What is shadow work?

Shadow work is when we take a look inside at whatever feels uncomfortable, whatever not nice things we are feeling or telling ourselves or projecting onto others and rather than stuffing it or ignoring it we simply acknowledge it. This alone is a huge step to understanding ourselves, how we function, our roles in how we have created our past and present and how we can better create our future. A lot of our shadow side has to do with subconscious beliefs and fears based on past experiences, childhood environment, or any past emotional pain.

I developed a four step journaling technique that has been extremely beneficial to clients in my hypnotherapy practice and on our retreats. This is a simple free flowing journaling exercise where you write everything that comes to you under the page title for pages 1-3 and then utilize them to create what you want under page 4, and in turn what you want in your life. Here are the page topics:

Page 1: I am afraid of.....
Page 2: Sometimes I think/feel/ believe......
Page 3: Sometimes I feel other people think/feel/ believe about me....
Page 4: I want to think, feel, believe.....

Pages 1-3 Are for personal viewing only. It is important to feel comfortable and to be completely honest with yourself Once you write page 4 you can throw pages 1-3 away.

This is the basic process and in my hypnotherapy practice I ask my clients for page 4 only and I incorporate it into therapy. I have found that as we subconsciously and consciously create our reality it is not the mental plane alone but also the emotional plane that really makes the energetic shift and physical changes in our lives. This is why hypnotherapy and shadow work are the perfect match! As we uncover our subconscious blocks and realize how we want to feel and what we want to create in our lives we can then utilize hypnotherapy which works directly with the subconscious mind to plant healthy seeds to create a healthier better feeling reality for ourselves. As the poem by Mel Weldon goes:

"My mind is a garden,
my thoughts are the seeds,
My harvest will be either flowers or weeds."

You have the power to create the life you want!