“Shadow work is the greatest form of Lightwork”
If you usually read spirituality articles or you’re on a path of spiritual development, you most likely heard about both Shadow Work and Light Work.
I noticed these terms created a lot of confusion on the internet, so I’ve decided to explain what both of them are, what are the main similarities and differences between them.
The confusion around these two terms may come from the polarity of their names:
One is called Light Work, which makes people think about something good, and the other one is called Shadow Work and can be confused for something dark and dangerous.
The truth is, that Shadow Work and Light Work are two methods of healing yourself as well as healing others and that there is nothing dangerous about shadow work.
In this article, I am going to explain what each of these methods encompasses, what are the similarities and differences between light work and shadow work, and the benefits of each.
Shadow Work Vs Light Work
What Light Work is
The term “Light Work” is said to have been first mentioned by the American spiritual healer and teacher, Michael Mirdad. Michael Mirdad was teaching and practicing intuitive healings, based on the example of Jesus.
He used the term “Light Work” to describe the type of healing that he was doing, as well as other similar methods.
Further on, other authors who were working with energy, intuition, or angels used this term to describe what they were doing, probably in the absence of a more suitable term.
Thus, “Light Work” has become an umbrella term that is used nowadays to describe a wide array of energy healing methods.
What these healing methods have in common is that all of them are using Divine Energy for healing, either by channeling it, or by working with the angels, or with higher intuition.
The word “Light” usually describes the Divine Energy, which is often mentioned in certain religions, under names such as chi or qi in Chinese Medicine, prana in Hinduism and Buddhism, or the Holy Spirit in Christianity.
Thus, “Light Work” is any sort of work that uses this Divine Energy.
Examples of Light Work could include intuitive healings, Bio-energy healings, Reiki, ThetaHealing, Pranic Healing, and Prananadi, Angelic healings, and the list goes on.
What Shadow Work is
Shadow work is a term coined by psychologist Carl Jung, to describe a variety of healing methods based on his psychotherapeutic approach.
Carl Jung is a pioneer of Psychotherapy, and his early work in this field has shaped a lot the direction in which Psychotherapy as a science has evolved.
Jung believed that the human psyche is made of 4 parts: the self, the persona, the anima/animus, and the shadow.
He described the anima/animus, as the real side of our personality, which also includes the feminine side of a man or the masculine side of a woman.
The persona he said is the side we choose to show to others to protect ourselves and our most vulnerable aspects, which can be considered to be “a mask”, as he put it.
The Persona is the side of us we kind of “makeup”, to fit society’s expectations of how we should be, rather than how we are.
The shadow, as the name suggests, is the slightly darker side of our personality, which contains all the reprimanded needs and wants, as well as less desirable personality traits and behavioral tendencies.
Jung believed that these traits and tendencies stem from painful emotions inflicted on us by other people or by situations, or even from trauma and emotional shock.
Thus, he also associated the shadow with the subconscious mind, and then the self is the part that plays the mediator role, and make all these very different parts of the human psyche work and co-exist together.
Thus, as Jung mentioned the shadow as an important part of the human psyche, he also suggested a few methods of working with the shadow and healing those reprimanded needs and wants undesirable traits and behaviors.
These methods were then named “Shadow work”, as they are simply a few methods of working with the shadow, bringing it from the subconscious in the conscious mind and then healing it.
How are Shadow Work and Light Work Similar?
Shadow Work and Light Work are similar when it comes to their purpose.
They have the common goal of helping you attain healing and guiding you to become a better version of yourself.
Both Shadow Work and Light Work heal physical and mental issues, contribute towards your personal development and help you grow and evolve spiritually.
Also, another thing that Shadow Work and Light Work do have in common is that they both use energy.
As explained before, the term Light Work usually refers to healing methods that involve the use of Divine Energy, but occasionally, some…
Click here to read this complete article.
