Shadow Work as Alchemy Work
If you don’t know what shadow work is, it’s the spiritual way of going into your psychological and somatic wounding. In other terms, it is how we solve the pains and hurts we carry on the inside that end up manifesting themselves on the outside.
There is a lot of information out there on shadow work and I, for one, consumed a lot of it when I was beginning my “healing journey.” Of course, then I realized that journey is more of a “maintenance journey” because stuff is always bound to come up and the more we grow, the more “shadow” there is. You can’t grow light without its counterpart.
Shadow work begins as a brave odyssey that takes you into the darkest parts of yourself, the stuff you hide, repress, and reject. Shadow work is going into your shadow and putting light into it, making it be seen and loved.
The process of shadow work is an alchemical process. It is ultimately grabbing something and turning into something completely different.
Not too long ago I realized, thanks to someone very dear to me, that the shadow does not have to be shadow-y. I understood that the dark parts of us are called that because we won’t accept them. Just merely giving them that language allows them to exist in the dark.
I want shadow work to become simple alchemy work. A neutral process. It does not have to be painful, it can simply be as uncomfortable as the degree in which you resist change. Otherwise, it can simply be turning one thing into something different.
In somatic work, when one goes into the body to relieve it from the reoccurring sensations that are happening, the feelings are merely called sensations. They are not made into something bad, dark, or unaccepted. In fact, they barely need a name.
To call a feeling by its name is to give it life in a way and make it way more complex than it is. What is anxiety to me might be very different to how you experience it. If I tell you I have anxiety, you might misinterpret me. Regardless of language used with other people, we are bound to misunderstand within our own selves, too.
Instead of going into this abandoned or repressed part of yourself and immediately labeling it shadow, why not simply see it for what it is. If it is pain, then great. If it is heaviness, then awesome. Call the feelings, sensations, and energy stuck in your body for what it is. Lets stop dramatizing something that is not necessary and that keeps you in a state of perpetual victimhood.
If you are constantly doing shadow work, that means to a certain extent you think you are “bad,” “dark,” or are hiding something. Call it an alchemical process. You are simply going to change your pain into pleasure. Feeling your grief until it dissipates into relief.
When shadow work becomes about going into these stories we hold from childhood to adulthood and labeling them as something bad, we can remain in that state. Looking at stories you hold as bad and seeing them for what they were will be the best way to release them and feel the things you want to feel- whether that is peace or contentment or straight up happiness.
If life is a garden, alchemy work is about using the mountains of poop that you have gathered and simply using them as fertilizer because that is simply what they are. Instead of continuing to cry about your garden smelling and making you gag, put it to use, and alchemize it into what you want your garden to be like.
What I recently found out is that there does not need to bad in me. My feelings are not bad, my stories are not bad, my “dark side” is actually not bad or dark. I made that happen. I can simply take things they way they are and stop making these stories that villainize because in truth, they are not serving me to get to where I want to go and be. For me, that is peace.
I can simply take a look inside me and realize it is all part of a whole. There will be good and bad swirled up because opposites exist, but I do not have to perceive them that way. I can see them with love and care. I can see them for what they are, neutrally, and use them with care to do the things I want.
The alchemical process in a nutshell:
Go inside of yourself
Take the things you don’t like or have had trouble with in the past
Put those things to work for the things you want, give them new life
The alchemical process is about death and rebirth. It shows us that everything that exists can become something new because matter is not created nor destroyed, it is merely reused.
The alchemical process happens throughout all of life. It happens in nature constantly. We are born and we die. We change forms. Our remains are used for something different. It is time we get comfortable with this cycle and stop calling it “shadow.” It does not lie in the dark. In fact, it is the only thing that is constantly visible and is a permanent fixture in our life.