There is so much spiritual bypassing these days.
From well-meaning “good vibes only” memes to “love & light” sign offs, many people want to focus solely on the light, and deny the shadows. This is an old story of the patriarchy oppressing the inherent feminine power of the dark, the night, the lunar.
Stepping Into Your Power Is A Healing Journey
Have you ever doubted your gifts? Your knowledge? Your worthiness?
It’s a sad reality that most women struggle with this. We’re conditioned to please others yet deny our own pleasure. To listen, but not speak. To not only doubt our power, but FEAR it.
I love to help women hear their soul’s voice; to remember their feminine power and wisdom. I truly believe that stepping into our authentic power is a healing journey.
The path of stepping into your leadership is also your path to healing.
Sister, you have so much potential and when you step into your authentic power, you’re also asked to look into your soul and find the wounds and shadows that still need healing.
We don’t see these patterns as clearly when we are in our comfort zones; we aren’t forced to face them. When we stretch ourselves, when we grow, our old wounds and patterns come up. It’s safe for you to be empowered and it’s safe for you to dive deep into the shadows and wounds that are holding you back.
That is where we are globally right now in 2021 – we are being forced to see how our current actions are no longer working for us. We are in a collective shadow healing.
That is why I feel so compelled to talk about this.
This can be a really scary topic for a lot of people. The idea of wounds and facing those head-on make a lot of us uncomfortable; and that’s okay, it’s expected. It’s important to remember not to shame ourselves for having wounds or to pretend they don’t exist, because they do.
We are not above our shadows… but we can be empowered by them. In fact, our wounds hold our medicine!
For those of us who choose to be a bright light in the world, we are choosing the path of the lightworker.
Spiritual teacher and author Rebecca Campbell (Light is the New Black, Rise Sister Rise) defines a lightworker as “anyone who decides to answer the call of spirit, versus the call of ego. It’s anyone who wants to be of service, who wants to devote their lives to something bigger in the world.”
You can be a lightworker in any profession and life role. You can bring joy and elevated vibration anywhere you are, in anything you do. The more you choose this path, this lightwork, and consciously answer the call, the more your shadows come into focus. These shadows are the result of unhealed wounds, and they hold us back from shining our light and stepping into our personal leadership.
What Are The Four Main Wounds For Lightworkers?
There are four main wounds that are vital to understand and talk about on your spiritual journey. These are:
- The Wounded Child
- The Mother Wound
- The Witch and Sister Wound
- The Wounded Healer
There are a lot of different ways to talk about these wounds and define them, but here are my thoughts…
The Wounded Child
This wound can be caused by issues and events that happened when we were children. Typically, these events were never dealt with or resolved and this can cause a deep fear of abandonment or fear of being disloyal to your family.
Disloyal can mean multiple things, but in this sense, we see this fear a lot as we move into adulthood and start coming into our own individuality. This wound usually surfaces within the first 5 years after leaving home. This wound can manifest and be unconsciously projected onto many aspects of your social life, such as:
A New Circle Of Friends
Family
Your own Family that you create; husband, wife, children, in-laws, etc
Coaches
Peers
Any Parental Figure
Watch out for this! These fears can be extremely damaging to your personal life and can seriously hold you back from your spiritual power. This shadow is connected to a deep wound: you’re afraid that you are unlovable. You feel like you need to conform and fit into your family or else you will be abandoned.
What is Your Medicine?
Whether you fear abandonment or disloyalty… unconditional love is your antidote. Deepen into the truth that you are loveable, you are loved, and you ARE love. When you embody this, you will help others understand this truth as well. Being grounded in the energy of unconditional love will give the people around you a sense of safety and belonging. Know yourself as Love.
The Mother Wound
This shadow stems from a strong fear of abandonment and of being a burden towards other people. This shadow greatly affects those who have a broken relationship with their mother. For a long time, I thought I didn’t struggle with this wound because I have an amazing, loving relationship with my mom.
But that is not the case. The Mother Wound is connected not only to our relationship with our own blood mother, but the relationship to our IDEA of what a mother “should” be. And as well, it’s also connected to our relationship to the Divine Mother: a feminine face of God that has been denied to us for millennia. Collectively, we all carry a mother wound due to Her absence in our spiritual lives. Thankfully, this is changing in a big way, and She is returning to our hearts and lives!
This shadow is like carrying around darkness concerning your worthiness. Somewhere along the way, you took on the belief that your worthiness is dependent on your usefulness. Let me guess… you’re hardworking, productive and you’re terrified of feeling like a burden? I see you. Again, this is a symptom of the patriarchal mindset that productivity makes you worthy.
What Is Your Medicine?
You’re invited to accept and receive support from others, and from yourself, to heal this wound. Healing this wound brings reciprocity back into your life, and you can then role model this balanced way of being. From this you’ll exude an abundant, generous, reciprocal energy. Well resourced, you’ll more easily be able to hold compassion for others in your life and you hold that beautiful gift.
The Witch or Sister Wound
These two wounds are not exactly the same, but they are very similar. Those who struggle with this shadow will often have a strong fear of judgment… more specifically, a fear of persecution by others.
This fear is common among lightworkers and healers and is deep-rooted in our past. There was a time where we were not safe in sharing our talents or our wisdom with the world, and we still carry that betrayal from the witch trials in our psyches. That dark time manifests now as being afraid to use our voices, share our magic, and to shine our deep inner wisdom.
Watch out for your fear of success, it can be masked as self-sabotage and comparing yourself to other women. If you notice this happening, then there needs to be sister wound healing.
What Is Your Medicine?
Those who struggle with the witch or sister wound will heal it in sisterhood. It’s important for you to learn to trust other women again, in safe and sacred spaces. From there you will feel safe to share your past life memories and wisdom and to integrate it into your present day. A lot of healing will come from this. Empowering others through sharing your journey and your path is your medicine. You hold the gift of helping other women befriend their own power and find their voice.
The Wounded Healer
This wound affects those who have a fear of being unworthy or a fear of not being ready to teach or help others. This is false – you are worthy and capable of anything you want to do. This wound is rooted in the idea that you are fundamentally flawed, and that you need to know more, BE more, before you can teach/ coach/ guide anyone else. You believe you can only help yourself, not others.
This can express itself in “procrasti-learning”; taking course after course, certification after certification, and still not feeling ready or worthy. You may consistently defer to others, and put your mentors on pedestals. It’s vital that you remember we are all on this journey together.
What Is Your Medicine?
You don’t need to reach the pinnacle of enlightenment and healing in order to be able to help others. You, the wounded healer, The Chiron, hold the medicine of your mere PRESENCE bringing wisdom and healing. From the power of your authentic presence, your strength is being able to bring empowerment with any words you speak; your energy alone can open people up to experience shifts. As cliché as it sounds, you simply need to believe in yourself.
To be a lightworker is also to be a shadow worker.
Approach your shadow work with the knowledge that everyone is unique and every path will be different. Have compassion and curiosity for both the wound and your healing process. And remember, your wounds hold your medicine!
You can’t have lightwork without shadow work. Your goal should never be to eradicate your shadow – but to embrace them. Lightworkers hold the keys to deep soul freedom and we are all uniquely designed to share our wounds and healing with the world.
You, lightworker, are the map to the medicine.
Has this sparked a recognition in you? Do you see how one or more of these wounds is effecting your life and sacred work? Let me know in the comments!
As well, I offer Soul Magic Oracle ceremonies that are healing and empowering.