Shadow Work that will Change Your Life from the Inside Out

Feeling is the healing. Can everyone say that? Feeling is the healing. Normally in the law of attraction community and some of like the new age teachings, it's like, oh, if I am feeling fear or if I am feeling shame, I don't want to feel it because if I feel it, I'm then going to attract something in my life that's going to be negative. Has anyone ever thought that before? It's like, oh, I don't want to feel it. Or it's like, I just need to think better thoughts. And change my focus. Well, you change your focus, all you're doing is suppressing the same emotion that's inside. That's your body is literally giving you a message that says feel this unintegrated emotion that's caught up inside. Now to use this as an analogy, if you think of ducks, I heard Eckhart Tolle talk about this once. Ducks like in a pond going around, sometimes they can be territorial. and they might get into a little fight. They'll fight for a minute and then they'll kind of drift back off into their own space. And before they do that, does anybody know what they do? They shake it off. They spread their wings and they flap it 2 or 3 times. And the reason they do that is because they don't want, they don't, they just do it naturally. They don't want to store that trauma inside of their body. This actually happened to me when I was in Costa Rica recently. I was walking. We do these plant medicine retreats in Costa Rica, and I was walking from one house to another. It's like a big facility. And I was walking along the side. There was this long, like 10-foot-long black snake just slithering right next to me. And I was walking and then I saw it and I went like, I went, oh shit, because snakes are like something that I've always kind of been afraid of. And as soon as I got scared, the thing coiled up. And then as I was walking away, I went on the grass and I just shook that shit out because I knew that if I didn't, it would kind of, I could just feel it inside my body, that fear of just even seeing the snake. But if you also, there's a YouTube video online of a polar bear that was tranquilized and it was like tranquilized and after it was tranquilized, it like woke up and it did this violent shaking thing where it was literally just shaking like crazy. Crazy, almost violently. And what it was doing is it was shaking out the trauma that it experienced from that going into its body. Animals are naturally in tune with their bodies and they naturally release that energy. Is that making sense? My dog does that. When I yell at him, he like shakes it off. Yeah, see? Yeah. Isn't that cool? We can learn a lot from our dogs, you know? They naturally do it. It's what we do is we get caught up in our stories. We get caught up in our stories. Oh, I shouldn't be feeling this way. I shouldn't be afraid of snakes. I shouldn't do this. I shouldn't do that. And then we create a thought loop in our mind that keeps within it the pattern that keeps attracting similar situations. And the similar situations on the outside are simply a trigger for making something that is subconscious conscious. Does that make sense? That's all it is. So you can look at somebody else, maybe somebody that's overstepping your boundaries. And the only reason someone really oversteps your boundaries is 'cause you haven't established yours. So you can say, oh, they're the problem. But in actuality, that just hasn't been set. You haven't energetically set those boundaries. So with this, one thing that really allows all this to come in is think of it like this. In the light of awareness, you allow this energy to come up to then be cleared. The light of the awareness is shining light on the shadows, and that's what the shadow is. The shadow kind of in a way is just our body and its process of integrating past emotion. Does that make sense? So you're shining light, and the light of awareness, you become aware of these triggers and why you feel a certain way. So the body is the shadow. The triggers are not bad. The triggers are messengers. Can you guys say that? Triggers are messengers. Triggers are messengers to something that it's trying to reveal to you. When you look at fear, if you're afraid, when I was first getting on YouTube, I was afraid to put out a YouTube video, afraid of what other people would think of me. That fear is revealing to me something that I believe about myself, and that's my edge. That's where you can have the breakthrough is through identifying and knowing that that fear is an indication. So that's why we use a process of self-inquiry of just asking ourselves, what am I feeling? And so many of us just haven't allowed ourselves to feel deeply inside of our bodies. Now I find that very common within the people that I coach. Maybe it's also 'cause it's also in my own life. So I share a lot of YouTube videos on this kind of stuff. So it's the most common themes that I see is one, a shadow of abandonment where there's a feeling of shame, of not being good enough, and that people are going to leave, of who do I need to be in order to get other people's approval or validation? A lot of times also people pleasing is one of the reflections of this shadow because people pleasing is just a strategy that people use in order to get their needs met. And their need normally is a sense of wanting to feel validation, wanting to ease tension. Any of you feel like in the past when you were growing up that there was a lot of tension in your childhood, in your household? Yeah. And that tension, it's like, oh, I wanna ease it, I wanna let it go. And then sometimes we tone down our own power because of that. So abandonment, and that's also, how many of you have heard me talk about the frame technique? Any of you? Awesome. So the frame technique is a very simple process you can find on YouTube if you type in the frame technique. It's basically feeling safe inside of your body and noticing the different, the safety within your own body to feel the self and to feel what is other. And with people pleasing, a lot of times what happens is you abandon yourself to make other people happy, which is funny because your whole, the whole, thing is I don't wanna be abandoned by other people, so I'm gonna abandon myself. But then what happens? They abandon you. Exactly. You become abandoned because the energy you're putting out is you want something from them. You want their validation, you want their approval. So abandonment can very often be something that normally you become more aware of, and then you can go more into that and start to feel empowered within yourself. Setting boundaries is a very powerful way of self-love. Are you guys feeling that? When you set boundaries for yourself, that is a way that you tap into the safety of your own body. Now the next one is worthiness. Worthiness and shame. Sometimes we also might have a perfection, I think perfectionism many times stems from this. Who did you have to be when you were a kid to be enough? Who did you have to be to get by, to make mom or dad happy? Any of you feel like you have the perfectionist wound? You have to be perfect. But think about this. What does a baby have to do to be worthy? Breathe. Nothing. A baby, would we all agree that a baby in of itself is worthy? The baby doesn't have to do anything? The baby can only cry for 2 hours a day, then it's a worthy baby? The baby must sleep for 16 hours a day, then it's a worthy baby? Same thing about your dog or your cat. What does your dog, your cat have to do for it to be worthy? Not shit on the floor? Exactly. The funny thing is we can all agree that a baby is worthy, But then what happens is within ourselves, we develop this belief that there's something wrong with me because as we get older, we start developing these stories. We start developing these belief systems that say there's something wrong, there's something wrong with me. And then we go out and we look for it. We try to hide the shame, the belief that we're broken. Now the cure to shame is vulnerability, being able to like look at this energy, being able to, realize that you're worthy for simply being you. Something Bashar says a lot. Any of you heard of Bashar? Big fan of Bashar's content. He says this a lot where he talks about how creation does not make mistakes. The grass, the bees, trees, everything in our reality has a purpose and it is worthy, otherwise it wouldn't exist 'cause creation does not make mistakes. But what happens is we fight with reality and we say, no, I'm not worthy. I'm the one thing in this reality that's not worthy. And we fight for our own limitations. So what we can begin to do is bring the awareness back. And what I found to be very powerful is feeling more into vulnerability. Now vulnerability is also inherently, we're afraid of abandonment 'cause we're afraid if we're vulnerable, if we express someone boundaries, we express to someone how we feel, we're afraid that we're gonna get rejected. Has that been the case for you guys? There's like a feeling of holding yourself back. But vulnerability is where you actually do, you open up the possibility that someone possibly could reject you, but then at least they're able to see the real you. Does that make sense? And it's also more authentic. So one thing I've done is I started to value, instead of valuing, that of wanting to please or wanting validation, I learned how to start valuing vulnerability, sharing what I'm really thinking, sharing from my heart, sharing how I feel. And by doing that, you begin to rewire your patterns. Now the last one is trust and control. How many control freaks in here? Yeah. So trust and control. I've had some epiphany, like some powerful insights around this one recently. I was doing a somatic release session, something that I'm gonna teach you guys here in a minute, where basically I have a coach that holds space for me and I go within my body and I feel inside my body and I become aware of certain emotions that come up. And one of the questions or one of the things I was looking into is my own sense of control that I place over my life. How I want things to happen. And I had this memory where many of you may have seen from my videos that I had the ex-stepmom from 7 to 15 years old that was very controlling, manipulative, narcissistic. And for me to be enough, I had to be perfect. I couldn't step outta line. If I did, I'd get in trouble. What happened is I was feeling into this energy and I had this memory come up by tapping into my body of when I was 15 years old And when I was 15 years old, that's when my dad divorced my ex-stepmom. And when it finally happened, I remember at one point, like before the divorce, my brother and I, we had like almost no freedom. We were like locked outside of the house most times doing, you know, yard stuff. We'd be like sneaking food in order to get enough to eat. That's how we got by. After the divorce, all of a sudden my brother and I had all this freedom. We were allowed to play video games. We were allowed to have friends. We didn't have to earn going to school activities. We could get enough food to eat, so we started looking healthier. All of this new reality that we had to us, but there was something about it that felt scary. So this memory that I have was I was at my dad, my brother and I were going to the old house after the divorce had started and we went to go get some of our clothes and my ex-stepmom and her mom were like throwing our clothes on. It was like this big dramatic thing where she was like throwing her clothes on the dirt in like the front yard. And I remember sitting there and I remember this, specific moment where I was like, even though there was so much pain and there was so much struggle and my brother and I had to like, you know, like had to just learn how to get by and there was so much limitation, there was something about that that felt safe. And the safety from that, even though it was negative, was something that they call it Stockholm syndrome. It's something that there was like, it was craved. So in a weird way, in that moment, there was a decision that was made where it's like, okay, if I don't have someone in my life controlling me that way, then I must do it. I must control myself. Myself. So either what I would do is I would place these crazy limitations on myself where things had to happen a certain way, or I would attract people into my life. It was interesting, for years I always had someone in my life that was reflecting that energy back to me of that control. Even after my ex-stepmom left, I had an ex-girlfriend for a period of time that was like very jealous and controlling. And then after that, when I broke up, I broke up with her after a few years, and then I got transferred to a better shoe department at Nordstrom's that got paid more. But the manager of that department was pretty much a clone of my ex-stepmom. And she was in my life for like a year and a half. And we as the employees there would try everything we could to get her fired because she would do the craziest shit and she would get away with it 'cause she was protected by upper management. It wasn't fair. Just like the ex-stepmom stuff, it wasn't fair. But then eventually what happened is I went through my spiritual awakening and I started to become aware of these patterns. I started to be, I actually forgave my ex-stepmom. I realized that that pain that I went through growing up with all the limitation made me a rebel for trying to figure out how to break out of limitations. It made me a rebel to then where I ended up learning meditation and having like a spiritual awakening. I realized that the greatest pain in my life, which was for sure my ex-stepmom situation, became the greatest blessing in my life. Because without that experience, I may not be here standing in front of you today. I may not have videos that have reached a lot of people. I may have not just created what I've created in my life. And every situation and every experience that you've been through that you think is the trauma, the worst thing that's ever happened to you, is a seed that is planting that can spike and spark your spiritual awakening or you moving into your purpose. Is this making sense? [Speaker:AUDIENCE] Yes. [Speaker] So that's the power. The power of healing is becoming aware, feeling into what you feel, and allowing that energy to come up, allowing yourself to feel it. And another exercise that I did was recently is I did this one where I realized, when did I first start feeling not safe? And I started just feeling inside my body. And I had this one memory of when I was like 7 years old when my dad met my stepmom. And I broke my arm when I was in 3rd grade playing soccer. And I went to get a cast and that was the first time I met my ex-stepmom. And I remember meeting her with my dad. My dad was there, my brother and my ex-stepmom. And I remember feeling something feels off with her. I was like intuitive or something. I was like, something just feels off. And I started to not feel safe. And then after that, months later, she moved in with my dad in the house that we lived in. And I remember then that's when Nintendo and television got taken away. And I remember thinking to myself like, why is this happening? Why? You know, I've always been able to play Nintendo and then it gets taken out of the room, gets put in our closet and we're not allowed to. And the reason being is she didn't have TV when she was a kid. And my dad was like, okay. So then we had no television, we had no Nintendo. And I say that 'cause to a little kid, it's like, why me? What happened? Why is this the pattern that's now happening? And what I was able to do, one of the biggest healings I had over this last month is I sat with that inner child part of myself. And what I did is I dialogued with it. I dialogued with that part of myself in a meditation. And what I did is I connected to that part of myself that felt not seen, that felt the injustice, and I just listened to it. What did it have to tell me? How did it not feel seen? How could I be there with it? Not trying to give it advice from an intellectual adult point of view, but how can I just be there with it? And then one thing I said that was very powerful is in the timeline that you're in right now, these memories we have, I believe all time exists right here, right now. So what I did is I connected to that part of myself in a way where I was able to connect. And I said to that part of myself, and I connected in a visualization, and I told it, I said, listen, these next 7 years, 'Are gonna be very challenging. It's gonna be very difficult for you, but there's gonna be beauty in it. You're gonna be okay, and there is an end date. There is a day when you will break out of this energy, but the next 7 years are gonna be kind of rough.' And through having this dialogue and just being there with little Aaron, I was able to feel my body start to loosen up. I could feel like there's a part of myself that was trapped in that timeline that was saying, look at me, but I wasn't actually ever looking at it. I was trying to shame it and trying to create all this other ways of getting attention, whether that be on YouTube or from friends and family or loved ones. It was like, it was something I was unaware that I was doing, but subconsciously I was trying to get my needs met from when I was a kid. Now the thing is, is your inner child, we all have an inner child that wants to be seen and felt, and it wants to be seen and felt from your energy. Not from anyone else. If we're not aware of it, we will try to create success. We will try to create other ways of getting validation and approval because we haven't connected to our own inner child. So through dialogue, through becoming aware of what you're feeling, through noticing the emotions you're feeling and welcoming them in. How many of you sometimes feel emotions and then feel like I shouldn't be feeling this? That's when it then stays trapped in the body. The funny thing is the more you welcome in the emotion, the more you let it be there, the more it naturally begins to move through. So the first step is awareness. Can everyone say awareness? Awareness. The second step is welcome it in. Welcome it in. And then the third step that you can do as a powerful practice is dialogue with it, is ask it, What is that part of you need? What is a message from that part of yourself? As you do that, you'll find that things may come up. Maybe now's not the time for it to come up, but nonetheless, as you start opening up the floor for it, you're able to actually sit with that energy. And then the fourth step is simply reassurance. That was what I did when I said, listen, talking to my inner child, "it's not gonna be easy, but you can handle it and you're gonna come out stronger. It's not gonna make sense right now, but I'm here with you the whole time." And you can reassure it and you can even, a lot of the healing comes from the presence with it, but you can reassure it as well that you see, know, and feel it. Is this making sense? So this process right here is what I've been doing this last month. It's been very powerful just for feeling inside of the body and really becoming present to the emotions and not trying to resist it. At first, there may be a certain flow of how the emotions come in for you. I recommend a 10, 15-minute practice at least a day where you breathe and you just feel what's coming up inside of your body. As you do this, you'll start to get, you can even ask for different memories. That's when I was asking, like, what is the first memory I have of this? And different memories will come up. It's not necessary that you remember the exact core thing where something happened. But when you start relaxing into it and allowing the awareness to be there, you might find that certain images kind of pop in your mind. Certain metaphors maybe pop in your mind. So this is the process. There's an inner child meditation. If you haven't seen it yet, that's one of the most powerful meditations I've made. It's completely free. You can download it right here. It's where you energetically go to Kauai, Hawaii, bring forth your inner child so that you heal from the inside out. So if you haven't done the inner child meditation yet or downloaded it, you could do so right here.