Many of us are living in prisons of our own keeping. I say “keeping” instead of “making” because it’s not really helpful to blame ourselves or others for the presence of these walls. Yes we’ve all been treated horribly at times, and the lists of reasons why we should keep the walls up around ourselves are completely valid.
But if we look a little closer it’s not just the walls that are stopping even the things that we say we want from coming closer, it’s everything we have written onto these walls. Whenever we experience anything in life, what do we make it mean? Somebody leaves us, or disappoints us massively and the residue of this experience shows up in what we have written into our own energy field. Usually it’s something along the lines of “I’m not valuable, I’m not enough or good enough, I’m not worthy, loveable or deserving, I don’t belong or fit in, I’m bad.” Sound familiar?
These are our false core beliefs. As babies we come into this world purely innocent and whole in our capacity for love. There is no way we doubt our worthiness to have our needs met. Most people would never look at a baby and think, you’re just not worthy of being loved. And yet this is the heartbreaking thing that happens in this world. There is a devastating chain reaction of seemingly not enough love to go around, which then starts showing up on the walls of our energy field as what we then make this mean about ourselves. This writing then acts as the script for the experiences we attract into our lives, until we make the conscious choice to look a little closer.
This process of looking closer is what is known as “shadow work”. Essentially we’re looking into the darkest parts of ourselves, the parts that are usually buried deep in the subconscious. It’s probably the least glamorous process out there and is the most difficult to offer as a tool because quite frankly, most people don’t want to spend their time cleaning graffiti off a wall. It’s also highly tempting to look outwards and blame others or Life as the source of our problems. Neither of these options is particularly helpful or empowering.
What’s the alternative? Get curious. Use the red flag of your emotions to find out what’s really going on. Stare back at all the writing on the walls of your own keeping and start questioning if any of it is really true. Feel the residue of those words in your body. What do they feel like? Where did they come from? Where are they living inside of you?
And then make a choice. Decide if you want to keep staring at those words on that wall and feeling the discord in your body, or if you would rather write something a little kinder, more loving, more TRUE. And then see how this feels in your body. Do you feel more at ease, more whole, more IN LOVE? Do you feel more aligned with your essence?
These “new” words are much lighter. Their frequency is higher and they don’t need walls on which to stick. They are like golden threads woven into fine silk garments, and they allow you to move, to dance, to connect.
Doesn’t that feel more comfortable?
