In this compelling episode, follow Sunshine as she navigates the transformative journey of recovery, shining a light on the profound role of shadow work in Step 10. Delve deep into Sunshine’s past, marked by a tumultuous 32-year battle with alcoholism, co-dependency, and the haunting echoes of childhood trauma and abuse. Witness her courage in confronting these enduring shadows, a challenging yet necessary path to authentic healing.
Sunshine reveals the powerful role witches play in both personal and communal healing, emphasizing the need for integrating shadows to fortify recovery and act as guiding lights for others. This episode is a heartfelt call to embrace the discomfort of shadow work, promising that it leads to enduring peace and joy, underscoring the resilient journey towards true recovery.
Sunshine – The pink-haired sober witch:
All right, all right. I think we are live, and hopefully you can hear me. I’ve been trying to stay a little bit quiet for as long as I can, but we’re ready to get this rocking and rolling. And so welcome back to the sober witch life, Sunshine sky, to a mystical recovery, and we’re on Episode 20. You know, it’s crazy, because my goal is to be able to do these every week, but I also give myself a lot of grace if something comes up and I’m not ready. And so the last couple of weeks, I haven’t, and, yeah, life’s just been busy. Right this time of the year, I’m recording this. This is we’re just past the halfway of October, and this is the Season of the Witch, and so I’ve been incredibly busy, and that busyness has not always been very welcomed, and it can feel overwhelming. So yeah, I gave myself some grace, and I’m back, and we’re picking up again on the steps. That’s what we’ve been doing the last number of weeks. And today we are on Step 10, and we’re talking all about that regular shadow work.
Today, of course, we’re going to start with a little bit of story time. Recovery has not always been pretty. It’s just not. And you know, I think I belong to a lot of Facebook groups that talk about recovery and sobriety and things of that nature. And the reality is, is you’ll often see, if you talk to folks in recovery, you’ll see some folks struggling, right? Because we don’t always step into this journey and end up in this place of constant, you know, love and happiness and joy and all of that. I mean, that’s not realistic. That’s not what life is about. You know, yes, there is a lot of that, right? Because I’ve done a lot of this work, and I’ve been willing, you know, to face a lot of these shadows. So I experience a lot of peace, a lot of love, a lot of happiness and a lot of joy in my life every day. But the fact is, and the truth is, I spent 32 years of my life drinking.
The first time I ever drank I was eight years old, and no, my habit wasn’t what it was back then, what it was when I hit rock bottom, but I still was drinking subconsciously because it was numbing things. So 32 years of drinking where I was numbing and in essence hiding from, you know, shadows like intentionally hiding or having them hidden from me, right? Because I wasn’t in a place that they were able to show or express themselves. And, you know, I want to be honest, it’s been over five years now, and there’s been some really tough times, like there’s been some really hard shadows that I’ve had to face. They’ve revealed themselves to me, thankfully, not all at once, you know.
And I think that God is for that one I can’t imagine, like, if everything would have shown up. All of what I’m about to kind of share with you, and I’m not going to go into detail, but I’m going to just touch on, like, these are really difficult things. These are shadows that were, yeah, right? Like, I can understand in some way, shape or form, like, why I was drinking to numb these things, you know. And the very first shadow was my co dependency, right? That was the very first one that came up. And that came up within weeks of me stepping into recovery, and then me making the realization that part of my co dependency really loved a partner in crime. I loved having somebody that would engage in my drug of choice, right? My drug of choice was alcohol, and so I made a commitment, probably about two weeks in, that I would not be partnered with somebody that consumed alcohol. It just was not. It was too too risky. That’s the truth. It just was too risky.
I also realized that I was a people pleaser. You know? I didn’t always stick up for myself and choose what was in my best interest because I didn’t want to hurt other people’s feelings, right? And I think a lot of us fall into this pattern, right? A lot of us fall into this pattern. And, you know, looking back, I could see and understand a lot of it wise, because I grew up in an alcoholic household. There was a lot of drama and trauma that was being inflicted on a regular basis. And so all of us, each of us in that household, walked on eggshells. I had a fear of being seen and visible in this world as a psychic. I had a fear of being visible and seen in this world as a witch, even though these two things are so, so core to who I am, my my own identity, and yet I was hiding it, you know, and I don’t know that it was out of embarrassment or anything, but I, I didn’t want to be misunderstood, you know, that’s the words that are coming to mind. And like, I had a real concern of not being misunderstood, like, you know, and that was a really big shadow, you know, and looking back, even right now, some of what I’m I’m hearing, and my guides are telling me, it’s because I was, you know, I would express and talk and share about things as a child, and was dismissed and was not understood.
And so I didn’t want to feel that again. But I also had some pretty intense repressed memories start to come forward. You know, I’ve had memories of being fed alcohol as a child, right? Intentionally felt fed alcohol as a child. I’ve had repressed memories of, you know, seeing my father aggressively request that I lie for him, I’ve even had repressed memories of sexual abuse as a child come up. And those are hard. Those are really fucking hard things, and every single one of them could have given me reason to relapse, right? Like the drinking demon could have totally justified a relapse.
