I’m back!

Did you miss me? I’ve been kind of busy lately, training to become a Reiki practitioner. I guess you might say I’m in the process of fitting more pieces together, assembling this grand project called Life. Many parts have come together recently, but there are still a lot of pieces lying in a jumbled pile, waiting to be sorted out and brought into some semblance of order.

If you read my last blog entry, you’ll know I’ve been putting pieces together for some time now, be they LEGO pieces, broken pottery, or a broken heart. Most recently I have assembled a wooden jigsaw puzzle, the result of which I plan to hang on the wall somewhere in my home.

Jigsaw puzzles are interesting. When you first open the box you are confronted with 300 or 500 or 1000 pieces, all jumbled together. It seems impossible to make something out of them, to figure out how they fit together into one cohesive whole. But then you start to recognize patterns. I like to find as many of the edge pieces as I can first, fitting them together to get a general outline. Once that is mostly done – there are always a few pieces that elude me until later – I begin looking for common colors or designs, connecting them as I go. If I’m lucky, I have a picture to follow, some guide or path to help me on my way. Other times there is no picture and I must struggle to understand just what it is I am working towards.

Every now and then a piece of the puzzle goes missing and it is impossible to achieve a complete, perfect, finished image. And on occasion, if I don’t carefully guard my work in progress, the cat comes along and scatters my work to the wind.

Life is such a puzzle!

As I said previously, I am learning to be a Reiki practitioner, becoming a channel for Universal Life Force energy. I can then direct that energy to another person, bringing balance and enabling physical, mental, emotional and spiritual healing. When you learn Reiki, the emphasis at first is on healing yourself so that you can become a clear channel to aid others. And in that process of self-healing, I’ve found myself having to do some shadow work.

If you’re not familiar with shadow work, here is a brief description:

The “shadow self” is the parts of ourselves that have been pushed down to the unconscious — the parts that we’re insecure about, ashamed of, or frustrated with and therefore repress.

The concept of the shadow self is based on the notion that we figuratively bury those pieces of personality that we fear would not be welcomed, accepted, or loved by others; therefore, we keep them in the “shadows.” In short, our shadow selves are the versions of ourselves that we do not show society.

So what is shadow work? This is the practice of loving what is, and setting the shame and judgements free, so that we can be our true selves. 

[For more information on shadow work, check out the source article for this definition:  https://www.bemytravelmuse.com/what-is-shadow-work/]

For me, shadow work involved first identifying an aspect of my personality that I have kept buried, something that has caused problems and even shame, and then bringing it into the light where I can examine it, accept it and work to heal it. And a big part of bringing it into the light, for me, is talking about it, making it visible, and in so doing removing its power.

So here I am.

My shadow self has an insidious voice that loves to whisper in my ear “you’re not good enough. You can’t do it well, so why even try? What will they think when you mess up, when you don’t do it perfectly?”

So I did some Reiki on my own past. The Reiki energy transcends both time and space; there’s even science that supports this concept, called Quantum Entanglement.

In the process of this self-healing I sent loving energy into my past to find and heal whatever was generating this self-doubt and giving voice to a long-standing fear of failure. I talked about it with a friend or two, beginning the process of bringing it into the light.

And a few days later I had a flash of insight. I recalled an incident, an event, where words were spoken without thought to a vulnerable teenager by a trusted adult. These words affected me so deeply that I can still picture the exact moment in time and I can still recall the pain and shame that forced me to escape the room and hide my tears. I will not elaborate here; I’ve shared the story with a couple of trusted friends but in respectful memory of the adult involved I am keeping the details private.

What I knew, when that memory popped into my head, was that it was time to forgive. It was time to take back the energy I have given to that event for so many years, and time to allow my heart to heal. And I have worked to do this and to take away the power that this moment in time has had over me, all these years past.

I may not be done with this particular shadow; there may be more memories waiting on the sidelines to be recalled and healed, but for now that self-doubt, that fear of failure is diminished. And I have found more balance in my life.

Oh, and the wooden jigsaw which will hang on my wall?