The Sober Witch Life: Sunshine’s Guide to a Mystical Recovery Season 2 Episode 13 Confronting Inner Darkness Through Shadow Work

Good morning. I think we are live. I think we are rolling. And if you’re listening to us on the podcast, I do drop these live. You can always find these on YouTube. And I do that because at some point I’m hoping we can enough people here that I’ll get some chit chat and some chatter. And, who knows? So welcome, welcome back. It is Sunday, and, oh, I’m just remembering last week’s episode was all about relapse. And boy, hip I had, I had another slap in the face this week. So I’m really, I’m really excited that we’re talking about what we are today, and I’ve slowly been going through all of the various different steps, just explaining a little bit more, you know, about the 13 steps in the the witch’s path to recovery. We’re on step four here. And this is some homest shadow work, right? So we’ve admitted that we were powerless. We’ve believed that there is something outside of ourselves, like we were letting go. We’re surrendering or asking for the universe to help guide us to and to show us we’re embracing our psychic abilities. That’s Step three, and step four is, it’s where we start doing the work is the shadow work. And, no joke, it’s probably some of the most potent and important work that we can do on the path to recovery. So I’ll share, story time to start.

Last episode, I talked about my own personal relapse. I talked about them, but I may not have, I don’t know, I guess, gone into this side of it. So in 2019 I attempted to stop twice. I attempted to stop drinking alcohol twice before I finally stepped into the road of recovery. That’s how I kind of described it. And looking back, when I kind of asked myself, Why was that, you know, why? Why was it, it only an attempt, like, why wasn’t I truly on that road to recovery? And, frankly put, I didn’t understand that there was a road. I didn’t understand that there was a path. And I was only half ready to quit. In reality,  I wanted to stop because I was scared of what I might do. I was scared of the consequences of continuing to drink.

Now on the other side, these are all of the kind of like, until, you know, like, not right now, it’s not me, at this particular point, I wanted to stop because I was scared of the physical impact, I’d watched my father on his deathbed. I had a cousin that passed away from alcoholism that was a year younger than me, so I was scared. I was really, really scared, but I was only half ready to quit, because I had these fears. I wanted to stop, and it just all get better, like I was just gonna stop drinking, and that was it. In reality, I wasn’t ready to be really honest with myself, I wasn’t ready to get uncomfortable, I wasn’t ready to do the tough work, because I wasn’t ready to face the dark shadows that lurked within my soul. I really wasn’t and before I dive into why I’m sharing this with you. I want to make sure that we’re on the same page about what a shadow is. The term itself was coined by Carl Young, famed psychologist. He believed that our consciousness had a couple of different facets to it. There was an unconscious-conscious, a conscious-conscious, a collective conscious. But in that unconscious-conscious, there were these shadows, these aspects of ourself that we typically will shy away from. These are our fears. These are our insecurities. These are our so social awkwardness, and frankly, it’s also our desires. 

Just pause for a moment if you’re listening to this, and think about all of the times in your life that you may have chosen, you made the choice to do something someone else wanted or desired rather than what you did, you put your needs, your desires, your wants, second or even last in comparison to anybody else. From a psychological perspective, exploring the shadow is going to look into why we do what we do. That’s where it’s going to go. It’s going to look at that. And, there’s a lot of beauty in that. If that’s all we do, we just look at it. We say something like, oh, I don’t, I don’t like to ride the merry go round, you know, on the playground, because, well, I have this memory when I was little, and I got dizzy, and then I threw up in front, in front of everyone. And I’m just so embarrassed, and I’m afraid it’s going to happen again. And so just, that’s enough. Like, okay, cool. Like, that’s why we do what we do. It’s like, All right, yeah, I just, I don’t go on the merry go round. That’s it, from a fear, a spiritual perspective, though. It’s a way to confront our inner darkness and to achieve enlightenment. And so in this particular regards, it may even go further than just that. Why we do what we do in this merry go round perspective, it may be a matter of like but do I really enjoy the merry go round? Was there something else that was there, right? Was there, you know, why not? Why wouldn’t I want to feel that level of joy? Why would like and peeling back more of the layers, right? Because maybe, you know that merry go round is a activity that’s going to align me with a better spiritual path. I mean, I’m being very exaggerative, but it is. It’s a way to confront, from a spiritual perspective, to look at, kind of the darker sides of ourselves.

And when we look at those, and we bring this darkness into the light, we are able to step onto a path of like enlightenment. From a witch’s perspective, my dears, it’s a way to remove blockages from our magic and begin to live a more authentic and magical life. Our magic becomes more potent. Our spell work more potent. Our rituals more potent. Because we are truly doing them in a very authentic state. We are wielding all of our all of our kind of, our energetic power, and are able to, which gets us to why I’m sharing all of this, which is step four in the witches, 13 steps to recovery is all about shadow work. It’s about diving into the deep. The words literally go, I have committed to doing some deep, intense, honest shadow work that includes uncovering the insights and taking the actions to heal where necessary. I’ve committed to doing that, even if it’s uncomfortable.

The reality is, my dear, is you may have the desire to stop drinking, right? You may have already stopped, but things are hard, tough, difficult you’re struggling, you may have the desire to stop drinking, you may have the desire to stop drugging. You may have the desire to keep yourself out of whatever low vibrational existence of addiction that you are in. Codependency, drama, chaos, sex. It doesn’t matter what it is you may have the desire, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that you’re ready to do the difficult work that’s required. This work, stepping into the road to recovery, is difficult. It’s not what we’ve been doing. It is not how we have been living our lives. It is new. And the reality is, you’re going to have to face your fears. You’re going to have to set boundaries. So you’re going to have to face your fears. You’re going to have to admit where you are afraid. You’re going to have to admit where you don’t move forward. You’re going to have to admit what you have never tried to do, because fear has been the overwhelming emotion that has been involved in it. You’re going to have to set boundaries with yourself, with people, with places, with things. I’m not going to go here. I’m not going to talk about this. I’m not going to be around this individual. You’re going to have to set them and hold them. Set them and hold them. 

Anybody can create a boundary. And is only a powerful witch, a powerful anyone else, I suppose, right? That is in their own power that can hold them strong, which means you’re going to have to learn how to transmute that shame and guilt. There may be things in your past that you’re experiencing shame and guilt on, but I will tell you if you start to set boundaries with people, if you are anything like me or many of the other humans that I’ve talked to, it comes with shame and guilt, especially if you’ve been around narcissists or other people that haven’t done their own healing. They’re going to be very quick to put you into a shame and guilt spiral, or try to you’re also going to have to transmute the areas of your life that you do not currently find it easy to surrender to or accept. The reality is is we need to step into a frequency of acceptance. We can no longer be the victim. We can no longer think that it’s everybody else. We can no longer look at the rest of the world. We can no longer blame, the husband, the partner, the boss, the courts, the family. We can’t blame anybody else. We get to make a choice as to what we allow in our lives. We get to make a choice as to how we respond.

So you’re going to have to commit to transmuting these areas of your life that you don’t currently feel comfortable with right and moving forward, you’re going to have to keep doing it over and over again to stay on that road to recovery. Because this step four doesn’t say, do Shadow Work for 30 days and then, dust my hands off and I’m done. You’re committing to doing it wherever it’s necessary wherever a shadow comes up. And this does mean you will potentially experience repressed memories, trauma that you have to face. And in those instances, I love therapy. They’re beautiful. It’s a beautiful gift, especially if you can find a therapist that’s aligned with a more spiritual based approach. They can understand when you’re referring to shadow work, what you’re doing. At the end of the day, my dear, though, doing shadow work means that you have to get really, really comfortable being uncomfortable with the parts of you that truly make you human.  It’s not easy to do, it’s not easy to face your fears for the first time, it’s not easy to speak up for yourself for the first time. It’s not easy to demand respect. It’s not easy to walk away from a situation that you’ve been in that is no longer respecting you. It’s not easy to let go of a relationship or a friendship when you truly love them, but if they or the situation is not keeping you on that road to recovery, isn’t keeping you in a state of peace, happiness, keeping you filled with hope, joy, and there’s some shadow work to do there, because you either have to learn how to accept it, or you’re going to learn how to make that change and take the actions to do so at the end of the day, though, this is always about you. You only get to be selfish in recovery if you’re being selfish, to do the work, yeah, not just being selfish. All right. Well, that being said, My dear friends, I hope that you have an absolutely beautiful rest of your day. Much love from me to you, and we got this we do until next time you.