Journey Through the Shadow: Insights into Self-Healing and Enlightenment

Welcome to Spiritual Shenanigans, a podcast that explores the mysteries of the mind and the universe. In this episode, they discuss Shadow Work, which is an exploration of the unconscious mind to uncover hidden aspects of ourselves. They draw inspiration from the movie Inside Out and emphasize the importance of expressing and integrating all emotions. They explain that the shadow represents rejected parts of ourselves and discuss how shadow work can lead to personal and spiritual growth. They also touch on the concept of projection and the need for self-compassion and forgiveness in the process. They highlight the importance of addressing the shadow in spiritual awakening and the journey towards enlightenment. Welcome to Spiritual Shenanigans, the podcast where science meets spirituality, where we explore the mysteries of the mind and the vastness of the universe. If you're someone who is fascinated by the stars and intrigued by the power of the mind and the depths of human consciousness, then join us as we delve into the realms of astral travel, alien encounters, and share tools and tips for practical spirituality. Each week, we'll journey beyond the ordinary, exploring topics that expand our awareness. Whether you're a skeptic or a believer, a scientist or a seeker, Spiritual Shenanigans offers a playful space where open minds come together to explore the extraordinary. Hi, it's me, Jace, and welcome to the sixth episode of Spiritual Shenanigans. Today, we are going to be teaching you all about Shadow Work. Hello, we're so excited today to talk to you about today's episode, which is all about Shadow Work. So maybe we can start by explaining a little bit about what Shadow Work is, which is basically an exploration of the unconscious mind to uncover and address the hidden aspects of ourselves. So these are the parts of our personality that we reject or might seem to be unacceptable. And tonight's episode was actually inspired by the movie Inside Out, which I saw a few weeks ago with my son, Jace. And if you haven't seen this movie, I really recommend, whether or not you have children, and especially if you have children, I really recommend checking out this movie, because even though it is a Pixar children's movie, it actually highlights a lot of really important Jungian concepts about the collective archetypes and the shadow self. So I thought it would be really important to talk about this tonight, and I have Jace here with me, who has seen the first movie a lot of times, and we went to see the second one in theaters, and obviously it's been an important conversation. Yeah, we loved it. It's been an important conversation in our home since watching the movie, and I think it has a lot of great lessons for both children and adults. So Jace, what would you say was the most important lesson that you learned from this movie? So you don't suppress your emotions, and don't keep them in. Let yourself feel these emotions. Let them go out of you. Yeah, that's a really great synopsis, actually, of what the movies represent, is basically what happens when we suppress our emotions, and how integrating all the different parts of ourselves, all the emotions and archetypes that live within us, how the integration of those different parts of ourselves allows us to live more harmoniously. So it's funny because watching children, you can kind of see how they naturally are inclined to express their emotions freely and be completely vulnerable. Yes. So you'll often see a child throw a tantrum and get really upset, stomp their feet and yell, scream and cry, and really just release sadness and upset. And then minutes later, once they've effectively released those emotions, they'll be totally fine and happy. And as we get older, we become completely conditioned to expressing those parts of ourselves that we feel like maybe are more undesirable. If you're feeling angry or sad, it's okay to feel those emotions, because it's never bad to feel your own emotions. That's right, Jace. And yeah, so when we talk about the concept of the shadow, so Nujat mentions Jungian archetypes. So we're talking about the psychiatrist and psychoanalyst Carl Jung, who actually founded analytical psychology. So as Nujat was saying, he believed that the shadow represents those parts of ourselves that we reject and might push into our unconscious mind. And as we were saying, when you're a child, you freely express these emotions. You don't hold back. But often during childhood, as you start to get older and older and adapt to societal norms and expectations, that's when you start to push things down and essentially create what later becomes shadows for you. And that's what can lead to emotional blockages, unhealthy patterns and behaviors, limiting beliefs, and things that really hold you back as you become an adult. And I think it's also important to note that a lot of people, when we talk about the shadow, a lot of people think that it's really just dealing with dark or negative aspects of ourselves. But what Jung actually refers to as individuation is becoming whole by integrating all parts of ourselves. So that doesn't necessarily mean just those hidden aspects of yourself that you kind of push down, but really just achieving balance and understanding and becoming a more balanced person, which ultimately will lead to a more fulfilling life, to greater inner harmony, and just living more fully and freely. And of course, helping you along in your personal and your spiritual growth. Yeah, those are all really good points, Theda. And I think it's also important to note, obviously, when we're doing shadow work, we're really healing our relationship with ourselves and the parts of ourselves that we may have forgotten or sort of suppressed for a long time. But we're also healing our relationship with those people around us and people in our lives, because shadow work is also about recognizing the emotional triggers. When something in someone else triggers you, it usually reveals aspects of your own shadow that need healing. And Carl Jung actually talked about this, too. He called it psychological projection. So when we deny aspects of our own shadow, what we'll often do is we'll project them onto others, and we'll see traits that we dislike in ourselves reflected in the people around us, because everyone, we're all sort of mirrors for each other. So this can lead to conflicts and misunderstandings in relationships. With shadow work, you really need to be truthful with yourself and look at yourself objectively and basically see yourself in a way how others see you, because you don't want to be blindsided. A lot of people have blind spots because they have their own personal belief systems, and they might not see what other people see. So in a way, you want to be objective when looking at yourself and how you respond to different situations. A lot of trauma is based on how we respond to things, because a lot of times bad things will happen, but we have to learn how to respond to things in the most appropriate and best, most positive way that we're able to. Yeah, and I think also, Ryan, like you said, doing this in an objective way, in a way that's self-compassionate, and also just being able to really forgive yourself, I think a lot of the part, a lot of the important part of shadow work is also like a forgiveness of maybe behaviors or parts of yourself that you don't necessarily feel aligned with. Yes, forgiveness and also acceptance. So I think it's twofold in that way, because you have to take an honest look at yourself, and we all make mistakes, so we can't really judge ourselves. And it's helpful to be forgiving of others, too, because if you're forgiving of others, then it's easier for you to forgive yourself. So it's a two-way street. You want to be forgiving for others, you want to be forgiving of yourself. And that allows you to accept things as they are. So once you have this forgiveness and you have an acceptance that you just kind of, it's not an acceptance that it's like, oh, okay, it is what it is, because you still have the capacity to change things and transmute things, but you just don't let things get you down as much. So you could still see a desired goal and objective and see a better way of doing things, but not judge the past, because the past is finished, the past is done. You have to accept what happened, happened, and you have to look forward to the future. Yeah, I think that's a great point, Ryan. And, you know, I think another thing that you can do, you know, if you feel particularly triggered or if you're seeing this as, you know, something negative that, you know, maybe you're not ready to face, is reframing it. You know, I always love reframing things, and I think reframing it as a journey of self-discovery, of empowerment, can also really make it more approachable. You know, rather than kind of thinking about things that you see that are wrong with yourself that, you know, might bring you down. I think that could be another way to look at it and to reframe it and, you know, help you to see what healing work still needs to be done. I think it's also important to mention how, you know, in the realm of spirituality and spiritual awakening, oftentimes people talk a lot about love and light and staying positive and the law of attraction. Those are all, you know, big buzzwords when it comes to spirituality, but oftentimes discussing things like the shadow or dark night of the soul, these things often go untouched because, you know, it's things that maybe a lot of people don't want to confront or talk about, but it's actually a really important part of the whole spiritual awakening process and reaching a higher state of consciousness and enlightenment is not really possible without integrating all the parts of ourselves. I mean, would you guys say that you experienced like a dark night of the soul, or what are some of your shadow parts that you've encountered on this journey? Yeah, that's a great point to make, and I think that's also kind of what, you know, a lot of people like to call spiritual bypassing. So I think it's really important to mention that. And, you know, obviously all of us have been on this journey for quite some time, but I think it's also really important for us to be vulnerable and, you know, admit that we weren't always like this. And as, you know, we've talked about on previous episodes for Nujat and I, as far as, you know, when we first started exploring spirituality and had some, you know, negative experiences that happened to us, and then we kind of stopped, you know, going down that path for a very long time. For me personally, I mean, I know Nujat as well, obviously, but I definitely went through, I would say, probably at least a couple of dark nights of the soul. But during that specific time, you know, before I reconnected with spirituality, around like 2015, you know, I definitely went down a very dark path. And, you know, I think it's important to acknowledge that and to talk about that and be open about that because, you know, it definitely made me realize so many things about myself and, you know, had me confront my shadows that I truly believe, you know, really helped me along in my spiritual journey and, you know, reaching a path of higher consciousness. So for me personally, I would say the biggest shadow that, you know, kept on continuously coming up for me, and I know that this is a pretty common theme for a lot of people, was self-worth. So, you know, I definitely engaged in a lot of, you know, you could say self-destructive behaviors, very, very different lifestyle than I have now, you know, heavy drinking, not even just drinking, but other things as well. Sorry, mom, I know you're listening. And, you know, self-destructive behaviors, self-destructive relationships, you know, reckless spending, you know, playing hooky from school, playing hooky from work, all sorts of things that, you know, were just very self-destructive. And, you know, when I finally had the chance to start to integrate some of this and, you know, self-reflect, I realized that all of it stems from self-worth, from not feeling worthy of receiving good things, you know. So subjecting myself to negative, you know, basically toxic things because I believe that that's what I was worthy of. I didn't believe that I was worthy of, you know, abundance or loving relationships or, you know, a healthy body, a healthy mind. So, yeah, I think for me personally, that was definitely the biggest shadow that I've had, you know, still continue to do a lot of work on. And, you know, as far as uncovering the reasons for that, you know, I will say, of course, plant medicine definitely helped me a ton with being able to uncover, you know, where those shadows stemmed from in my childhood. And, you know, I think understanding that and facing that was extremely important for me. And I was able to look at myself from a place of self-compassion and acceptance and, you know, really work through those issues. Yeah, I think the self-worth piece that you mentioned, Theda, is definitely like a core wound that a lot of people have. Ryan, do you have something to add? Oh, yeah. So this was some of the first work that I did. I didn't really know it as shadow work at the time, but I talked in the past about how I began with Hecate and Belial and some of my spirit guides. And they basically went through this with me kind of like a reset for me to try to get rid of all of the conditioning that I had. And a lot of it was due to poor core belief systems. And I think a lot of that did stem from lack of self-worth as well, just like Theda was talking about. With me, it was pretty much the same thing. Like, it's a huge limiting belief, and that's something that did affect me a lot when I was younger. I had very little confidence. I never really spoke unless I was spoken to, and even then I didn't like to speak. So now it's like totally different. Yeah, so I was very shy when I was young. Not just shy, but I just felt like I didn't belong and felt like my words weren't enough, like they were inferior. So I just kind of had an inferiority complex and lack of self-worth. As I got older, that's something that came up that I knew I needed to really put that behind me. When I was in the beginning of my spiritual journey with Hekate, like all of 2017, that's basically all she did was just take all of that stuff and uproot it. Stuff from my past, mostly stuff from my past in this lifetime, stuff from my childhood. And then it even got into stuff from past lives, like why you believe certain things. Some of it doesn't even stem from childhood. A lot of it does, but some of it even goes back to past lives that you live, where something traumatic happens to you then and you don't integrate it, and that becomes part of the shadow, because the shadow is everything that you don't integrate and kind of push down and it becomes unconscious in you. So it's something that you really need to illuminate into your conscious thought, because if it stays unconscious, it's going to affect you one way or the other, and normally it affects you in a negative way. And I think that's where a lot of the negativity around shadow work comes. It's not from the shadow work itself, but it's from the fact that a lot of people are afraid to confront their own shadows, and this leads to negative consequences within themselves and in their dealings with other people as well. Ryan, I think you bring up a really good point that we hadn't even touched on, on the whole past lives thing, because, yes, as we know, at least we believe that we live multiple lives, and we do know that there are certain lessons many times that keep repeating themselves again and again until you do confront them and, as we were saying, integrate them and overcome them. So, yeah, I think that's a really good point to make too. Yeah, and sort of similarly, another aspect of that could also maybe be, there could be an ancestral component too, like sometimes what we're carrying, it might not even be ours, that's actually something that's come up for me a lot in my healing, where there are things that repeatedly come up, and I've seen through either meditation or plant medicine work that a lot of what I'm carrying is actually ancestral trauma, and this is obviously also something that is more in the spiritual realm, but science really also backs intergenerational trauma and the effects of that on ourselves. In this life, our body, our DNA carries the codes of our ancestors, and we do actually carry their traumas too, just like we carry or just like we can be predisposed to certain illnesses and diseases, we also carry the wounds of our ancestors. So that is also sometimes something that needs integrating and something that can come up as a shadow. That's definitely been part of my journey, and yeah, for sure, the self-worth that both Seda and Ryan talked about, that was also something that's come up for me a lot that I've battled with. Yeah, that's actually a great point, and ancestor work helps with that too. So anybody that has an altar, a ritual altar, could give offerings to their ancestors. There's a lot that you could really talk about here, like in Jewish mysticism, they talk about ancestors, how they basically can kind of like take over your mind at some point, and when you're unconscious, it's like your ancestors are acting through you because you have that like triggered response that triggers something that is like in your blood, in your ancestry, and that basically comes out, and you don't know why you react a certain way because it's not really you, it's like your ancestors coming through for that particular moment in time. So ancestors in general, it's good to really venerate them, and I mean, there was a point where I was afraid to do this because some of my ancestors have very, I would say, questionable ethics, so they did some really crazy stuff, and I didn't want to be a part of that. But then I learned that if you, it's kind of like you're on a certain frequency, kind of like the whole analogy with radio frequencies. If you vibrate in a certain frequency, then you could be above all the negativity, and like that's going to, and they'll just kind of go away, the negative ones. So you just basically, like it's a lot easier than people think because a lot of people think that once you have a bad ancestor that might haunt you, that it's something that you can't get rid of the rest of your life, but as long as they live in that fear and they believe that, then they're going to live on a level, a frequency that enables them to tap into that negative energy. But if you kind of just transmute that and just go beyond what that energy is, you get to a level where it just can't touch you anymore. Like it's just, everything is energetic levels. So we're used to living in space and time where everything is linear, but I talked about this during the astral plane one where everything is just energy, so it's different vibrations at different frequencies. So if your mind vibrates on a level that's beyond some of this negative stuff, then it's not going to touch you anymore. Like even if it played a huge role in you in the past, like as soon as you break that threshold, it's like a phase transition to something else, like how water turns to ice. So it's the same thing, but it's a different frequency, a different vibration, and what happened in the past isn't going to get on that same level as it did in the past because those negative spheres just kind of go away and find something else that vibrates with their own train of thought. You have to think of it like an octave where there's seven levels, and then with the eighth it goes on to the next one, next highest frequency, and then you've got the seven levels. Everything is like a fractal, one inside another, inside another. But once you get past a certain point, then you basically have graduated from that and you don't have to look back. Yeah, and I think it's also important when you're doing this ancestor work at an altar or however that you can also make, I guess, a distinction in terms of who you want to work with. I once worked with a shamanic practitioner, and what she taught me was that any time that you're opening up a connection to the ancestral realm, you want to be very clear and mindful that you only want to work with either certain specific ancestors or you can say only those ancestors that are healed, loving, and radiant. And that's also kind of like a way for you to exclude the ones that maybe don't have your best interest at heart. Right. I actually always say that when I'm trying to connect with my ancestral guides. I'll say, you know, only those who come with unconditional love for me because, you know, you never know, like there might be some ancestors that are harboring some sort of ill will towards you. And obviously, you don't want to connect with them and ask for their help. So, yeah, as far as what Ryan was saying, I think we could, you know, call that breaking generational curses, like we like to say. And actually, I wanted to also relate that to, you know, for example, genetic diseases, right? Like we hear so many people blame things on their genes, you know, like, oh, this runs in my family, that runs in my family, this illness or whatever. But, you know, being able to transcend beyond that, like Ryan was saying, and vibrate at a different frequency, I truly believe that you can transmute all that and that goes for physical and emotional. Yeah. And since we are talking about shadow work here, there is more to it than that. Like you don't want that to be, you don't want the negative influences to influence you. But at the same time, you could look objectively at what happened in the past, even with your ancestors, the way you do yourself, so you could do like shadow work of your ancestry as well. So I did that once, not really knowing what I was doing. And in one night, I think I was murdered like six times because I was reliving the past. And like, I was like, I died by like poison. I died by some like weapons. I got stabbed to death. Wait, did you see this in a dream? Yeah, it felt real. It felt very real too. I felt like it was really happening as well. So that's like something that all of this trauma like builds up over generations. It could even be past lives, but I kind of took it more as like ancestry, or it could be a combination of both actually. It could be past lives that I experienced, and it could also be the lives of my ancestors that I'm reliving because they're within me as well. Wow. Yeah. And you know what I just thought of also, family constellation therapy. I think in science, that would probably be like the closest concept to something like this, right? Have you guys heard of that? I know you have New Jersey. Yeah, yeah, definitely. Yeah, but I think that for sure, and I think this goes like kind of even beyond that because I think a lot of us that are on the spiritual path, we're here because we're meant to be like cycle breakers. We're meant to be the people in our generation that break cycles that have repeated over and over again across bloodlines. So I think that oftentimes our shadow work journey is centered around breaking those cycles of behaviors that have repeated over generations to help to heal a bloodline. I think that is definitely part of my path here. I've been shown that several times. Exactly. We are in the age of Aquarius now, and the age of the Kali Yuga or the Iron Age is ending. I will say that the beginning of the end of the Iron Age is next year, 2025, and then there's a kind of a messy transition for the next 15 years, and then we enter a new Golden Age. So there's always going to be a rough transition because a lot of the old stuff needs to be let out. So it's basically like the whole planet is doing shadow work at this particular time, and that's why everything seems crazy right now. Everything just comes to the surface. Now with the Internet age, everybody sees everything that's going on that used to be secret within personal lives and also with governments and higher levels. So nothing is really a secret anymore, and everything that happened the past few thousand years is coming to surface. Yes, totally, Ryan. I think it's also important to mention on this spiritual path, many of us on this path, I guess you can call us lightworkers or whatever you want to call us, but we came here to transmute dark, denser energies and to alchemize. So oftentimes when we're doing our own shadow work, we're also actually doing shadow work for the collective. Also, I think it's important to sometimes try to keep that perspective in mind too when we're seeing some really awful behaviors playing out on public stages. I think a lot of it is actually shadow work that's happening for the collective, for certain behaviors that we all are deeming to be unacceptable, for that to be purged at a collective level for everyone to see. I think it's also part of what's supposed to happen in the age of Aquarius. Right, definitely. Yeah, I mean, I think everything being so much in the public eye and all these common themes that we see being repeated on an individual level, going all the way up to our public leaders, it's definitely, again, the age of Aquarius. And we can see how hopefully things are starting to shift. And I truly believe that us lightworkers were specifically carnated on Earth at this time to be able to do this work. So I guess we can start to talk about different approaches to shadow work, different tools and techniques that we can use for this kind of self-exploration. What do you guys think are some important tools that we can use? And I know actually, obviously, we started this episode talking about Carl Jung, and we know that he talks a lot about the dreams. Ryan, what would you say is a good way for us to be able to use that in our shadow work? Well, self-hypnosis, I think, is a really strong technique because that will get you in a mind state where you could kind of trigger something within dreams or even just in meditation. But you could do this before bed, kind of like self-hypnotize yourself, kind of make up a guided meditation. There's some books on self-hypnosis as well, and they have some guided meditations. Basically, just counting down from a certain number, pretending to see yourself, visualizing yourself going down escalators, stuff like that until you get to a certain bottom floor. So all of this stuff is just getting to a base point, and the destination is basically for when you want to go back to a specific point in time. Sometimes you might not even know that point, but you say, okay, when did this happen? Like, say, a certain trait that you want to overcome. Like, what triggered this originally? Where is this from? And then you could go back, and then you can kind of relive it. But I do have to warn people, if you do this, you might actually kind of relive the whole thing and see it. So you have to really be objective. So you have to think to yourself, like what I said before, accept it. Like, this is the past. This isn't happening now, even if it does start to feel like this. So you have to elevate yourself and be objective and kind of just look. So that's what I generally did with my shadow work. So one spirit that really helped me with that was Belial. He kind of brought me, and he kind of grounded me, because he is a spirit of earth. He's a god of earth. So he can ground you so that you can be more stable and more emotionally secure while you're doing this type of work. So you can go see something from the past that triggered you into a certain habit that still affects you negatively to this day. And then you could see, well, it really wasn't my fault. Because when you're young, you think everything is your fault and everything that goes wrong is because of you. As you get older, you kind of get out of that, but you still might carry these things subconsciously. So you can kind of see this happening, unfolding, and see where the errors occurred in the way that you're thinking. And forgive yourself and accept yourself and say, like, okay, it's not your fault. It's not my fault. So then you can move on from there. So self-hypnosis is really, really powerful. And combining that with meditation and even dream work based on this is a really strong technique for integrating your shadow. Wow, I love that, Ryan. I never thought about using that technique when it comes to, like, going back to past memories. It does sound very similar to an induction into a past life regression session, which is something that I've done before. It also actually reminds me a lot of EMDR therapy, which if people are not familiar with, it's eye movement desensitization and reprocessing therapy. And it's basically a structured therapy technique which helps people to heal from certain traumas. So basically the way that it works is you focus on a traumatic memory. At the same time, you're simultaneously performing these rapid rhythmic eye movements using bilateral stimulation. And the goal is to reduce, like, the vividness and the emotions that are associated with the memories. And then eventually you can replace negative thoughts with positive ones. And basically EMDR is based on the idea that unprocessed traumatic memories kind of get stuck in the brain and lead to emotional trauma. So that's another way of, if you wanted to, you know, work with a professional, that you can go back and effectively heal from trauma in a safe, supportive environment with someone, you know, holding space for you. Because obviously if it is something that's very traumatic, then you might need that extra support. I don't know, you know, if I would recommend. I think Ryan's method is amazing, especially for, like, maybe less intense traumas, but probably for more, I guess, major traumatic events, you may want to work with a professional for something like that. And plant medicine, which of course, you know, with the caveat that plant medicine is certainly not something that's for everyone, but it is also an incredibly effective nurturing and therapeutic way to go back to old traumatic memories and kind of, you know, reframe them from a more compassionate understanding and more compassion for self. It can really be a powerful way, an effective way to do that as well. And you know what else this just made me think of is the emotion code. So for anyone that's not familiar, there's a book called The Emotion Code. I believe there's actually a series now on Gaia as well. But this is essentially a technique that was developed by Dr. Bradley Nelson. And he, you know, similarly, he helps clients to discover their emotions and, you know, what the source of their emotions are, and then to discharge them from the body in a way that, you know, is supposed to bring lasting peace and well-being to the body. And I actually, there was a time that I was reading this book and practicing it a lot. And I did it on myself. And remember Nugent, I did it on you as well. And it really, really works. Like, you literally feel a complete sense of, like, heaviness leaving your body when you do that. I won't say, if you're interested, obviously, we'll link this in the show notes as well. But there's an exercise that he has you do, essentially, that's supposed to release the emotion from your body. And I could truly say that I, like, not even just, like, physically felt a release, but emotionally felt myself relieved of the emotions that were associated with those specific events. And it's very elaborate. You know, there's tons of emotions. And you actually use muscle testing to identify the emotions. So it's another, you know, really interesting technique that what Ryan was saying reminded me of. Yeah, I think those are all great techniques. And then, you know, of course, there's also things simply journaling. I think journaling is always, like, a really great way to deal with unprocessed emotions. Because sometimes we have difficulty, like, sitting with emotions, but it might be easier to write things down. Or sometimes, you know, writing things down, you have a completely different perspective of them. So there's definitely lots of journaling techniques out there specifically that can help with shadow work, you know, certain journal prompts or even things, like, similar to cognitive behavioral therapy. There's definitely lots of different techniques that you can use with journaling that would help you to be able to reflect on shadow behaviors. Right, and I think journaling is a great way, you know, to process self-reflection. And actually, this just made me think of, I'm sure, Ryan, you can chime in here, of Barton and his exercises where, you know, he really has you. I mean, really what he's doing is helping you achieve equilibrium within yourself by identifying the dark and the light within yourself. So actually doing a lot of shadow work, right? Yeah, I was actually thinking the same thing, especially his beginning part. Where he has us figure out what are the strengths and weaknesses of the elements within us, and then attach them to specific emotions and feelings, and then kind of integrate everything. And where there's an excess of one, then you want to balance it with another that might be weaker. So a lot of this is in the Barton trilogy, which makes sense because that is as complete a work as you're going to find. So I won't really talk about that because we already have a whole episode on that. If you want to listen to it, it's last week. But yeah, that does touch on a lot of the aspects of shadow work. Right, yeah, you really are doing shadow work by, you know, identifying triggers, identifying dark aspects of yourself, and then, you know, trying to balance those emotions within yourself, trying to integrate them, which is, you know, really what shadow work is all about. Yeah, absolutely. And then, of course, you know, meditation and mindfulness, those are also other ways that you can do some shadow work. There's different, you know, techniques, obviously. But I think just in general, when you're in a meditative state, it might be easier, like similar to the exercise that Ryan described before bed, to be able to, you know, think about certain behaviors or certain aspects of yourself that maybe are less desirable and see them in a different perspective. Right, I know I've done a lot of really great meditations, guided meditations, where you meet your shadow self, and then also a lot of great meditations where, you know, obviously you use the help of, like, an angel or a guide to assist you in transmuting, you know, those dark aspects of yourself that you're shown to face. So yeah, there's definitely a lot of really great meditations out there that can definitely help you. Also, you know, one of the meditations that is not so well-known but is a great one, I think, is the loving-kindness meditation. So I think that can definitely help you with practicing, you know, self-compassion, obviously towards yourself as well as others, which definitely is a huge part of integrating shadow work. Yeah, that's a great one. Right, so we started this episode, you know, talking about Carl Jung. And as you know, if you follow his work, a lot of his work is about dreams, essentially. And we know that the dreams are obviously a gateway into the subconscious. And I think a lot of his work is working with the subconscious. Yeah, so basically, I have a lot of dreams that do open up these pathways subconsciously. We're finally going to get into Ryan's dream journal. Yeah, so it's story time, basically. So I won't give the whole dream because it would probably take an entire hour. So I will pick up at a relevant part. Okay, so just then, the spirit who I called AD, because I didn't have his name at the time, called me into a kitchen and said that there is something very important that I needed to hear. He had a radio receiver playing, and I could hear a man speaking about a terrible tragedy that occurred. I frantically listened, worried that somebody that I cared about was involved and hurt. I was relieved after I heard that the victim was somebody I did not know. It was an athlete named Ram, R-A-H-M, who was stabbed during an altercation and brought to a hospital with his guts coming out. I wondered why I was requested to listen to this message since I did not know the person and was totally unaware of the situation. AD then told me that I should keep my mind active at multiple levels because many things are happening at once in different dimensions. I left the kitchen and immediately encountered a priestess standing to my left. The man followed behind and stood to her right. I suddenly recognized him. He was Prince Uriens. I exclaimed, You are Uriens from the Gate of the West, to which he rolled his eyes and head while saying a drawn-out yes before affixing his gaze upon me, implying that my sudden realization was correct. I looked more closely at Uriens, seeing that he was a youthful, strong man with red hair and black eyes and a smirk reminiscent of the Joker. I asked him to assist me in crossing his tunnel, to which he told me to walk by his side. I did, and he loquaciously spoke and told jokes as we walked, with his piercing black eyes looking deeply into my own as if he was gazing into my very soul, awaking it with his enthusiasm. As we walked, I noticed additional beautiful naked priestesses around us. Before I could get too distracted by them, Uriens smiled and sardonically told me, Oh, I wouldn't worry too much about missing all of this. As he finished his sentence, he tossed a handkerchief up in the air and over his shoulder. Before it landed, it crossed a veil, apparently into one of the other dimensions that he spoke of earlier. The handkerchief fell on the floor in that realm, causing a man in the vicinity to slip and fall. The man got up, injured, and was very angry, blaming another man nearby for the accident, just because he was in close proximity. A chaotic brawl ensued, and the innocent man, who was wrongfully accused, was stabbed in the gut. His innards started leaking out, and he needed to be taken to the hospital. The story unfolded just as I heard the man over the radio speak about it earlier, except Uriens initiated the entire chain of events. I then returned my consciousness to the realm I was in with Uriens when he quipped, Uriens in astonishment, and said half-jokingly, you are like the devil because of all of the chaos that he knowingly instigated just by tossing his handkerchief. He continued to laugh about the chaos that mortals find themselves in without ever knowing the true causes, and urged me to stay fixed on my path as we entered an all-white illuminated place. This actually shows a lot of what you're dealing with with shadow work, where a lot of things are basically out of your control, and there could be total chaos around you, and you don't know the causes, you're just at the level of the effects, but how you react could really be the difference in whether something is positive or just terribly negative. Wow, that's so fascinating, Ryan, amazing. So this was late last year, I think it was October, it was when I was going through the Tree of Life. So basically when you work the Kabbalistic Tree, you'll have these experiences kind of like through each one will be specific for that particular realm that you're in. So since there's 22 realms, this was one of the later ones. So this is when you're getting really, really deep. This was Tunnel 6. So one of the top ten, one of the final seven, actually. So this is pretty late, but it deals a lot with the shadow and with acceptance and response. So not to be a slave to your emotions, not to be reactive, and to just think of what is going on. And even if things are not happening your way, what you can control is your own reaction. But it also deals with what we said before about how there's multiple dimensions happening at the same time. And these things could really come out in different ways and affect us subconsciously. So what happens in one dimension can really affect others as well, which is something that isn't really talked about much outside of, say, Vedic Hindu philosophy. Right, that was actually going to be my next question. This was something that could have been happening in a parallel life, but obviously it continues to affect you in this one, right? I mean, I guess the same shadows could show up across multiple lives. Is that right? Yeah, because everything is basically linked. And these things are linked beyond what we know from a surface level here. When we're on Earth, everything we see is mostly in effect. We don't see the root causes of things. So we have to really think on the level where you have to think of what is going on deeper. What are the motives here? Why is this happening? And not just be like a leaf in the wind blowing every direction. Even in situations that are tough, even though it's hard, you have to do your best to try to be stable and to react in a way that is for the greater good. Right. And I think that's why, as we were saying earlier, journaling is so important because journaling gives you the opportunity to, one, obviously keep a record of things and see how things are changing and gives you an opportunity to be able to reflect. And then you can later go back to that and see if you still have the same triggers, if you're still handling things the same way. Obviously, you would hope that over time you start to see some progress. But I think it's amazing that you keep such an elaborate record of your dreams. Someday this is available to the public. I think you should publish that. That was about a third of the dream. I left out most of it. Yeah, it's crazy. I started keeping a dream journal after our episode on dreams and mine is just some barely comprehensible scribbles. You have to start somewhere. Does your vocabulary change in your parallel life? Sometimes. Sometimes I'm not myself. If you look in the mirror in a dream, you could look totally different. I've been a lot of different people in dreams. Sometimes I haven't even been people. I've been alien-like things, creatures. Then I'll see, oh wait, I'm a woman now. Oh wait, I'm a reptile or something. When you dream, you could be anything. You could be seeing into who knows what. I think I just always assume that I'm myself, but maybe sometimes I'm not. For example, the other night I remember I had a dream. Most of the time I dream about people that I know in this life. I was interacting with a lot of different people who I didn't know. I guess it's a possibility that it was a parallel life. Obviously it wasn't me because in my dream I knew these people, but I, in this 3D world, don't know who they were. That's what we talked about in the dream episode 2. You're talking to yourself when you're in a different reality. You're talking to all these people that you don't even know for your conscious self, but maybe in another dimension you do know them. I've had that happen a lot of times. When I get conscious and start asking questions, they just get really confused. I don't know for any sort of spiritual healing work, but it definitely has its place in shadow work for all those reasons that Ryan just mentioned. I don't know if you guys had anything else to add. I think this was, hopefully, an enlightening episode highlighting the importance of acknowledging and integrating the darker aspects of ourselves. This process is really crucial for achieving inner balance and personal growth. On the spiritual path, understanding and working with the shadow can lead to profound healing and transformation and help us to just live a more authentic and harmonious life. We really hope that you enjoyed this episode. We hope that you benefited from this. As always, please leave us a rating and review if you enjoyed this. We look forward to talking to you again soon.