Hi Beautiful Souls!
Have you ever heard of shadow work? It sound mysterious right? It’s a term used in the spiritual development world to describe the process of detecting a blokkage in the subconscious mind.
I didn’t know why but somehow, I used to self sabotage my life. I would start projects and not keep up with it. I sometimes had bursts of inspiration, but would draw back when I felt insecure. There were also things I believed about myself, which made me not wanting to see that certain things weren’t meant for me. I forced myself to accept the things that made me unhappy in my previous relationship (even though there were of course positive aspects about it), as I believed this was how my life was meant to be. I was in a state of enduring all the time and I mentally punished myself when I was unhappy. I thought I showed myself love by distracting myself, by doing things that gave me a bit of gratification. Sooooooo I shopped a lot. I was often roaming in Brussels in the shopping streets to forget the nagging feeling that was building up inside of me. And I tried hard convincing myself I was living the life that I wanted. And man, was I good at that. My closest friends knew that I wasn’t happy. But I wouldn’t hear anything of it. I had committed myself to living this way. This had become my identity and thus my anchor of authenticity. So they gave up after years of trying. They assumed that I was settling with what I had and they respected that if that was my wish… When I broke out of my long relationship, I met someone new, with whom I somewhat repeated this pattern, ignoring the red flags. There was this profound need for him to accept me and love me for who I am. I started ask myself why I desperately needed this guy to want me, while I wasn’t even that much in love with him. Opening myself up to this question and learning about shadow work, I allowed myself to dig deeper. It brought me to my childhood, to a very painful memory. This memory has been buried for such a long time, that I unconsciously always came back to it. But on the conscious level, I refused to see it for what it was, because it was so painful. The funny thing was that my behavior around people was determined by it. It controlled me in my behavior around others and I didn’t even notice it. I was naturally a people pleaser. And I also got used to push my personality down in order to please the other, no matter which type of relationship we have. Whether it’s a friendship, parent, coworker interaction,… I was extremely limited in my way of thinking due to this one thought: “if anyone knows how you are, who you truly are, they will never love you”. Ever since I’ve heard those words when I was a child, I’ve heard them in the back of my mind. It was the truth for me. I didn’t question it, didn’t see that other truths can exist…
Doing this shadow work has not only made me conscious about that belief, but it has also removed the blockage I had in life. I no longer felt undeserving of happiness. I now truly wished that for myself and my little me. This made me realize that all this time, I was not loving this part of myself. We sometimes believe we show ourselves love, but until we truly accept the part of us we’ve been pushing away, I haven’t truly loved it and accepted it.
In my video I explain how I did this shadow work. I hope you can check it out!
Follow your bliss, because that’s where you find your answers!
Much Love,
My
mycupofdreamsbymy.wordpress.com 