This is going to be a moment of transparency on this blog. I am writing from my own experiences and opinions here anyway so why not right? I have never liked someone giving out advice that they themselves don’t take. And I know that I say people should do shadow work, and this post might feel counterproductive to that. I still think Shadow Work is important, however I also think this might be a great example of why it’s called Shadow.

This is the ugly and hidden side that people are talking about. This here will be putting my money where my mouth is. I will need to give some trigger warnings. If you aren’t in the mental, spiritual, emotional mindset to hear something trauma please go ahead and skip this post. I will take no offense to it whatsoever. Let’s get this clear, this is a huge trigger warning.

I need to give another disclaimer. If you have trauma I am not promoting that you use shadow work as a substitution for therapy. Please seek out a therapist. There are so many things that could go wrong including mental breakdowns that would lead to self harm. Please do not look at my experience and think, she did it so I can too. Because I promise I am barely doing it, barely. We all have our limitations and I want everyone to be safe.

Okay if you read my ‘About Me’ section then you know one of my gifts are dreams. However, that comes with a double edge sword. I had a very traumatic childhood and suppressed a lot of things from my past. My suppression was and is so bad that if you get near me when I am sleeping I will wake up fighting and screaming.

My body stays on flight or fight mode. It’s on high alert when I am sleeping and that’s just due to things of my past. So what does this mean in relation to my gifts? Well because my brain wants to make sense of the things that happened as a child, sometimes it will try to do that while I am asleep so I don’t have to actually hold onto those memories in my awakened state. My subconscious wants to heal from the things that my conscious stuff might not be ready for. Which is really hard when your dreams are also being used to transport messages.

When this got to the point that I couldn’t handle it anymore, that is when I decided to seek out therapy and work with a therapist. While working with the therapist I started doing shadow work. Now due to some financial situations I am not currently in therapy, but clearly I need it. I still do my shadow work and I meditate just because I feel comfortable enough to do so.

The way I do my shadow work and meditation is I like to mix it with the chakra points. So for seven weeks I work on balancing one chakra and I center my shadow work prompts, meditations, yoga, teas, etc around that one chakra. I am starting over this method because I also end up stopping before I actually hit my crown. I feel like sometimes I end up stopping because I have so much going on with other things I get too overwhelmed.

So one of the reasons I never get far is because as I go through this process I often start to remember some of the things I have suppressed. Or I realize that certain things that I have glossed over isn’t as glossy. And as you can imagine that is so hard to deal with and it can be scary.

Especially when you take into account that most of the stuff you are remembering involves the people you think are supposed to love you. I feel like this just comes back to maybe I didn’t fully do the work needed at the other chakra points. Or maybe for one reason or another I revert back to being unaligned i don’t know, I am not an expert.

So, right now what I am working on is feeling safe, in my home, with those around me, but with myself. I am challenging myself to do things to make me feel safe. Doing things to make me feel safe in conjunction with working on balancing this chakra is making a world of difference for me. It requires more than just digging up old memories and trying to world through whatever you just unpacked. It requires work to make sure you don’t end up there again.

Which should be common sense right? However I have never actively done things to make sure I feel safe. I have always just done the shadow work questions and moved on. I can’t tell you the things I am doing to feel safe because one it might not work for you and two it might not make sense to you. My trauma is my own and so this only makes sense for me and my trauma. You need to do what makes sense for yours.

Okay so let’s get to the point now that I have kinda explained things for you right. So sometimes when my brain is remembering things in my sleep, I remember it in my waking. And I know, based on the work done with my therapist. These are the things my brain thinks I am not ready to deal with, which is why it likes to work on things while I am asleep. I like to think of it kinda like how our brains don’t trust us to live on our own and that’s why we can’t control our own organs. 

Anyway I have been molested by family members, more than one, some I even had my daughter around. And it causes so many mixed emotions in me now. Because part of me feels so horrible that I would have her around these people. The other part of me gives me grace since I didn’t know. But then there’s the part of me that says I didn’t know, because I didn’t want to know. That makes me just as guilty if they ever did anything to her.

And that in itself is a lot to work through and it is so hard to try and unpack. There isn’t a right or wrong way to look at it because depending on your experiences in life I know you will agree with one of the three scenarios I created. I know the ‘perfect’ ones will agree that I choose not to know, making me also guilty. Can almost hear the comments now. I know logically I should give myself grace. But I am sure we can all agree that she shouldn’t be around these people.

Now lets get to something that is weird, kinda. I have not addressed everyone who had touched me, but I did address one. The one who did it the most surprisingly was the one I felt the most comfortable addressing, weird right? Maybe it’s because he is the one doing the worst. Addicted to drugs, in and out of rehab, in and out of jail, PTSD from his service in the military.

He is doing shitty. I am not sure what that says about me but probably nothing good right? I don’t know honestly, anyway I did address him. He expressed his remorse, he told me his own story of how he was molested, he also expressed that I was the only one he never touched anyone else. It didn’t make me feel better but it helped in a way. It is kinda like when you get closer from a relationship where you were cheated on and abused.

Like yeah tragic story cool whatever but shouldn’t that have been even more of a reason not to do that shit to others? Why me right, but also like don’t tell me why me because then I would probably hyper fixate on it and I don’t want to do that to myself. Either way it doesn’t make any sense and there is no making sense of it honestly. I don’t understand what he saw in me and I don’t want to know, not now and probably not ever. 

I didn’t tell my family, and I know some of you think I am wrong for that. However this is my journey so keep the comments to yourself. Okay I feel bad not saying anything, it’s weird because I also didn’t feel like I could say anything. I still can’t tell you why I never told anyone else in the family. Can’t tell you why I didn’t go to the police, still. I think it is because my brain is still trying to make sense of it. And I am not sure what I would say.

I already don’t have a good relationship with my family and I know that other things I have remembered they tried to gaslight me into believing it didn’t happen. When me and my therapist had already confirmed that my symptoms, actions, and unsuppressed memories all line up with it being true. I also feel like with the status of limitations that the police would be pointless to involve. I also feel like those limitations are bullshit. Sometimes we can’t help why we didn’t say anything sooner.

Now one thing I am currently doing in this process of healing is doing daily readings on myself. Knowing the ancestors are guiding me through this healing process has helped me in the strangest way. It truly has been a blessing. Sometimes I like to do my daily reading before leaving the house, however most of the time it is after work. If I had a dream or remembered something the readings help me to make sense of the two.

Sometimes they just tell me something encouraging that keeps me going. I have noticed that this time around because I started doing this when suppressed memories arise or I have a tough shadow work prompt it is so much easier to deal with this time around then it was in the past.

Part of me can feel that my healing journey is being guided this time. I can tell and feel my ancestors and spirit guides want me to finish this journey I have started. They want me to feel the fact that I am ready to heal from this trauma and that I am not alone, they are here with me and I am grateful.

Part of me is a little worried that there is something really big they want me to remember, however an elder of me says that it might just be their way of wanting to help me through it. I have a purpose and it is hard to work on your purpose and walk your path if you are being held back by traumatic experiences from the past. 

Let go and heal.