Winter Solstice
Winter Solstice physically is the day of shortest day light and longest night, the perfect opportunity to hunker down with loved ones, sharing stories and nourishing food, all providing comfort to the soul on the darkest night of the year.
The Winter Solstice is also an opportunity to look within, switching off phones, televisions, computers and all technological devices and turning your attention from the distractions of the external and tuning into your own unique, internal being.
Why? Why not continue to live your life paying greater attention to what is happening around you rather than what is going on within you?
The more knowledge you have of yourself, the greater your knowledge and influence of the outside world.
Being a very comfortable introvert myself, I understand the question of why would I want to influence the world around me rather than just hunker down and quietly go about my own business?
The simple answer is we are always influencing the world around us with our energy anyway, so to do so consciously seems a much healthier option to me.
The greater your knowledge of self, the greater the peace you can experience, the greater flow, the greater synergy.
Quote:
“If you bring forth what is within you, what you bring forth will save you.
If you do not bring forth what is within you, what you do not bring forth will destroy you.”
This may sound harsh, but it truly resonates within me and drives my desire to further acknowledge, experience and embrace my shadow self.
But when presented with the term ‘shadow work’ it opens so many unanswered questions.
If it is my shadow self and I have shoved it down so far it is not obvious to me, how do I find it let alone acknowledge it? My brain is a very clever place and is very good at hiding or disguising what I don’t want to see.
And this leads me to another quote:
“Know thyself.”
The only path to finding, acknowledging, healing and embracing my shadow self is to really get to know myself, the good, the bad and the ugly.
There are some fabulous tools available to help us do just that and they have opened my eyes in lots of ways, but of all those that I have stumbled across meditation, journalling and tarot have been the greatest assistants in helping me on my journey to truly knowing me.
Meditation, as a practice, allows me the ability to learn to observe my thoughts rather than becoming entangled with them. This allows me the gift of clearly seeing the current loop they are on rather than merely being the background noise that quietly dictates the direction of my life. It also allows me to trace the origin of these thoughts, are they helping me? If so I would like to thank them, if they are disempowering me I would like to get to the root of this programming so I can name it and reframe it to a position that is going to help me lead the life I am here to really live, not the life someone else has or had in mind for me.
And this leads me to another quote:
“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure.”
Because if we are indeed that powerful we would need to take responsibility, for our power, our actions and the consequences. Sometimes being in a victim mentality is a respite. Because it is someone else’s fault, we have / had no choice, it was not of our doing so we can abscond responsibility.
But in doing so we are keeping ourselves trapped. We are giving our power away to someone or something outside of ourselves…
And that in itself is a choice.
We enter a type of amnesia. We forget that we are the power and the authority in our own lives. We hand the navigation of our course over to someone else, be it our parents, our past experiences, our bosses, our colleagues, our partners, our parliaments, our pain.
And that may be nice for a little while, but I bet eventually you will begin to chafe at the bonds of these restrictions. Within you is the quiet voice reminding you that you are more than this, you are greater than your current circumstances, there is something more to experience, to discover.
What if that something was you?
And if so, how do you begin to find who you truly are?
Ask yourself the question ‘who am I?’
If you sit in meditation and ask yourself this question, odds are you will come up with the answers of your name, daughter/son to, parent to, the title on your job description, friend to…. Yet all of these things are external, they are outside of yourself. Yes they are a part of what makes the whole of you, but what if you look a little deeper?
What if you keep asking?
The Winter Solstice is a wonderful time to begin this journey.
The nights are longer and if we switch off the electronic gadgets and gaze into the flame of a candle or fire we begin the process of going within, with the assistance of the sacred flame.
Tarot does not lie, it is only a matter of how we interpret the information presented to us.
So draw a card and meditate upon it, look at the symbology on the card, what does it mean to you? How does it make you feel? Look a little deeper and listen closely to what your body is telling you and the quiet whisper of your soul.
Let your mind float and your imagination bring its creative force to the fore.
Simply be…
Then journal, write down how you felt, what you saw or heard. There is no judgement here, no-one is going to be grading what you write in your own private papers.
Grant yourself the gift of getting got know who you are, the more you do so the less you will be influenced by the opinion of others, though I would recommend being open to learning if it resonates with you, remember always that you are not here by accident, there is purpose in your existence and it is your task to remember what that is and to grow with it.
Below is a sample of a tarot spread to help you with your exploration of you and your shadow. Sit with the cards and allow their message to whisper its way to you, there is no rush. The nights are long, the weather cool outside, so snuggle in and enjoy the deepening of your relationship with you. You truly are worthy your own efforts, beautiful soul x.
If you would like to book an appointment to help get to know your shadow self please follow this link for a reading: Shadow Work
