Awareness is power. The more you know and understand yourself, the more you are empowered to act consciously via your free will.
Shadow work developed from the concept of the shadow self, this originated from Jungian psychology (via 20th century psychologist Carl Jung). Our shadow contains repressed, rejected and weak aspects of ourselves that we do not wish to own consciously.
These disowned parts sit in our unconscious and as we have disowned them can play havoc with our lives until awareness and light are brought to them.They are seen by our ego as not ideal traits and so are often repressed and/or projected onto others around us as a way to create distance from them.
Awareness is power. The more you know and understand yourself, the more you are empowered to act consciously via your free will.
There have been many well-rounded shadow work tarot spreads created. A good tarot spread of this type will focus on bringing greater awareness and clarity to your disowned parts, how it is affecting you, what healing work would be effective and what you can look forward to on illuminating your shadow.
Major areas of shadow work include addressing unresolved childhood trauma or events, parenting figures, hereditary beliefs or negative modeling.
The unconscious is often best accessed via play-therapy. This part of ourselves responds to colours, symbols, music, texture (such as clothing), most of our senses. This is why sandplay, art therapy and tarot therapy are so effective as fast-track methods in targeting the unconscious aspects of self that need to be brought to the light.
The goal of shadow work is to bring a high level of awareness to self so that self-acceptance and compassion can be utilised as pathways to complete self love. Bringing the dark and light parts of ourselves together is extremely powerful in that you then have the ability to counter your weaknesses with your strengths and plan accordingly for ultimate success in all you wish to achieve.
