing is my gift to the world.
I chose this exact day and time to launch because the New Moon in Virgo is the time to heal for me. My journey continues. Healing is a never ending journey and my hope is that through this blog I can help others heal.
As I heal, I will heal others. As I shine, others will shine with me.
I will be using this space to discuss my own healing process, along with the processes of others I trust. This space will be honest and forthright. It will be just as transparent as I am. If you have a topic that you want me to write about feel free to send it to me here. You can also message me here if you want chat.
Blog posts will go up every wednesday to illuminate our week.