From @shadowlion: “Greetings, I have a question, what's Shadow Work? I've heard some things about it but it hasn't stuck to my mind over the years of stress and such. Also, You've become a source of inspiration for me to continue on my own druid path. I've...been in doubt for a long while now, and fumbling to be quite honestly. I don't know if this really constituted a message, but i just thought to reach out to you. Be well.”
OMG @shadowlion!!! I am so honored. I am so incredibly honored to have my open journal be a source of inspiration to other OBODies. At first I was like... wait a minute... this dude is a mutual... why is that name so familiar?! And the it donned on me that I super stalked your blog not too long ago because you are a Dom and an OBODer just like me and frankly I was so excited to see another!
I’m sorry to hear about your stress, your doubt, and your fumbling but honestly we are human and I’d be shocked and a bit worried if you didn’t have those three things in your life at one point or another. Trials are messy and can break you down but it’s how you build yourself back together that determines your character. Shadow work is the biggest part of building yourself back together and, thru that experience, learning empathy, wisdom, and compassion.
Shadow work is, put simply, working on yourself using the psychologist Carl Jung’s definition of “shadow self”. Shadow work is recognizing the baser aspects of yourself that happen unconsciously and bringing them to your conscious mind for the purpose of acknowledging every aspect of yourself in order to form a cohesive whole. Your “shadow self” is the part of yourself you might not acknowledge or might even hate. Working on it involves a lot of psychological improvement and discussions with yourself that a counselor might ask you to answer. It basically cuts out the middle man for some good deep therapy and helps direct you into being a more whole person. I recommend for everyone who is interested in witchcraft to do their own shadow work because how do you expect to be able to allow good energy flow within your body if your mind is blocking certain parts of yourself? (... and to keep in mind that this is a process that can take years... I took 2 years doing shadow work before I even started my Bardic Grade with the OBOD but I had a rough childhood and needed to work on me before I ... well.. started working on me from a different angle ... and I’m still working on me now!). Shadow work is never ending, just like all good practices.
Start here: Shadow Work Exercise Masterpost by @unmaskingthedivine. I wish I had found their blog back years ago when I was starting my own shadow work.
Tagging: @crystalwitch-in-the-tardis because we touched on this subject earlier today and you were curious.
In darkness and in light, where truth is still truth,
Selene Blackwell /|\