SHADOW WORK: an Integration Process for Healing in a Pandemic
SHADOW WORK:
an Integration Process for Healing in a Pandemic
by Jenniffer ClarOscura, Faculty
SHADOW WORK: an Integration Process for Healing in a Pandemic… Every so often I run a self-awareness check-up to make sure I am living my life in a conscious and balanced way. I learned that during this pandemic it is even more important that I delve into my shadow work, for self awareness and even self-preservation. It is a sort of psychological and emotional ‘tune up’ that has been seeing me through these difficult days. I, like so many others, am experiencing the pandemic as a very traumatic change, and it has set off my ‘flight or fight’ instincts big-time. Unfortunately, during times like these it is easy to have those instinctual aspects take over the wheel.
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Some call it ‘soul-loss,’ others call it ‘fragmenting’. Either way, this is the realm of the unconscious, and when shadow work can help us reclaim these lost parts.
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According to Jung, the shadow is the hidden or repressed side of our personality. Shadow work is the process of recognizing, and then integrating, these hidden aspects of ourselves–aspects that we disown, deny, are ashamed of, and even judge. These ‘undesirable’ aspects of ourselves become buried in the depths of the unconscious mind because they are just are too painful to consciously face. Repressed shadows are responsible for all manner negativity in our lives, from patterns that we cannot seem to break, to how we see ourselves as people, to how we react to things. All these things lead us to make the choices we do, and therefor, how we experience life, for the good, or not-so-good.
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Since the onset of this pandemic, you may have experienced yourself acting (and reacting) in ways that were completely unfamiliar to you. Were you more fearful? Anxious? Did you find yourself becoming a ‘hoarder of toilet paper’ like so many others? You just may have found yourself wondering who this ‘pandemic person’ (you) is!
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A Shadow Emerges
When Covid-19 gripped New York City in the spring of 2020, I became super protective over my family. Fearing for them, I literally moved us out of our city apartment within the first week, and into a house upstate closer to nature. Here we were far from the crowded throngs of people we had grown to tolerate in city life. It is something I always wanted to do, yet always came up with a million excuses not to do it.
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The initial fear I felt during the early months of the pandemic kicked in my sense of survival. I became firmly lodged in the mundane and all its weighty concerns. The ‘dreamer’ and completely esoterically-oriented person that I normally am fell by the wayside. I unconsciously judged anybody that seemed to be on the magickal side of things during this transition, and for a short time, could no longer relate to most of my spiritual friends. I was in a constant state of shock and under a lot of stress.
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It was from this very uptight inner world that I began unconsciously creating a new outer world. I had fragmented and was outwardly projecting traits of a person that I normally am not. I realized that I needed the wonderfully witchy, spiritual dreamer that pre-covid Jenniffer was to acknowledge, embrace, and heal the present-day covid-fearing Jenniffer I came to be. So I delved into my shadow work and integrated both halves of my fragmented self, and began the journey home to my pre-pandemic self by revealing the shadow that was now running the proverbial show.
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Shadow Work Integration Process
I invite you to do this shadow work integration process for healing in this pandemic. It will help you to recognize and reintegrate the fragmented parts of your soul and psyche (the shadows) that pandemic fear and stress have surfaced in you. Doing so will help you to retrieve the happier parts of who you were pre-covid. The process works best if you journal your way through it.
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1. THINK ABOUT WHERE YOU WERE BEFORE ALL THIS HAPPENED
Go back to the last few months of 2019, or the first couple of months of 2020. Recall the activities were you involved in. How did they make you feel? What were your plans for 2020? Did you have plans for new journeys to embark upon? Why did you want to have these experiences? How were they going to make you feel? What were your hopes and dreams? Who were you surrounding yourself with? Really get in there and imagine your former life before the pandemic hit the world. Visualize it like it is a movie that you have just stepped into. Take your time and recreate all the details. Write them down.
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2. JUMP FORWARD TO THE PRESENT MOMENT
Ask yourself: what activities are you involved in now? How and what are you feeling? Have you made alternate plans now for 2020? If so, what journey are you now embarking on? Do you feel sadness or resistance and are not wanting to experience it? Are unusual feelings growing within you? What are your hopes and dreams at this present time? Since lockdowns and social distancing, who are you snow surrounding yourself with? Are there friends and loved ones missing in your day-to-day life? Again, visualize your thoughts as if they are a movie that you have just stepped into. Take your time and recreate all the details as they are today and write them down.
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3. COMPARE AND CONTRAST
What differences do you notice between the past and present You? Do you recognize new things within yourself? What parts seem like a completely different person? Are there things that you judge about your past self? What new emotions and ideologies do you presently observe that weren’t there before? Is there anything you miss about your pre-pandemic self and would you like to call back into your life? What parts of yourself have surfaced since the pandemic that are not necessarily reflective of the person you really are or see yourself as?
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Note: It isn’t just about the good feelings or the longing that calls for integration. The hard part is looking into the negative emotions. If you feel resistance, judgment, or dislike toward your present self, this is a sign that fragmenting occurred and integration is needed. This means you were denying a part of yourself that existed before the pandemic, and it was the heightened stress of it that brought out the darker, less likable parts of the innermost You. Do not shun or fear this Shadow. It surfaced for a reason (the only job our shadows truly have is to protect us, whacky or destructive as they may seem). So knowing this, thank your shadow for trying to help and protect you. Integrated this dark fragment back into the light and your conscious mind.
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4. INTEGRATE
Visualize your past self standing right in front of you. Now visualize your present, pandemic-effected self. Invite both parts of you back into your body and life. Hear this pre-pandemic aspect thanking you for allowing what was hidden to come to the surface into the light. Thank what emerged (this shadow) for getting you through these hard times. Tell your shadow how you are going to make room for her/his return. Allow her/him to step back into your life and begin to co-create with you in the present. Visualize both light and shadow selves merging together as one. You may also breathe her/his energy back into your body, or just imagine you are embracing and becoming one. Also, any other way you intuitively visualize this is up to you.
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The Shadow Lost Its Power Over Me
Prior to doing this exercise, I realized I would never be fully happy if I denied the newly emerged, pre-pandemic shadow that was now running my life. Doing so allowed me to open up once again to the synchronicities in life, and I welcomed magick back into my heart. My spirituality began to flourish once again because that covid-triggered shadow had lost its grip on me. I contacted friends I hadn’t heard from in a while, and began to thaw from my frozen-in-fear, super-rational, pandemic panic. I realized that no matter what is happening in the outer world, I could still feel joy and happiness inside. It was ok to integrate my rational side with my magickal abstract dreamer within. Both are a valuable part of my being. Balance was definitely needed and I now hold the best of both worlds.
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