By Marielle Fois

About This Session:

Break the myth that shadow work has to be exhausting and painful, and discover how it can feel meaningful, purposeful, and empowering.

Hi, welcome to this session.
My name is Mariel Voice, and I'm honored to contribute to a Legna Moss summit.
Own your energy.
I'd like to just take a few seconds to thank you for being here.
I know that life gets very busy and there are so many interesting things out there to do.
So the fact that you decided to spend the time here means a lot to me.
As I said, my name is Marielle Foies.
I help women live in deeper connection with themselves, where this connection brings more
pleasure, purpose, and inner freedom.
In my work, I blend my own personal journey with training in spirituality, shadow work, voice,
dialogue, and the chakra system to deepen this inner connection.
This presentation, Shadow Work doesn't need to Hurt, is about debunking the myth that shadow
work has to be enduring, exhausting, and painful.
And this topic aligns very well with the summit topic because shadow work is energy work.
So maybe you're familiar with shadow work, maybe you're not.
If you're familiar, maybe you've already heard say that shadow work is painful, is enduring, but it's
necessary and it's worth it.
The worth it and necessary part, I agree with it.
But the enduring and painful, it's what I'm challenging here.
So what is shadow work?
Shadow work is a normal process of the mind.
It is the mind giving itself the chance to reclaim its fullness, to reclaim aspects of yourself that you
are not aware of, that are not fresh in your consciousness, that you lost sight of them.
Forgotten parts.
And some of these parts are.
Are painful parts, are vulnerable parts.
So for instance, if someone says someone else, you are a failure as a person, this can be very
triggering.
The fact that it is triggering for someone is because deep down in this person, at a more conscious
level or more unconscious level, there is.
There is some degree of belief that really believes I am a failure.
And then the trigger happens.
And besides this belief, there can be a further belief that says something like, if I am a failure, then
my life is unworthy.
If I am a failure, then nobody will love me.
If I am a failure, my life is meaningless, which adds a massive layer of pain to that.
So all this conditioning makes us have a very, very miserable experience of life when we get
triggered.
And so shadow work is about, you know, even if these are painful parts, they are parts of us.
And so.
But then shadow work has to also come with a journey of spiritual liberation in which you are
liberating your spirit from all this conditioning because your spirit has no constriction to onto itself.
So you're doing this, getting rid of all this conditioning.
And so shadow work is not exactly about accepting that you are a failure.
It is about accepting that when you fail, because we all fail because we're humans and we are
imperfect, when you fail, it's about accepting to experience that experience of failure without that
defining you, without that overwhelming.
And when you have this.
This knowledge, when you know how to go through shadow work in a conscious way and how to
reclaim this part of you that is vulnerable is painful, but it's nonetheless a part of you that
promotes wholeness.
And when all that painful conditioning is out of the way, the experience is actually very gratifying.
So I'll put an another example.
Imagine that you have social anxiety and you are invited to an event.
It can be a wedding, it can be a party, it can be a dinner.
And so you find yourself in this event without kind of finding your place, finding your people, seeing
yourself aside of others.
And then you start getting triggered, right?
So there. There is a part of you, this part of you, right, that is very judgmental.
It's the part of you that at some level believes that you are all those things that thought thoughts
that pop up in your mind.
Actually, these thoughts are an expression of this energy.
And so nobody will love me.
People think I'm boring.
People don't want to be with me, right?
So maybe you're in that event, having those kind of thoughts, feeling down and strong and trying
to stay afloat, right?
Trying to get rid of those thoughts, trying to feel better.
What can I do to.
To stop feeling this way and all that.
And at some point, these feelings just trap you, right?
And then you spend an amount of time, like, trapped by these feelings, really, this weight being
heavy on you.
And at some point, after some time, this energy loses its breath, it starts releasing you, and then
you go back to normal.
You go back to feeling, well, not feeling this weight.
So that is how shadow work can look like, right?
In this process, there is something happens, and this judgment, judgmental energy awakens,
awakens from within you.
It starts getting more and more intense.
It starts trapping you more and more until it's like you can't free yourself from it.
And then it lasts for some time.
After some time, this energy gets exhausted and then fades away again.
So normally, the way that we naturally learn to go through this process in an unconscious way is
getting entangled in those thoughts.
I am unworthy, nobody likes me, I am boring, nobody will ever want to be with me, et cetera, et
cetera, which Creates a lot of suffering.
And we feel like a victim, and we feel miserable, and we take things personally and.
And we resist because, of course, we want to feel better, right?
But when you increase your knowledge and, you know, what is happening there and you.
You start looking at the process as an energetic process, right, of energies racing, craving to.
Craving your attention, craving you to pay attention and, you know, to take care of them.
And that this process, these energies are racing for a reason because there is something there,
right, that wants to be accepted and wants to be integrated into your consciousness and wants you
to own it, right?
And then you take this a journey of getting rid of all that conditioning, right?
And you put your focus on that.
Then you start putting your focus less and less on dwelling in that negativity of those negative
thoughts.
You start paying attention to something different.
You start, you know, do.
Working on that conditioning, reflecting on that conditioning, what it is you are actually
contributing to.
Go through the process in a conscious way and fulfilling its purpose.
Fulfilling its purpose.
Now, this task of getting rid of conditioning and increasing your awareness and your knowledge to,
you know, know what is happening, the dynamics of the energies, what is happening inside you,
that is very empowering.
And that helps you, you know, become a strong enough container to hold that energy of yours that
feels painful.
Like in this case, in the last case I put, could be something like the.
The one that cannot socialize.
Well, right?
And this energy, because you got rid of conditioning, is not so intense anymore.
And you're capable of being that container, you know, that can hold that energy in compassion, in
love.
And with that, you're promoting your wholeness.
And then it stops being such an exhausting practice and starts being more purposeful and in many
cases, very gratifying and fulfilling.
So I'd like to offer you three prompts to reflect on.
You can pause after every prompt, or you can write them down and then journal afterwards.
And these are for you to reflect on if you wish to spend some time with this.
So the first prompt is this one.
Is there something about yourself that is or has been overwhelming for you?
Is there a realization about yourself that is or has been overwhelming for you?
The second prompt is, what is the strong conditioning associated with being that?
What is the worst fate that awaits you if your life was characterized by being that?
And the third prompt is, how would you feel if you knew that instead of feeling overwhelmed by
that, you could stay in charge of it?
Okay, I hope you find these prompts useful and interesting.
And if you are interested in exploring this path of wholeness of in spiritual liberation, of becoming
that strong container to hold life difficulties.
I have a series of workshops on my website called the Help Series which are everything about
increasing your spiritual and emotional well being and helping you become that strong container
for a period of time.
These workshops are free, so feel free to hop over to my website marielle fo.com and check these
workshops out.
Okay? That's everything from me.
Thanks a lot again for spending this time with me and I hope you found this presentation valuable.
Bye.