There are two categories that exist in us
The light and the shadow
But these categories aren’t completely separate from each other
They both affect your life and each other in many ways
Love and light witches avoid their shadow and try to stay in the light at all times
Baneful witches are closer to the other side where they focus on hexes, curses, and other similar spells
Then there is an infinite mix of the two that is covered under gray witch
I am a gray witch
I study energy work and Reiki in the world of love and light
But I also agree that hexes and shadow work have their place
Shadow work is a huge part of my journey because I needed Shadow Healing
Shadow healing is doing shadow work with an emphasis on finding what parts of your shadow is in pain and working through them. This is facing limiting beliefs, working through trauma, learning to accept parts of yourself, and more
As someone that went through years of abuse growing up, I had a lot of Shadow Healing to do
What is your Shadow?
Your shadow is the dark parts of you that you try to hide
It is where your trauma is, parts of you that you are ashamed of, things about you that you were taught were bad, and anything else that you hide from most or everyone around you
If you are like me, very select people were allowed to see some of my shadow, but I mostly hid it from everyone
Including myself
I thought I could will myself into being a different person
But the shadow is still part of you and will affect your life even if you pretend that it isn’t there
What does it mean to start Shadow healing?
Starting shadow healing is exactly how it sounds
You are beginning the process of healing those things that you have hidden
Sometimes it takes time to just FIND the things in your shadow
There are things that I found that I didn’t realize were there
That could be because I have had those beliefs since I was very young, or because trauma made me forget
But just because it wasn’t conscious doesn’t mean it didn’t affect me
You can start shadow healing by finding those things that you need to work on, or by working on things that you already knew were there
I decided to start by working on something that I knew was there
I started with a belief that I knew was there, and affected me, but wasn’t highly emotional
Working through it wasn’t going to be super painful
I still slip up sometimes, but healing isn’t linear
It is full of ups and downs
But the downs become less often the more you work on healing your shadow
Does everything in the Shadow need healing?
NO!
There are parts of your shadow that are there because you are ashamed for some reason
Unless you decide that it is something that needs healing, you may need to work on accepting
Accepting every part of you is healing in a way, but you aren’t healing the thing itself
You may need to work on limiting beliefs to do that
But just because you have it hidden, doesn’t mean you should be ashamed or want to work through it
Something the work is just learning to love that part of you for the first time
Why is Shadow healing important?
Your shadow may be hidden from the world, but it still affects you greatly
It affects the way you think, respond, act, make decisions, and more
The shadow lives in your subconscious mind
If you don’t know, the subconscious mind is WAY stronger than your conscious mind
Your conscious mind may be able to overpower the subconscious temporarily, but the subconscious always wins in the end
Shadow healing is important so you can rewire your subconscious mind to work for you instead of against you
You can slowly become the person that you want to be instead of the person that your circumstances made you
How do you start?
There are many ways to do your shadow work, but I have my preferences
But that is all it is
Preferences
If what I do doesn’t work for you, then try something else!
But the core will be the same
We need to learn what parts of our shadow are hurting, try to understand why, and use that information to heal the shadow
For detailed information, check out my many articles on shadow work
I like to use journal prompts to learn and understand my shadow
There are many of them online for free or you can get a premade journal
First, you need to read the journal prompt and sit with it for a while
Let the thoughts and memories flow
Then write everything down
Empty your mind without any guilt or shame
Once your mind is silent, reflect on how it went
Was it easy to answer or were there some triggers there?
When you have done this many times, compare journal entries and look for patterns
Once you have something that you understand and want to work on, think about what you would need to heal from that
Maybe meditate and visualize giving your younger self that thing that they need
Or go out and do something now that will bring healing to your shadow
There is no right answer
And there is no time limit
Some things heal easily and quickly
Other things take time
Give yourself what you need to heal