Shadow Work + Dark Nights of the Soul

by Kari Miranda December 5, 2020

Hey Soul Fam!

This week upcoming week during Thankful Thursday we'll discuss shadow work and dark nights of the soul. I was going to wait on uploading this blog, but I felt as though this subject matter was as deep as the mirror working and I wanted to give people the opportunity to study up on these subjects before we discuss and do our Self-Care Sunday meetings. So, where do these theories come from?

One of my favorite psychologist darlings! Dr. Carl Jung coined the term Shadow to refer to this area of the unconscious mind, which is outside of the light of awareness. Do we all have a shadow? Absolutely. With the world shifting into a higher vibration, many people are now starting to get glimpses of their shadow for the first time in their lives. Whether or not you will evolve towards your highest self will depend upon this work and the integration of your shadow.

I’d like to believe that most of us first see our shadows during our Saturn return or our quarter-life crisis (between the ages of 25-30 on average for most people). This identity crisis gets deeper and more painful the more our cognitive dissonance does not align with our real reality. For those of you who don’t know, cognitive dissonance is basically when you mind fuck yourself into believing that your reality is better than it actually is. It is your ego’s way of coming on in and saving you from your reality- which in turn allows you to cope with your reality and continue surviving. In the psychological community though, they would define cognitive dissonance as the mental discomfort that results from holding two conflicting beliefs, values, or attitudes. People tend to seek consistency in their attitudes and perceptions (ego), so this conflict causes feelings of unease or discomfort. Furthermore, this inconsistency between what people believe and how they behave motivates people to engage in actions that will help minimize their feelings of discomfort. People attempt to relieve this tension in different ways, such as by rejecting, explaining away, deflecting, or avoiding the new information all together. To learn more about cognitive dissonance, what it is and how it is developed, you can check out this article:

www.verywellmind.com/what-is-cognitive-dissonance-2795012

Cognitive dissonance needs to be understood in order to be able to combat the ego when it comes to try and save you from yourself. Your ego likes comfort, it doesn’t like changes and it sure as fuck doesn’t like the imbalances shadow work brings. It will fight against what you are trying to do. Your ego will try to scare you. It will say, what are you doing? This place is scary. We need to go. You can’t do this. You don’t know what you’re doing. Your ego will try everything to keep you in comfort. DO NOT LISTEN TO YOUR EGO. Choose to move forward even through the discomfort you’re going to be feeling.

Once you get past that initial discomfort, you’ll be ready for shadow work and experiencing your first dark night of the soul! How do these relate to one another? Well, a dark night of the soul is what usually happens when confronting the shadow. It is a part of the process and is not something to be feared. What matters the MOST when you do shadow work and experience a dark night is that you keep perspective. Before attempting to do any of this work, please begin connecting with your spirit squad. You can do this through meditation or prayer. It doesn’t have to come from a book or be fancy. When you speak to your squad, you can have a regular conversation with them as you would a friend. This conversation can be either out loud or in your head, it doesn’t matter. What DOES matter is your intention and your wanting to connect. What are you asking them help with? Perspective. Ask them to help you keep perspective while you are doing your shadow work so that you do not get lost in your darkness.

[NOTE: If you’ve ever heard me speak to folks about energy, then you know that your spirit squad resonates highly and will bring you warm, loving energy. Low resonating energy on the other hand makes you fearful and gives you anxiety. Do not be fearful of energy- positive nor negative. Do your fucking auric protection and negative energy won’t be a problem period though. I speak about and teach the masses how it is done every week during Thankful Thursday’s guided meditation and I do this because I believe it is the MOST important information and weapon I can arm newbies with. The art of protection is extremely important so if you aren’t already doing this, get on it please!]

What do you find within your shadows? Why your demons of course, and this is why so many people fear shadow work. They fear meeting their demons. They fear finding out who they are beneath it all. They fear finding out that they are exactly like the people they can not stand the most. They fear gazing at their reflection without the wool of comfort shrouding their eyes. Will you freeze or will you move forward? The choice will be yours ultimately, but if you are experiencing these things then I would highly recommend you move forward and allow yourself to evolve.

Personally, I began my shadow working journey when I was 20 years old. That was the first time that I saw my reality not align with what I called real reality. I can honestly say that my first dark night of the soul was a long one (this was before I learned about keeping perspective). I look back now and realize how hard-headed I was. How I held on so tightly to my beliefs and ideals. How I held on so tightly to my anger and low resonating emotions. They fueled me. Who would I be without it? I learned that I could be whoever the fuck I wanted to be, as the master and creator of my own universe. But, in order to create myself in the image I wanted, I first had to break every fucking thing down. I had to be honest with myself at every turn. I had to take accountability for my shit. I had to turn inward and decide that I wanted better for myself.

Was it easy? No. I would be lying to you if I told you that shadow work was easy. Healing from trauma never is, but I will say that it is easier when you willingly want to do it. When you willingly want to evolve, I find that it is also easier to keep perspective. It is also easier to keep perspective about the people within your life when you realize the true purpose as to why they trigger you so much. The things that we often can't stand about other people are the same things we don't like within ourselves. That's why these people trigger us, so that we can acknowledge this disconnect we have within our psyche.

Practice makes perfect and the more you do it, the easier the process will get, and your dark nights will get shorter. It’s a matter of consistency and persistence that will get you through. You truly have to be willing to sacrifice who you are right now, in this current form. Like the phoenix, you have to be willing to set yourself on fucking fire so that you can rise renewed and rebirthed from those ashes. That is what sacrifice is really about, being willing to always sacrifice your current form for the upgrade. Are you ready to rise?

To start doing some shadow work now though, start by asking yourself some of these questions. Sometimes it really helps to write it all out and keep a journal while on this journey.