"Shadow Work" Heresy

A lot of us witches talk a lot about "shadow work" all the time. What that means varies widely from person to person - but essentially this is the work that each of us does to come to terms with our "shadow" selves - the parts of ourselves that live in the shadows. And, whenever we commit ourselves to a spiritual path we find that we come up against this work pretty early on, and that it takes a very long time to work it through. I would say that indeed, we spend the rest of our lives doing this work.

At the risk of ruffling some feathers, I would also say that I have noticed that some of us really end up having a love affair with our "shadow work" - and that because of this we may be missing out on our ability to know our "light" self - the part of ourselves that lives in the light. I speak from experience.

I myself have spent years working on my shadow self. When I say working, what I am saying is that I have taken the time to identify aspects of myself that lie deep under the surface - aspects which contribute to decisions that I make and attitudes and opinions that I have and ways in which I engage with the world - and by and large ways that lead to poor decisions or less than admirable ways in which I view and engage with the world. And, once I have identified these aspects of myself and seen the repercussions that they have on my world - I have sought to change these mechanisms so that they are less destructive.

All good and well - but what happens if that is the only work that I ever do, on a spiritual level? Or even worse, what if I identify aspects of my shadow self, but don't do any of the work to evolve, and so I never realize that I am NOT actually changing anything at all - and in fact sort of give myself tacit approval to stay the way I am? Or, what about the fact that a lot of this shadow stuff actually serves as a source of power for me - that I have developed a lot of this over the long haul as survival mechanisms and that as such they have served me well in a number of instances, and that they will continue to do so if I so choose?

What I have discovered in my own spiritual journey is that in fact it is VERY difficult for me to even imagine what my "light" self might look like - and even harder for me to embrace that work because of it. Those of us who are in love with our shadow work love the dark goddesses too - and we have a sort of disdain for the "fluffy bunny" goddesses of the light. Don't get me wrong, the dark goddesses are the bomb, and I have loving and wonderful relationships with more than one of them - and most certainly they get shit done! Most of the fundamental changes that have occurred in me and in my life have been due to the help of these powerful deities, and I respectfully give them their due - always.

That being said, I know for myself that I have short-changed some of the more benevolent and healing and nurturing of the goddesses - and I am coming to realize that this is now where my own path is leading me to be. Of course, I am also becoming a healer - so it sort of makes perfect sense that I would be drawn to these types of archetypes and that I would be led to work with them as well.

I guess I am just beginning to wonder more about the emphasis that we as witches have on our darker selves and how that impacts the world around us. Studying the concept of Yin/Yang has shown me that everything requires balance to be healthy - too much of either one of them leads to illness - and that Yin/Yang applies to absolutely every thing there is in this world. And our current world is ill - seriously and perhaps mortally ill.

For myself, I will be spending more time with the heretical concept of "light work" - which really is the flip side of the same coin, if you think about it. I mean, what are the parts of myself that are not hidden, the "light" aspects which contribute to decisions that I make and attitudes and opinions that I have and ways in which I engage with the world? What about these parts of myself need to be changed - or perhaps need to be brought forward with more prevalence? These parts of myself are as yet totally foreign to me, and there are no easy answers here - just more of my work along my spiritual journey. Which, when it all comes down to the rubber hitting the road, is the reason we are all here to begin with, isn't it?