We are just starting to edge into the autumn and I am already hearing the knock of Shadow Work. For those of you are new to Shadow Work, it is a way of looking at the aspects of yourself that you try to keep hidden. These can often keep you from moving forward.
For more information on Shadow Work you can download my free Shadow Work Journal (it is also available in hard copy if you would prefer). CLICK HERE
Use this meditation to begin looking at your shadow and see what information you receive.
Take a few deep breaths and close your eyes. See the darkness in front of your eyes. How do you feel in the dark? What sensations do you have in the dark place?
Feel a presence near you. They are also dark and clouded. They are a guide who has come to lead you into your shadow. They are not a light and happy guide but you do not feel afraid of them. They are there to help you.
Move with your guide further into the shadow. In a small crevice you come upon a being. This being is an uncomfortable feeling you have been having lately. What is that feeling? Where does that feeling arise from?
Can you reach out to this feeling without judgments? Can you see it as a part of you and embrace it? This feeling is a culmination of many experiences in your life and is not something you need to push away. Do not suffer because you feel this way, accept that this feeling will come and go. Understanding where the feeling comes from may help you have compassion for yourself in feeling this way.
Just sit with this feeling for a while and acknowledge it. Make friends with your feeling.
Does this time just sitting with your feeling and examining it give you a hint on what would calm this feeling? What would make you feel more comfortable? Give a final hug to this being and join your guide again.
If you feel like you have the energy you can follow your guide to visit another feeling. If not, you have done enough for now and allow yourself to return to your physical body. Hear the sounds around your physical body. Wiggle your fingers and toes and when you feel ready open your eyes.
To explore deeper think about or write down answers to the following questions:
What feeling did you visit?
How did it feel to sit with this being?
Did you gain any insights into this feeling?
Are there any changes you could make to calm this feeling?
Take care, Jessica Cross
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Journals on Amazon: Click Here
Jessica Cross 
If I’m in total darkness inside a building, then I get very frightened very quickly, because I don’t know how to move around in it, or how to get out, unless it’s in my own house. Outside, I don’t think total darkness would bother me nearly so much, but I can’t recall ever experiencing that. Even in rural areas at night, there is always some light – area lights reflecting on the clouds if nothing else. The feeling is the dread of something devastating happening – something that I can’t possibly stop from happening. And when it happens, the world is radically changed for the worse. There is a long period of misery before achieving a stable state, when the terrible event has finally receded far enough into memory. Sometimes, when it happens, I never quite get back to the level of mental health that I had before, so then I build new structures (add-ons) to keep myself from falling farther. I respect the feeling greatly, it helps me be cautious and avoid mistakes. It is its other form, the devastation, the misery that comes out when something allows it to become foremost in my mind, that I struggle to cope with. Someone told me that it’s like the crazy uncle who comes out of the back bedroom from time to time and hangs around in the living room, being unpleasant, before finally gradually retiring to the back bedroom again. I know what that feeling is derived from, it is the accumulated sadness from sudden, devastating events that I’ve never been able to resolve, that all comes out at once when something sets it off again, usually another devastation, but sometimes something much more obscure. Some of these events you know about, some I can tell you about another time. I have never been able to find a way to feel comfortable when Crazy Uncle leaves his bedroom, There is only relief in silence and solitude and the continuing effects of medication, until Crazy Uncle finally decides to go back. I know that he’s part of me and I should not be strenuously pushing him away, for it makes things worse, but when he comes out it’s an agony. Many of the movements in my life are based on keeping him in his bedroom, and not giving him a reason to come out. It appears to be the foundation of my existence.
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