Shadow Workshop Pre-Work:

When you think about your goals, dreams, and desires what doubts, fears, limiting beliefs, and unhelpful stories come up?

Put 10 minutes on the clock and write them out before the workshop.

I'm Katie j, and this is the Pre-Work lesson for my Shadow Healing Workshop.

Please follow this video in its entirety, so that you can be prepared for the workshop when we meet on the 21st.

In this training, we're gonna talk about what the Shadow is, intro Shadow Work and Shadow Healing.

We're going to mainly be diving into trauma, healing, trauma informed breathwork, and Shadow Work.

So let's go ahead and dive in into the basics so that we can all show up on the same page.

What is the shadow? Where did it come from?

The way that I like to think of the shadow is that it's basically all aspects of ourselves that aren't aligned with our true nature, which is love, which is Infinite Creation, because we are all souls living in skin suits.

Think of it as an actual shadow on the ground. How does that shadow form?

It forms because your body is in the place between light, right?

There's light - a lamp, the sun, etc. - and then there is your body blocking the light.

The Shadow in our body is a representation of life on Earth, of all of the things that we've been through, all of the domestication, all of the conditioning, all of the limiting beliefs that we've adopted during our time on Earth.

So our shadow is literally a representation of being human.

Whereas we are actually souls inside of skin suits - we are light, we are love, we are Infinite Creation. But it's our bodies are the manifestation of us being in an animal body that we call humans, that literally creates the shadow.

In the Shadow lies sayings like:

I can't do this.

I can't even look at this.

I don't want to talk about my daddy issues.

I don't want to talk about money.

I don't want to talk about my insecurities.

How does the shadow form?

It forms from our life on Earth. It forms from the moment that we land on this Earth.

We were born into a way of moving about the world that is limited.

We're limited by what society tells us. We're limited by what our family tells us. We’re limited by what the media tells us. And all of these things add to our identities and what we believe our potential is.

Those things are shadows, oftentimes our shadows are our emotions.We've been taught not to feel certain emotions.

I did a poll on my Instagram and asked everybody, do you feel all the feels? Or are there certain emotions that you actively avoid?

99% of the population that voted, said there are emotions that they avoid feeling.

As long as you avoid feeling certain emotions, they stay in the shadows, that does not mean that they don't affect you. It simply means that their subconsciously impacting your manifestations.

Just because a situation, an event, a thought, a feeling is shoved into the shadows, does not mean it's not affecting us. It actually is still affecting us. It's affecting our manifestations, affecting our vibrations, affecting our lives.

Shadow Work is the process of bringing things out of the shadows and into the light.

What is Shadow Healing/Shadow Work?

I'm going to use those terms interchangeably in the workshop. As well as Shadow Plurk because it really is a process of play and work. You’ve got to have the play, you got to have the grace, the flow, and the ease. But then you also need to show up for it. And that's why there's still work involved.

Shadow Healing is the process of shining light in the dark places, the process of loving the parts of ourselves that don't feel so good.

How do you do it?

There are so many different ways that you can do Shadow Work.

I teach a lot of different Shadow Healing modalities inside of EASE (my signature manifestation course) but I will be teaching one specific modality inside of the workshop.

Basically, when you notice that there is something that you are shoving aside, when there is a feeling that doesn't feel so great, or when there's a story that you're telling yourself that is continuously manifesting the act of Shadow Healing is literally giving those parts of yourself attention!

Shadow healing is bringing those things into the light, talking about them, doing breathwork with those things as your intentions so that the breath can do the healing for you.

Some people like to do Shadow Work by going on runs in nature or they get clarity from some people like talk therapy and coaching. Some people like journaling.

I love journaling for Shadow Work (you're going to do some of this for homework) because you don't need anybody else.

You can do it all by yourself! You can release the shadows and begin the process of healing them without anybody else. All you need is a pen and paper and 10 minutes of your time.

How does Shadow Healing/Work/Plurk play into manifestation?

The way that I teach manifestation is as a cycle.

The first stage in the cycle is setting a goal.

So when you get really clear about what it is that you want, what you might notice is that there are thoughts that come up that tell you you can't have it, that it's going to be hard. There may be thoughts that come up that tell you that you're not good enough, that you don't know enough, that you're too young, you're too old, you aren't prepared.

If these thoughts/fears/doubts go unchecked or unevaluated, they stay in the shadows.

So when they stay in the shadows - they don't go away - they're just hanging out in our vibration.

Manifesting further procrastination.

Holding you back and keeping you stuck.

Shadow Work is really important for manifestation because you can't go from setting a goal to jumping straight to affirmations.

I think that's why affirmations get such a bad rap in the healing and manifestation space is because a lot of people do them at the wrong point in the manifestation cycle.

They're still very helpful.

It’s like Kathrin Zenkina says, You can't park your new car where your old car is - you have to move that old car out of the garage, sell it, get rid of it, and then you can park the new car. Shadow Work is the process of taking that old car and getting rid of it.

Once you uncover the old unhelpful thought/doubt/belief/programming, you can then insert the affirmation in a much more helpful way!

We want to make sure that that there's time allocated in of our day (intentional moments) set aside to be mindful of the beliefs, the stories, the doubts, and the fears that might stand in our way of getting to the place where we believe those affirmations.

That's how we manifest - we actually believe the things that we're saying.

That's why a lot of people get really confused. They're like, I have so much resistance to these affirmations. And I'm like, Yeah, yeah, let's look at the resistance, right, let's love on the resistance, let's bring the resistance up and talk about what it is. Then go back to the affirmations!

It's a process of continuously saying them because you're undoing and relearning decades of conditioning, so it's going to take some time.

If you stay dedicated to the process, you won't have any trouble manifesting your desires.

Let's talk about some examples of Shadow Work.

One of my first examples actually came up for me recently.

I just finished selling out my very first retreat. I've co-hosted retreats before, but I've never been the main host.

So during this retreat launch (and during any launch as an entrepreneur that I've done) I set a goal for a certain number of people to enroll. For this specific launch, immediately when I set the goal, the thoughts/fears/doubts came up.

*I want you to remember that if you are experiencing doubts, fears, and limiting beliefs around your goals, that's a good sign. It means you're stretching yourself, it means you have the intention of growth. It means that you are actively pursuing a better life for yourself. If you don't have any doubts/fears/limiting beliefs, you're probably just staying stagnant where you are. And that's cool. But I would imagine that if you're here, you're here to grow.*

So when I set the goal of having four people enroll in the retreat, immediately, I had the thoughts:

The price is too high.

No one wants to travel because of COVID.

No one wants to do this - nobody's gonna sign up

Here the Shadow Work is looking at those thoughts every single morning, doing my shadow work process, and really evaluating - are these things true?

Is it true that people aren’t travelling? No, people are traveling all the time right now, even though there is COVID!

Are my price is too high? No, they're actually an accurate representation of all of the expenses that go into creating a five day experience.

Is it true that nobody wants this? No, because people have actually told me that they did. I did a poll, I did my market research, I know that people are not only willing to pay for a retreat, but they're actively looking for reasons to travel domestically in the United States right now.

So that is the process that I go through with every single launch I have done in my business.

I set a goal.

My thoughts tell me I can't have it or that it's gonna be hard or that I'm gonna have to sacrifice.

I look at those thoughts.

Then I process them and look at them. I evaluate whether or not they're true. I feel them in my body. I listened to what they have to say and I feel those emotions in my body.

Then I let all of that go and release it so that I can get to the next affirmation.

I personally keep my affirmations very near and dear to me - all around my room, my car, my phone.

That's one example of how Shadow Work plays into a business situation.

On the topic of business, I constantly remind myself that ss an entrepreneur, I have to do shadow work every single day.

The success of my business depends on it.

Because as a solopreneur, I'm the only one running my business. I have a virtual assistant who helps me out with tasks, but I am the one that's generating the income. I'm the one that is running this business. And if I'm running this business from allowing doubts/fears/limiting beliefs to be in the driver's seat, then I'm not going to get anywhere.

My success is 100% determined by me believing that my success is inevitable and in order to do that, I have to look at all the limiting beliefs that tell me that I can't have it.

So those are two business-related examples.

Another example I'm going to share is around addiction - I am going to get really vulnerable with you guys.

I have struggled with addiction my entire life.

Addiction to candy. Addiction to coffee. Never really been addicted to alcohol, but I've been addicted to marijuana.

I've been addicted to attention, love, sex, and those types of things.

I struggled with that for so long.

Until I brought it up with a friend of mine and got really honest with her. With love, she reminded me that everyone struggles with addiction in some way. She shared with me that she had a food addiction. And while I don't identify with that specifically, it really helped me to even bring up that shadow to reveal it and shine light on it.

It felt good to receive love and support from somebody else and be reminded that I was not alone.

As soon as I received that confirmation that I'm not alone in this and that that shadow isn't something that makes me bad or something that makes me a bad coach or a bad space holder or anything like that.

It just makes me human.

It took off all of the pressure, all of the judgment, all of the shame, all of the anger, all of the things that I was feeling around that particular issue in my life was released.

I was reminded that I am still a growing, expanding, loving human. Just because you have this thing that you're going through, which actually by the way is very, very common, you are still LOVE!

Since then I've been able to bring so much more awareness to my behaviors and the habits that were perpetuating addictive behaviors.

Those are just a little a few examples around Shadow Work.

Another example goes back to our childhood and the domestication/programming that took place during that time. For most of us as children, we were taught and conditioned to believe that certain feelings were bad.

I have a client whose father would make them stand on a tile in their kitchen whenever there was an argument in the home or someone was upset. This was the “attitude tile” and when standing on it the person had to say, “I feel good, I feel fine, I feel happy all the time.” Repeating this over and over.

Which is basically the equivalent of “good vibes only” right?

You're not allowed to feel negative emotions, you're not allowed to feel sad, you're not allowed to feel angry and not allowed to feel upset. You’ve just got to be happy all the time.

When we reject those certain feelings, without allowing them to run their course, through our body, they get trapped in our energy system. They get trapped in our energy body, and live in the shadows.

They continuously affect our manifestations, they affect how we think about ourselves, they affect how we view the world, they affect all of those things.

For this specific client, every time we gather we talk about feelings. I guide her through feeling her feelings and really allowing the hormones to release through the body and doing breathwork to move energy through the body so that those feelings can be felt and then released. Then you can move on back to your baseline of feeling good.

In our workshop, we're going to be specifically talking about healing, trauma and, and trauma informed breathwork. We will be doing breathwork together during the workshop. And I've been hosting breathwork for several months now and doing breathwork myself for almost a year now.

I recently enrolled in a Trauma Informed course focusing on trauma release exercises and I have learned so much about how to facilitate trauma healing in a way that is actually effective!

In our culture, it is really common and somewhat praised to push through or hustle and grind.

A lot of people approach their healing in that way too. And there's a better way.

So we're going to talk about that during our workshop, we're going to talk about how our nervous system works and how to regulate our nervous system in a way that will allow us to feel the feelings that we need to feel to flush the energy that comes up from a situation or from past trauma or from ancestral trauma or from upcoming trauma.

If you don't feel like you have trauma in the past, you do and you will have some going forward, right?

We're in a very traumatic event right now. COVID is a very traumatic event.

It's considered like community trauma.

We've all been through traumatic events. But that doesn't mean that those events need to impact our manifestations and prevent us from moving forward.

So your homework is:

When you think about your goals, dreams, and desires what doubts, fears, limiting beliefs, and unhelpful stories come up?

Put 10 minutes on the clock and write them out before the workshop.

You can do this exercise for any goal. I would encourage you to do this exercise for more than one goal - hell all of your goals!

You might notice that this feels icky or sticky. It may not feel so good. You may feel like you want to shut the whole thing down.

Great! That's how you know you're on the right path.

Doesn't matter how ridiculous these thoughts are. Write them down, flush them out, get them on paper and bring them to the workshop because we're going to integrate them into the program.

I cannot wait to hold loving space for you!