You Can Run From Your Shadows But You Can't Hide...

Shadows linger in our subconscious mind and these shadows are created due to experiencing trauma on a mental, emotional or physical level. Trauma is not a word many people like to hear. They are resistant to it and I get it, because I was there too. I thought growing up that I didn’t had much trauma, until I realized that even the smallest thing in life, like for example losing your mom in a grocery store, is already traumatic. Being birthed into this world can already be traumatic for a child. But we ‘normalized’ societies ways of doing and so we don’t consider it traumatizing for a young born. There are many more examples that create trauma which seems like nothing on the physical level, but is incredibly painful on an emotional level. Bottom line: everyone has experienced trauma and everyone has subconscious shadows.

Another way of saying ‘trauma’ is mental and emotional distress that is unresolved. Looking at it from this perspective the word ‘trauma’ doesn’t’ sound so heavy anymore, does it? Everybody knows what it’s like to experience stress. And so, some things that causes us stress is hidden deep within the subconscious mind. If we don’t address this ‘distress’ we keep looping and looping and looping in the same dysfunctional patterns. (And we have many dysfunctional patterns as a society which we have yet to become aware of).

Everybody is looping in dysfunctional patterns at this moment in time. Lots of people aren’t aware of that. Only those who are aware of this are willing to do the inner work and are the ones who can unhook themselves out of these loops. We want to unhook ourselves from these patterns because they are not beneficial to any individual and these patterns don’t help us to create a life that we all thrive in. A life where we are actually happy, self-actualized, self-sufficient and empowered.

Shifting out of unhealthy patterns permanently

We want to unhook from our trauma FIRST, since that is the anchor that is pulling us down. It’s pulling our consciousness down. Which means you can’t become aware of what else is possible in your life. You can’t shift your consciousness permanently, since the root is still there! If you do want to permanently shift out of unhealthy patterns and behaviors, you need to heal trauma first before you do anything else. Releasing yourself from these unhealthy patterns will also make you smarter and you are able to navigate through your life much easier and with much less suffering. If you do decide to focus on other things then you are ‘avoiding’, wasting time and not creating real change in your life. You are keeping yourself in a loop instead.

From one perspective you can’t really waste your time since anything you do will bring about challenges and lessons you can learn from. Sometimes the things that look like a waste of time is actually ‘you’ learning. But from the other perspective, if you are not self-aware and if you don’t consciously choose to heal trauma, you are postponing anything you actually desire in your life. And what you actually desire in life is another topic, since most things are ‘programmed’ desires. But when you truly learn how to feel and create a strong connection with your internal guidance system, that will make you aware of what you truly want. And what you truly want in life will shift.

The thing is…

Your subconscious mind doesn’t heal for you. Only you can. The subconscious mind records anything you do, think and feel from the past, present and even the future. The subconscious mind doesn’t see good or bad experiences, it just sees ‘experiences’ that are neither right or wrong. And since your subconscious mind records everything that it learnt from the moment you were conceived in your mother’s womb, it has a record of your past pain and so the trauma (distress) you experienced. This affects everything you do in your life today.

Anything that you experienced up until 8 years old is being reflected back to you in your adult life. Why is that? Before the age of 8 you are downloading the beliefs and experiences from your upbringing and environment. Our cognitive brain function doesn’t develop until we are about 8 years old. We don’t have the ability at that age to think our way out of feeling. We feel the world and we can’t rationalize ourselves out of negative experiences. If we were able to, we wouldn’t feel so bad about past experiences and we would easily let go of the past. These past experiences are all stuffed in the subconscious mind for the rest of your life until you decide to resolve it. And no one can do this for you. You have to figure out your own psyche.

Prior wounds

We don’t experience any new emotional traumas after the age of 8. That doesn’t mean you can’t experience trauma after the age of 8, you definitely can. But the trauma that we experience in our adult life is a reflection of a prior wound. You will feel the same emotional states in your adult life and attract experiences that make you feel exactly how you felt in your past, because of this prior wound and so it re-manifests. This is why we want to pull out the roots of our trauma first if we want to improve our lives permanently. We can do this through fully feeling our emotions (shadow work), so that the emotional state can shift naturally.

More awareness is needed

Humanity is not in alignment with themselves. We are humans, but not living according to human nature. This is why people experience trauma. We simply don’t know how we ‘work’. People are not aware that they think thoughts, they don’t know they can change their thoughts. People don’t understand their emotions, they don’t know how to feel and work with their emotions. And people don’t know how to feed the human body properly so that it can keep itself in homeostasis. Let alone living in homeostasis with the earth.

This is why we want to heal trauma FIRST before anything else. You can try to change your mindset and overwrite it. But your emotional body can’t overwrite it like the mind can. So, you have to emotionally process it. Nothing is more important than your own inner state of being. That comes first. And you can try to avoid, bypass and distract yourself with the external world (we all do this to different extremes), but you won’t be able to fool your subconscious mind. You can’t out run it. You can try to run from your shadows but you can’t hide…

Life gets better along the way

Even though we want to heal trauma first before anything else, doesn’t mean you should stop living and wait until you are fully healed. That’s not how life works. You do need to consider that you will be on a healing path for the rest of your life. Not a healing path that’s full of pain, trauma and drama. No, you are getting out of your pain layer by layer. A healing path can be wonderful, freeing and liberating. The more layers you are able to work through and truly integrate, the better your life will get along the way.

Our being is always working towards integration, your being wants to heal. When you have a strong emotional reaction, that strong reaction means that your past trauma has been triggered and wants to be integrated.

Healing from unhealthy patterns isn’t easy. Creating change in your life isn’t easy (depending on what you want to change it can be easier or harder). You can heal a lot on your own and create a stronger connection with yourself that way, but it’s not easy to do it alone. You might need support in your healing to create permanent change. Involve people in your healing if you need to. Don’t keep yourself in pain. Don’t numb your pain. It’s time to heal.

Integrate your shadows now instead of later.

Until next time.

With Love, Naomi

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