What is Shadow Work?

Video 2:52 minutes

Answering a great question from one of my students... 

"Dr. Maria, I have heard a little about the term "shadow work." I was wondering if you believe in this and could share a little about what it is exactly?"

Transcript "What is shadow work?" | Maria Furlano, DMQ (China), MOTM, L.Ac.

Hello there, I'm answering a great question today and it's about shadow work. One of my students asked if I believe in shadow work, and if I could clarify, define a little bit better. What exactly Shadow Work is? And it's a great question. Because Shadow Work is a term that is thrown around all the time in spiritual and energetic cultivation development. And a lot of people don't know what it is. And a lot of people get scared by the term, it's kind of a scary term, right? Who, what's in the shadows. And that's really all it is. What is in the shadows of your heart, your mind, your energy, your emotions, your mental thinking, your behavior that isn't bringing you into the light, it isn't supporting you fully that isn't allowing you to really be happy, that is keeping you stuck?

So... Shadow Work is just taking responsibility for yourself.

Yes, and to answer that question. I do believe in shadow work, I think it's very important.

But all it is, is taking responsibility for who you are and how you're acting and how you're feeling and the choices that you're making. And sometimes it's easier than others, especially if we're dealing with patterns, personality patterns, mental patterns, how we think, how we look at life, if that is not always positive, you know, we can be kind of dark in our thinking we can be very negative, and our thinking can be very down.

So part of shadow work, for example, is looking at, why is that happening?

• Where is that coming from?
• Do we want to behave and think that way?

Because when we do when we're not very positive, when we're not happy when we don't like ourselves when we're not nice to others. We're reflecting all kinds of stuff back to us, that probably is not very nice.

• Where does that come from?
• Why is it so hard for us?
• Where's the love for ourselves?

And so that's looking into the shadows of what's going on? How were you raised? What have you experienced, but then taking it a step further. When I say being responsible for yourself. It's taking, taking that step further to taking the responsibility to make the changes that you want. So Shadow Work is just you know, you're looking under the rug, so to speak, and you're cleaning it up and you're bringing light to it. You're just removing the shadows. It's a great, great practice, but again, when you hear the word shadow work, just think about that you're taking responsibility for who you are, how you want to feel and what you want to change.

Great, great question. Thank you for asking and I'll see you soon.