We are fully in the season of Shadow Work. It is time to dive deep into the thoughts and beliefs that are holding you back. Sometimes those issues are clear to you although you may not be sure how to work through them. Other times you have hidden the root of the issue even from yourself.
In either case, this second installment of Shadow Work Meditations will help you explore these issues. If you missed the first meditation check it out HERE.
Be gentle with yourself. If you have mental health issues or severe trauma in your past you may want to do this work with a therapist that you reach out to. If these meditations become overwhelming, you are in control and can stop the meditation at any time. Take things slowly, there will always be time to delve deeper when you are ready.
Take a few deep breaths and close your eyes. Picture a dark pool in front of you. The moon is covered by clouds so there is a diffuse light shining down. The water in the pool looks black. You are a bit afraid to approach the pool.
Soon you are joined by a small guide. This guide is you as a child. This guide takes your hand and pulls you closer to the pool. You are less afraid with your little guide joining you.
Get down on your knees so you are eye level with your guide. Your guide does not say anything but they look deeply into your eyes. Take this time to deeply connect with this part of you with no words needed.
Your guide then waves at the pool and you take a deep breath. When you are ready look into the mirror-like black water. There may be a picture or a memory that appears in the water. Watch it as if it was a movie.
This picture or scene may bring up emotions for you, but it is just a story you are telling yourself. Try to consider if there are other interpretations of the emotional story you connect with the picture. Try to step away, even for a moment, from the interpretation you have always had of this story or picture.
Memories are seldom accurate. Open yourself to the possibility that your view of what you are seeing has been clouded or changed over time.
If you have a feeling or worry that appears in the water that is fine. Explore this feeling and consider why it is arising. Again, consider that your default interpretation of this feeling or worry may not be the only option.
When you are ready, look away from the water and turn back to your guide. Look in your guides eyes again and feel overwhelming love from this being. They are there to support you and appreciate all you have done to allow them to grow up. Let this love calm you if the memories or feelings from the pool were strong and painful. Let your guide see that you have survived and grown stronger. Take one last deep breath and feel bathed in the love from your guide.
When you are ready stand up and release your guide’s hand, knowing they are always there for you if you need them. As you and your guide walk away from each other enjoy one last wave. Then begin to hear the sounds around your physical body. Wiggle your fingers and toes and when you feel ready. Open your eyes.
Take some time to journal or pull some oracle or tarot cards for further insight:
What emotions arose from this meditation?
What alternate interpretations did you consider?
How could your default interpretation of a past situation keep you from moving forward?
For my previous Shadow Work Journal check it out HERE or get a physical book on Amazon.
Take Care,
Jessica Cross
Free meditation recordings on Spotify: CLICK HERE
Journals on Amazon: Click Here
Jessica Cross 
A movie, or perhaps an indistinct view like in a dream? The first scene would be of me in or near New York City in 1961, when I was 2.5, and going under a sequence of overpasses with many lights on them, although perhaps we were in the Lincoln or Holland Tunnel. I was in awe of what I saw and my brother and sisters were amused by my reaction. And the feeling of awe was a familiar one to me, that there were so many interesting things in this world. That is my oldest memory.
I mention dreams because on the morning of my fifth birthday, I had a dream in which I saw in sequence, each of my four previous birthdays. I assumed that this would happen to me on every birthday, I would see each of my previous birthdays in a dream. But then that never happened again.
Of course I have many, many memories after all these years. A few are good, more are bad, but most of them don’t have any emotion associated with them. They are just things I saw, things that happened, that I still remember, many after more than 50 years.
I can look at these memories in a detached way. I recognize that they’re part of the past – these events aren’t happening now. My fear comes when I start thinking about the possibility that the really bad experiences of the past could be repeated in the future. Then I will again experience the crushing devastation that I’ve experienced before, in which the present is horrible and the future seems worse because it seems that I’ll have the feeling of devastation for the rest of my life, even though I know that it always diminishes.
I don’t think my memory of events is inaccurate. Some of the details may be inaccurate in my memory, but I think I remember the overall context, and the outcome, accurately. More troubling to me is that some bad things happened because I made mistakes, and I’m still not quite sure what they were. That leads me to the fear of unknowingly making the same mistakes again, leading to negative consequences, and the feeling that my position in this world is so tenuous.
All this keeps me in place, limited, because I fear doing something in ignorance that will cause me profound difficulty. There are some situations that I can handle with complete confidence in my abilities, not worried about mistakes, and there are other situations that even after nearly 60 years completely befuddle me. It seems that at this point, there is only the thought of finding whatever enjoyment is available to me, waiting to die, and making my way to the other side where there will be a better world.
Finally, I don’t know how I would react as a boy to meeting myself roughly 50 years older. I would hope that we would realize we were the same person, and that we are allies as we move into the future. But then, like it or not, we are together for the duration, and we would find a way to get along.
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