What is shadow work and what role does it play in reality creation?

We hear so often today that we need to spend a great deal of time acknowledging our feelings, sitting in them, letting them wash over us and through us. The intention seems to be that in doing so, we can somehow exorcise them, as though our strong negative feelings are demons needing to be removed from our experience.

So when most people talk about shadow work, they’re talking about getting in touch with these darker and more painful emotions. And by getting in touch I mean that they’re becoming more comfortable with feeling these feelings, rather than pushing them away.

In the community of people who believe we create our own reality, there are many who are terrified of these negative feelings, and believe that life is a constant battle of trying to gain control over our feelings so that we never experience one negative emotion. Their reasoning is that negative emotions create a negative reality, thus they try to push then away at every chance.

Neither group of people have this right. Shadow work is not to be avoided, and is an integral part of reality creation. But it isn’t all about feeling your feelings. It’s so much more than that.

Abraham, as channeled by Esther Hicks, teaches us that we have an emotional guidance system. This is imperative to understand.

Our emotions aren’t really creating anything. They’re showing us which way we’re going.

A compass might tell you you’re walking North-East. If you know that where you want to be is actually South-East, you can’t blame the compass if you keep walking in the same direction. The compass just tells you where you’re going right now. To change what the compass is telling you, you have to use your mind and your actions to change the direction.

The same is true with emotions. If you’re feeling depressed, and you take the advice to not squash this feeling, but to lean further into it, and feel the feeling more, then you’ll likely just end up feeling more depressed and more convinced that feeling this way is inevitable. If instead you do try to squash it and force yourself into a more positive feeling state, it will eventually become like a pressure pot, and the emotion will spill out of you. Either way you are missing the entire point of depression as an emotional guidance reference point.

If you are navigating with a compass, but actually you don’t have any idea of the how it works, what North, South, East or West mean, then you have no ability to point yourself in the direction you want to go.

Similarly, if you don’t know how your emotions works as guidance, and all you know is that you don’t want to feel depressed, but you have no idea how to navigate your way through and out of depression, then you will continue on in the direction you always have.

So to begin, you first acknowledge that you’re FEELING depressed, not that you ARE depressed. Or that you’re FEELING happy, not that you ARE happy. Feelings are not something that you are. They are not part of your identity or spiritual self in any way. They are simply guidance on whether you are aligning with your higher and authentic self, or whether you are detached from your true spiritual self.

Seth, as channeled by Jane Roberts, tells us that our feelings help us point to our thoughts, which in turn point to our beliefs. It is through your beliefs and thoughts that you are creating your reality and moving towards a reality that is either aligned with your true self, or is detached from your true self.

So after identifying that you are feeling depressed, this is where the shadow work begins. Now it’s time to delve into the why and how you came to feel depressed. But go easy with this. How would you do this if you were helping a young child sort through their feelings? With patience, understanding and compassion. You do need to show yourself understanding and compassion by saying something like “I know you’re feeling depressed right now and it feels really uncomfortable and unpleasant, but we can work through this.” This is what allowing feelings truly looks like. It’s not wallowing. It’s not amplifying. It’s the way in which you would give space to a young child to have their feelings.

And just like with a young child, once they know they’re safe to have their feelings, then they’ll be able to trace the how and the why.

Start with how this feeling arose. What were you thinking about? What triggered the thoughts? Something on TV? A memory? A message you received? Look for the thoughts that sparked the feeling.

Then move to the beliefs. What must you believe about yourself that these thoughts would lead you to feel depressed? This part takes time and patience while you begin to learn how to do this. At first, it will feel like you cannot access your beliefs. But they’re at the root of everything you feel.

Finally, you begin to work on changing that belief. You purposely choose a belief that you would prefer. For example, if you believed that other people never like you, then you might choose “everyone who enters my life enjoys my company” as your new belief.

You then start to think thoughts that reflect your new belief. You then start to generate feelings, on purpose, that align with the new belief you want to have.

In short, you reverse engineer the process. You don’t go from how you are feeling to how you want to feel. First you go back into the structure of what caused the feeling, change the structure, and build up the mechanics to generate the way you want to feel instead.

In the live classes I will be hosting soon, we will explore how to do this in great detail. In the meantime, and to register your interest, email me at mirella @ mirellataylor.com to let me know which feeling and its associated belief you’re struggling with right now in your own shadow work. I truly want to hear from you!