Everyone these days is trying to sell us the “best version of you!” or claiming your “authentic self” is something you can buy with a course or a yoga class. The truth of the matter is that being your authentic self doesn’t mean the superficial authenticity people take it for today. In order to be your most authentic self, you first have to throw off your conditioning, which is neither easy nor simple. It requires a deconstruction and reconstruction of the learned brain and emotional patterns that shape you like a mold. Water will fill a container, but its true form is a free one.
One way to begin deconditioning yourself is through shadow work.
“But Natalie!” you exclaim, a bit concerned. “What is shadow work? It sounds witchy and a little spooky!”
Well, I’m glad you asked, and I’m glad you’re here. Popularized by Carl Jung, the shadow simply represents the parts of ourselves that we cannot or refuse to see, the parts that we deny.
Imagine opening the door to a house and walking into a situation you’d find on the show Hoarders. It’s not a healthy way to live, but on an emotional level, we all do this to some degree. We can look at the shadow as a room in your house that is just absolutely overwhelming to think about, let alone walk into. We walk past it every day and mostly ignore it. Other times, we throw more stuff in there and say, “I’ll deal with it later.”
By the time “later” comes around, there are flies and roaches because things have been festering in the dark. It’s filled floor to ceiling with garbage (things that don’t serve you), clothes you’ve never worn (identities that don’t fit you), and old pictures (unprocessed experiences). Some things you don’t want to let go of, and other things you just don’t know how to let go of. Either way, it’s time to drink some metaphorical prune juice and let that shit go.
If you don’t want this mess to metastasize to the rest of your “home,” you need to start dealing with it. Anything we suppress or repress gets distorted. The lower-vibrational nature of the self isn’t inherently evil; it’s just buried. There is no unhealthy emotion, only the burying of emotion is unhealthy. When feelings aren’t allowed to see the light, they ferment into toxic survival mechanisms, projection, and unhealthy coping strategies that erode your relationships from the inside out.
To actively do shadow work is to cultivate radical self-awareness. It means identifying a wound, recognizing the subconscious survival behaviors that stem from it, and stopping those coping mechanisms in their tracks so you can bring love to where they originated. You can only clean out the room by meeting your pain face-to-face: acknowledging it, holding space for the wound, and tending to it.
Everyone is going to deal with their mess in their own way, and having a support system, whether that’s a trusted friend or a therapist, makes all the difference. Remember, it’s a process. It takes a lot of heavy lifting, but while there is pain in clearing out the clutter, there are also metaphorical pearls waiting to be reclaimed under the trash.
One difficult part of shadow work is often figuring out where to start shining the flashlight, because our defense mechanisms are so old they just feel like “normal life” to us.
“But Natalie!” you exclaim again, “What about astrology?”
I’m glad you asked. Part Deux of this article will go over some key players in the natal chart that can help us understand where we each need that metaphorical flashlight. Get excited, and check back soon.
