I wrote an article about how it is so important for us to be honest with our kids about how we feel, because our kids will draw their own conclusions if we don't, and this can hurt them in their lives. I wrote another article about how important it is for us to keep our kids connected to their light.
Here is more on the topic...
When I was in psychotherapy I watched the movie Capote. Its a disturbing movie, on many levels, but the quote that has always stuck with me is this one:
If you have not seen the movie, basically Capote is obsessed with interviewing a man on death row for murdering an entire family. When asked why he is so fascinated with the story he says: "I feel like the murderer and I grew up in the same house, then one day the murderer stood up and went out the back door, while I went out the front".
This is how fine the line between darkness and light can be.
Not that Capote is all light, he is certainly a tortured man/soul. But when you have a challenging upbringing and doors open for you to go in a dark or light direction, sometimes you don't know whether you strayed too far and if you will ever be able to come back.
In my most recent level of training for Divine Healing we were introduced to Shadow work.
I already do shadow work with the Gene Keys, which is all about recognizing that the shadow is the soil for our gift. I.e., How can you be a leader if you don't like yourself enough to have gone through a period of arrogance, and then learned to dial that back and find humility?
I see a lot of clients who have had horrendous upbringings. Way worse than what I experienced. And the beauty of this work is the ability to show people the gift in their suffering. The lotus grows in the murky waters, not in a beautiful clean field!
So, in the Divine Healing training, that I mentioned above, we were working on my darkness and my ability to literally destroy things with impulsive and poorly thought out decisions, and the teacher said something I will never forget, she said: "people who carry a lot of light always carry a lot of darkness, in order to balance their light, this is what makes them excellent healers for others". Wow!
When someone offered to do shadow work with me in an eager way before, I was like "No thank you! I have had enough people digging in my shadows, I don't need you digging in there as well, for your own satisfaction!"
But Divine Healing is so different. The practitioner does not dig, they are un-attached. A topic is guided to by Spirit and the client talks about how it relates to their life or not. Its deeply healing to find the gift in your shadows.
All you have to do is remember your light, focus on your light, and then go in and see, what does Spirit have in store for you to see...
And from there, what is the gift of having this in my shadow?...
For me, the gift of my shadows are I can relate to a lot of clients who have had challenging childhoods, who think poorly of themselves, and who battle with mental health issues.
I've been there, and I can still see your light, as I have discovered mine.
To my clients out there who may read this and may fear their darkness, honestly we just need to ground it in the light, so you can see what an amazing person you are, for carrying the darkness and for going out the front door, for making it this far, and now, we can transmute it to light, and be mindful that the darkness is always there, it is always possible to slide back, and even this is a gift because it reminds you of what it was like to be in the dark and how slippery the slope can be. This allows you to support others on the longest climb, up the Scale of Consciousness (see table below), from Shame to Enlightenment.
And this is WAY different from the medical (or criminal) model of approaching such clients!
In the medical system such clients get labels like Borderline Personality disorder, or Psychopath, and they get locked up for life for their mistakes. This is deeply troubling to me because this says "you are damaged and there is no way back, there is no cure, live out your life with a label or a sentence".
I think this is why so many spiritual people are drawn to volunteer in the prisons.
The criminal system has it wrong, the medical system has it wrong.
People can heal, they can change, but once you label them and lock them up, many people actually fight to get this diagnosis or to be sent to jail, they want the confirmation that they are damaged, because being damaged can sometimes be less painful than seeing that you had light in you all along. Your parents may not have seen it, society may not have seen it, but it is there. It is there in all of us.
No one is damaged. Its a choice. You can choose to label yourself in that way for as long as you like, or you can start to see your light.
What are you going to choose?
Love, Bless, and Strong!
Alahnnaa Campbell
MSc Psychology/Neuroscience (Stress & Health)
Family Dynamics and Life Purpose Specialist
You Have a Life Plan