The White Shadow
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The Shadow is a beautiful aspect of ourselves and reveals the hidden nature of our consciousness. I explore this throughout all of my courses and material because the shadow has taught me so much. In fact I would say it is the key to growth.
I had always thought the Shadow to be one sided.
Visually our shadow is behind us, as the sun bathes us in light, it is the shadow cast behind.
Yet the shadow can also be seen as what is projected forward.
This projection forward of a glorified self image may be known as the White Shadow.
And it is especially prevalent when we embark upon a spiritual path.
The White Shadow can be seen as the projection of our ideal nature onto the world.
It is essentially how we wish to be seen.
And by nature we wish to be seen as someone who is good,
perhaps pure,
perhaps even perfect in whatever that may mean for us.
Let me give you an example, as always using myself as the example.
When I first began my spiritual path I had many ideas of what it meant to be spiritual.
Collectively we have been conditioned about the Saint, the Priest and Priestess, the Holy Ones, the Shaman.
The ones who sacrifice what the rest of us desire.
They seem to embody the best possible attributes.
Consequently, it is no surprise we have a very idealised version of what it means to be spiritual.
I looked upon those who taught and in my mind I envisioned them living picturesque lives of spiritual embodiment and I yearned to emulate it. It seemed so beautiful so why wouldn’t I want it.
The White Shadow is the persona we present to the world that puts us in the way we wish to be perceived, eclipsing who we actually are.
This sends many statements out to the universe.
On the one hand it doesn’t allow ourself to be authentic because of course we are presenting a major mask externally.
This makes it incredibly difficult to maintain. Ultimately of course we are putting out the statement that we do not like who we really are.
There is an increased pressure and intensity to maintain the masks and persona and depending on how present it.
The beauty of this journey is that this teaches us about the polarisation of emotions and the split between being spiritual and being human.
In many of my sessions, courses and otherwise I reiterate this point about learning to be human. Loving being human is an incredibly important lesson for those of us who have forgone this in favour of an idea that life is better up there, than right here. As we will explore.
Now let us take this a step deeper. Whilst of course the White Shadow can be seen on social media for example or other areas in society, let us look at the spiritual movement as this is where the focus in this case.
Within the spiritual movement, in our desire to be more spiritual we each decide what that means.
For many of us it may mean being humble, self sacrificing, agreeable. It seemingly certainly doesn’t mean doing anything that creates conflict, doing something for ourselves only etc.
We may create an idea that if we present any notion that we are doing something for selfish needs for example, it is unspiritual.
I remember when I first began to hold workshops and retreats and felt extremely guilty for wanting the money earned for myself. I had to convince myself and others that I was doing it as a service for everyone else only - and I decided that I was going to give the funds to charity.
That was my intention at the beginning and the Universe met my needs.
I never made a profit even to give to charity.
I worked in this way for years not understanding why I wasn’t earning.
I had to borrow, lean on others. I would always just break even.
It was in hindsight I saw a deeper shame of feeling unspiritual if I wanted the money for myself, to live, eat, pay bills, all the normal things.
I use money often as an example because traditionally it has been placed as the nemesis of the spiritual path.
Essentially it isn’t about money, it is about the material plane, the physical plane, our humanity.
Today I am much more comfortable with wanting to earn from what I love to do - its. Win/win. I get to benefit and look after my family, and myself.
The White Shadow has a real issue with presenting anything that may even slightly reveal that we have an Ego.
The result is that this actually puts our ego into the driving seat.
Referring back to my time as a spiritual teacher I tried to embody this persona of being humble and presenting what I believed to be spiritual image.
I realised over time I had become an inauthentic version of myself.
To share what I am sharing now would have petrified me because it would threat the image I presented back then.
The Universe took care of this with many identity crises and I am immensely grateful.
Yet I am still on the journey.
This is one of the things with authenticity, it is to also admit we are still inauthentic.
It is a timeless voyage.
The White Shadow is egoic in nature, because it is trying to protect the self with illusions. Yet here it is forward facing in a way of presenting a glorified image of oneself.
The White Shadow can only work if we have a split in our ideas of what it means to be good, which involves bypassing our human emotions such as anger, resentment, jealousy, envy and all the ones that make us feel ashamed to admit to others that we have.
The White Shadow is the projection of the ideal (spiritual) persona and creates an inauthentic personality to interact with.
It becomes increasingly difficult to hold any form of real relationship or connection because it is impossible to maintain this pretence long term.
So we may refrain from intimacy because of this or engage in conversations that are also personas meeting personas. Again, this isn’t something to judge if we see it in others, it is about compassion in understanding whether we do it ourselves, why we do this and how we may remedy this.
Our desire to be spiritual is the first thing to look at.
This is the idea that we are not spiritual.
Here we are most likely harbouring beliefs that there are groups of people who are "awake" and those who are "asleep". Again referring back o the other session Alternative vs Mainstream, this is a polarised way of looking at the world and the perspective which will help us the most is when we first let go of what it even means to be spiritual.
This is a difficult process yet incredibly rewarding practice in itself.
It is difficult because it asks us to let go of defining what it means to be spiritual which then threatens our own identity of being spiritual.
So what is our solution?
With the White Shadow, it first needs our loving compassion rather than judgement. It is the part that is trying to be accepted because it doesn’t realise by being who we are is what will truly be accepted - by the one person it is seeking it from, ourself!
There is a beautiful frequency that supports us on this particular journey and many other journeys and that is one that I’ve mentioned.
It is Authenticity.
It is honesty.
It is thinking without the pressures of what we should think, should be. It is free from societal and our own conditioning.
If we use authenticity as our guide, then it will guide us out of the masks and personas and towards the real version of ourselves that we have possibly been running away from our entire lives.
This real version of yourself has no glory to claim or no status to pride one self in. It has no goal to complete.
It has nothing to prove.
To anyone.
About anything.
Ever.
It is simply You.
Feel how liberating that is.
When we finally meet this particularly unimportant individual, it isn’t to say that we worthless because of it.
The opposite.
We are incredibly unique with our normality.
Our unique personality.
Our insecurities, flaws, strengths and mishaps.
We are a combination of our experiences and a mess of our emotions and ideas.
Yet we make up the unique person that we are and here we access something that may have been elusive.
Joy.
Finding the joy in life by being a messy human on a journey of discovering the childlike wonder of their connection to Spirit.
Once we meet this individual and this is a lifelong journey in itself, we begin to remove the heavy shackles of needing to please, needing to be humble, needing to be less than, needing to present ourself as something more, or something less.
Of needing to be anyone else than who we are.
The Universe works effortlessly to meet the authentic version of who we are, bringing with it incredible magic, miracles and more.