How I got into Shadow Work and Inner Child Healing
It was in 2014 when I started getting on the self-development journey. I wanted to feel better about myself. I wanted to feel happier, more positive. 6 years prior to that I lost my dad in a skiing accident and I hadn’t been able to process the loss - yes, even after 6 years! And I just got out of a relationship with a person I actually really deeply loved. But I didn’t look at any of this, didn’t process and instead I tried to just think positively, eat healthy, be that perfect person and go on with life. Like every-fucking-body does!
Our thoughts create our reality, mind over matter, coming to the present moment (which I totally misunderstood as making my mind as something wrong and not allowing negative thoughts). Intrusive positive thinking and an absolute denial of how I truly felt within. I should feel grateful, I should feel happy, I should this, I should that!
Fast forward 2 years…I was in DEEEEEP pain! My self-worth was at an all time low, I struggled with anxiety and fatigue and I had developed an eating disorder.
How the heck did I get there?
All the things I tried so hard to push down in order to live a happy life pulled the brakes and made me more and more miserable, so I would FINALLY stop and look at them.
This was the work of my shadows. The parts within myself that I tried to suppress, deny and disown. The parts within myself that I was also deeply ashamed of.
And as I was in the deep depression I gave up trying to think positively and instead through a friend posting a video of Teal Swan on Facebook I found Shadow Work and Inner Child Healing. That was in 2016.
For the first time someone - in a Youtube video - told me that what I was feeling makes sense! And that it’s okay to feel that way! In a world where spirituality, self-improvement, manifestation culture and mindset work is a lot about „love and light“, “good vibes only” and „you create your own reality“, we forget that pain is just as real. And no we don’t choose pain. Nobody deliberately chooses pain or wants to be in pain. Even the pain we inflict onto ourselves or others is done to cover up a deeper pain. It’s an attempt to escape having to feel the even more painful pain. And in the end, it’s a cry for help. (Just like my eating disorder gave me a sense of relief even though it was painful.)
After shaming myself for 2 years about having negative thoughts and feelings that for some reason just would not wanna shift (and oh my was I good at sabotaging my efforts!!!) having someone telling me that it’s okay to have negative thoughts/feelings and that it all makes sense looking back at my childhood experiences felt liberating! It was a painful truth to look at, I’m not denying that. But it also felt liberating in a way.
It took me another few years of struggling (plus a burnout) to really implement and master this practice but it has been the most self-loving practice that I ever tried out.
You see, I grew up in an emotionally neglectful household. My „negative“ emotions were too much and not welcomed. And I lived that out within myself as well. I only approved of my own good and happy states. I loved myself conditionally.
The moment I gave up on trying to be happy and instead just tried to find relief in an emotionally healthy way, was when I found actual peace and in the end also found more happiness.
And this is where shadow work and inner child healing came in. This work has taught me how to really accept and love myself unconditionally. How to truly bring light into the darkness and how to hold myself and all my abandoned parts within through suffering.
This is how I came home to myself. And this is why I am so passionate about my work as a coach.
Much love and support
Sarah