Stop Trying to Heal Specific 'Shadows'.

I’m an admin in a shadow work group where—every once in a while—I’ll see people asking a question like “How do I heal my shadow around needing validation?” or “How do I heal my shadow around getting angry at people?”

My advice in these circumstances is always that we’re asking the wrong question.

It’s not about healing your specific shadow around a specific problem. All that’s going to do is keep you up in your thoughts and in your rational mind, distracting yourself from the real inner pain and problem that is underneath that ‘shadow.’

All that’s really happening in regards to either of those things (or any other of our defense mechanisms) is that some unresolved emotion is getting triggered inside of us. It’s bringing up some unresolved, uncomfortable energy that we have been running from, and since we are afraid to fully feel into that discomfort, we resort to the defense mechanisms that we would identify as ‘a need for validation’ or your angry behavior towards someone.

If you try to analyze it and focus on the specific issues, you are avoiding simply feeling into the discomfort that you’re having.

The goal is to get the thoughts out of the way and pay attention just to what it feels like inside, without adding thoughts, logic, and rationality to the equation.

In order to do that, you’ll first need to learn how to handle your thoughts without giving them any meaning. We need to practice recognizing that our thoughts around a specific trigger are simply the manifestation of an emotion.

When we can know that for certain, each and every time, immediately and without needing to analyze why that specific thought isn’t accurate, we can allow the thoughts to pass us by while we refocus on the inner discomfort, thereby allowing our bodies to process that emotion.

It’s not about ‘how do I heal this specific shadow element?’, it’s about ‘what am I feeling when that specific part of my shadow/ego/personality gets triggered?’

And even then, it’s not about answering that question with words and logic. It’s just about releasing our resistance to feeling that discomfort because it is only through a fearless release of our resistance that we can finally purge and release the unresolved emotional energy that is bringing us into those defense mechanisms in the first place.