I really love teaching beginners because I still remember when I was a beginner. And as I’ve started this business—becoming a beginner again as an entrepreneur after being quite seasoned in several careers—it has humbled me into the beginner’s mind.
Gone are the days when I knew the answer off the top of my head—when all those weekends spent reading regulations or watching webinars on accounting and tax topics paid off immediately. I start here, even if it seems divergent, because at the end of the day, deep healing returns you to a beginner’s mind. Ultimately, we all begin somewhere.
So—how do you get started in shadow work?
Keep in mind that there are many ways to do shadow work. I’m going to share the way the Guides have taught me. You can find the original channeled material in the blog, How to Release Difficult Energies. They’ve shown it to me as three distinct processes.
The first level is awareness.
This is the point at which you become conscious of a situation you do not prefer, decide you want change, and believe that change is possible.
The second level is recognition.
Recognition is when you take responsibility for the situation you do not prefer. You do this by identifying the belief, pattern, or identity that is causing you to magnetize that situation. The transition from awareness to responsibility makes up about 80% of what the Guides teach through me.
The third level is realization.
Realization is the moment when you release the energy of the belief, pattern, or identity that created the situation—by taking action toward a more supportive belief. When you reach realization, you begin to feel that your freedom is imminent.
This is a simple method you can use every day, wherever you are, and across many situations. Let me give you an example from one of my recent integrations.
The other day, I felt an intense feeling of being excluded. It was objectively silly—it arose from my dog treating me like the “spare human” because my sister is visiting from the mainland. Of course, when you take a dog to the beach daily, you inevitably become their favorite.
What I noticed, though, was that my reaction was outsized relative to the situation. That’s when I knew this was a deeper integration than I had intended.
I went into meditation and asked: What is my responsibility in this situation I do not prefer—that visceral feeling of being excluded? As I lay there and waited in love for the answer, things surfaced that seemed unrelated to exclusion.
This was a significant release, and if I shared every layer of it, this would turn into a ten-page newsletter—which no one would read. So I’ll focus on one aspect: my weight.
During the meditation, I became aware of being overweight and the lack of self-acceptance I sometimes hold around it. The moments when I would think, I’ll buy that ________ when I lose weight, or I’ll go to that restaurant when I can fit into the dress that would look good there. I could go on, but what became clear was that my lack of self-acceptance was, in fact, self-exclusion.
I want to pause here and say this: moving from awareness to recognition is not always obvious. Now that I’ve shared this, you may not be able to unsee it—but while I was in the process, I kept wondering what feeling like the spare human to my dog had to do with my weight. It’s important to let the universe reveal the connection, rather than trying to preempt it with your intellectual mind. When you do, the shift happens more deeply—and often more quickly—than when you’re trying to figure everything out.
So far, this is as far as I’ve gone with the integration. The next step is release. And I release this by accepting myself at the weight I am now.
It’s easy to say, just lose the weight. But the truth is, I won’t lose it if I can’t accept myself as I am today. I’m looking for the opportunities the universe is offering me to practice that self-acceptance.
What does all of this have to do with channeling?
Not everyone who reads this newsletter wants to channel. But whether or not you do, deep healing and shadow work often open intuitive and channeling capacities. And having done this work, I’m deeply grateful to be grounded in my abilities.
Xavier, my galactic spirit guides, have a message about why shadow work opens up channeling abilities, especially in healing. In keeping with the convention of our blog, the text in italics below is the directly channeled message as I hear it in my head, verbatim.
Xavier: We want to append the channel’s message by telling you why healing deeply opens up channeling abilities. Understand that the faculties you use for shadow work is the same faculties that is used for channeling. When those faculties are exercised through shadow work, inevitably they strengthen to be able to hold the frequency of higher dimensional guides such as ourselves.
The reason that happens is that as you do the shadow work and take responsibility for beliefs, patterns, and identities that no longer serve you, inevitably those beliefs, patterns, and identities are going to be replaced by ones that are soul centered. When that happens, your frequency shifts to a higher one. When you shift substantially, we are able to then connect directly to you and communicate with you. In a nutshell, that’s why doing deep shadow work often opens you up to your channeling abilities.
Now, channeling is not something that must be “earned.” We don’t want you to get the idea that somehow we are not around because you have not healed yet. To us, you are already healed. We are merely saying direct connection, such as the way you see the channel channeling, takes a bit of healing. We are always with you, wherever you are and however you are. As the channel said above, everyone starts somewhere and wherever you are starting, we are with you. And, so it is.
