Natural Shadow Work
In my experience, non-duality is a natural path that brings into the light, integrates, and transforms the disturbing energy of those aspects of the psyche that otherwise may cause us to unexpectedly become defensive, whether it be fleeing with fear, fighting, or attempting to control with some unpleasant destructive force or aggressiveness. Whether it be some combination of conditioned emotional responses, some form of individual or collective trauma, some trait or other, as Jung described these things rather ominously, the so-called “shadow,” and modern cognitive psychology describes them in terms of various symptoms such as PTSD. Many of us have spent a lifetime feeling fearful in the face of being alive and have developed what may feel like a motley crew of characters in our heads that defensively respond to situations. Unexpectedly, we can find the body suddenly becoming triggered into contraction and defensiveness, and reverting to being as if a defensive child.
Rather like forging iron, we, this single aware reality, in effect give ourselves tests and challenges that bring to the surface impurities that may be blocking our light. These situations tend to keep repeating until we can understand them and resolve any psychic issues. What makes this forging natural and possible is that we start in the inner psychological safe refuge of our own aware being. A place that is never-changing, ever-present, and always at life-affirming peace. This safety gives us the confidence that we are always and already whole as we are. It is this very wholeness that is the key. Instead of having to go hunting for shadows, as we firmly commit to our own light of the aware being we are, they will come into the light naturally, for they seek to relieve the pressure of their own unresolved tension. And they do so in a manner according to the strength of our abidance as our true nature, so they never overwhelm us. A little psychological education as to what triggers these moments of unpleasantness helps, as well as the perspectives of others and even some experienced therapists sometimes too (who hopefully understand oneness themselves), but what is the ultimate healer is the invisible universal love we feel for all things and that does not reject anything or try to hide it away as if it really could in an attempt to present to the world some kind of unified character in order to survive. In this way, quite naturally, such sticky elements of the psyche are healed as required, in the light of the wholeness we already feel, not hope to feel.
Love,
Freyja
