Healing Self-Sabotage - Insight Timer Live

In this recording of an Insight Timer Live event from April 2021, Catherine shares the true meaning of self-sabotage and guides a gentle and intimate shadow work experience that identifies and heals the root cause of that pattern. Self-sabotage is just a dramatic term for any behavior, addiction, or repeating experience that seems to stand between you and what your heart knows as your truth.

Transcript

Hi everybody,

Catherine here.

This is a recording of an insight timer live session healing self sabotage that I did on April 11 2021.

So I've cut it so that we jump right in.

So I just want to say thank you so much for listening and I look forward to seeing you in future lives here on insight timer.

So we will be having a meditation today.

That was another question.

I'm going to be talking for a little bit and then guide you into a practice,

A shadow work practice,

Where you will discover some of the roots of a particular self sabotaging behavior.

And self sabotage is just a dramatic word for any way that any kind of behavior or pattern where we're resisting what we know in our hearts is good for us,

Is our highest good.

So self sabotage I know is just kind of a dark,

Dark term,

But you know what I mean.

So anything like procrastination or any kind of addiction or distraction,

By the way that includes addiction to our phones,

To technology,

To constant stimulation.

Like right now I notice I'm kind of like picking at my nails because I'm nervous.

Like that's actually that would fall under the same category as any way that we any habit or behavior or pattern that we know is in the way of peace in our lives and our highest good.

So that's what I mean by self sabotage.

And so because there are definitely a few new folks here,

Let me just say a few words about shadow work as I understand it.

So I consider myself a shadow work practitioner.

And what that means is I help people to uncover what is unconscious within them that is holding them back from being their fullest,

Most authentic whole self.

And also,

One thing that I love about the shadow that's so rarely discussed is that so the shadow is also it's everything that's unconscious within us.

And so that also includes our power,

Our our bravery,

Our courage,

Basically.

So the shadow comes from Jungian psychology,

At least in the West,

I consider shadow work to be a deeply ancient human practice that comes from indigenous cultures.

But at least in the West,

Or you could say,

The colonized version comes from Carl Jung.

That's what we know it as.

So Carl Jung was a psychoanalyst in the early part of the 20th century.

And so what he calls a shadow is everything in our unconscious that basically doesn't isn't part of our ego identity.

So everything about us that's unconscious,

But isn't who we would like to think of ourselves as.

So for example,

Like the traits that our society or culture or our family deemed bad,

But that because we're 360 degree beings,

We are whole,

Right?

They are part of us,

But the more we repress them.

So Carl Jung said,

What we resist persists,

And that which we which we repress that which stays unconscious comes to us as fate.

And so you could interpret that in whatever way makes sense for your understanding of the world.

So you could say that which remains unconscious comes to us as symptomology,

Like some kinds of mental health struggles,

Or even physical struggles,

Or people that we encounter like toxic relationships.

So however you understand the world in your own worldview,

You could map that onto there.

But basically,

For young and for really like,

Personal growth and development in general,

The goal is to be our full selves,

Right?

The goal is to integrate the shadow,

Integrate all of what we are.

And the more we accept that about about ourselves that we might want to push away,

The more compassionate we become the less we judge others,

Because all of our judgments of others are actually shadow projections,

Right?

We're actually judging part of ourselves.

So if I'm judging someone for being like,

Loud and obnoxious,

Which I used to do all the time,

It's actually because as a child,

To be a good girl,

I had to be quiet.

And so I submerged my self expression as a child.

And so for young,

Or for anyone doing this kind of shadow work,

We know that I'm projecting that onto you that you're bad.

If you're loud,

You must be obnoxious,

Simply because that's the structure of the inner policing I had to build in myself to stay safe as a child,

Because I needed to be quiet in order to be good.

So I know that that was just a lot.

That's your little intro to shadow work.

So there's lots of different ways to do shadow work.

It's basically any kind of inner process based in or around Jungian psychology,

Typically,

That seeks to very gently uncover these unconscious aspects of ourselves so that we may be whole.

And there's really no better example of this than what we call self sabotage.

And I say that in quotes,

Because there is actually so here's the thing,

Everybody,

There is no such thing as self sabotage.

All right,

You can just hop off this call.

Whatever,

There's no such thing as self sabotage.

Let me unpack that a little bit.

So the reason there's no such thing as self sabotage is that the part of you that is sabotaging you actually has your best interests at heart as it understands them.

And let me give you an example.

So let's see here.

So when I was developing so I have an online program called becoming bold that I'm actually teaching right now on Saturdays,

Which is why I haven't been on insight time real live as a toddler mom with limited time.

So when I was developing my program and having to so I did a lot of education and like online marketing and stuff because I knew nothing about it.

When it came time to actually promote the course and sell it to people and advertise it,

It took me literally months to get over the procrastination.

I was procrastinating so hard.

Like at selling this thing that I knew in my heart would help so many people and that I was proud of.

Right.

So I would just find myself looking at my computer about to you know,

Write that promotional email or that Instagram post and just sitting there and instead you know going to Facebook or doing whatever I could to not actually write the sales email.

And because I've done shadow work for two decades on myself in my own ways,

I knew how to sit with that and I just I held myself in a lot of compassion because I knew what was going on.

And so this will be a little example and like a foreshadowing of what we're going to be doing in the practice today.

So I'll just tell you what I did with myself in those moments.

What I did is I honestly talked to the part of myself that was getting between me and writing those emails.

And I talked to her with so much love.

And first I just held myself.

And I noticed when I went to go write that promotional email what was happening in my body.

And like it was like a turning in my stomach and a nausea and like really intense physical sensations happening.

So I just breathed into those physical sensations and softened around them and just said,

Yes,

It's okay to feel this way.

Like this is scary.

Like,

Yes,

There's a lot of strong physical reaction to writing this promotional email.

And so that's how I approach it is just so gently,

So tenderly,

It's okay,

It's okay to feel like this,

It's okay to have my stomach turning and be nauseous about this.

And this is not how we usually approach ourselves in the West,

Right?

So before I really got tender with myself,

What I would do is kind of force myself into things right and like,

How many of you do that,

Like push yourself into doing what your will wants you to be doing right instead of sitting back and just really being gentle with yourself like yes,

It's okay to feel this resistance,

It's okay to feel this way.

And then so my next step after noticing the body sensations is to just drop in and ask my psyche to show me and I've been doing this for I've been doing this for many years.

So I can do this quickly,

Right?

But it's okay if you can't if you if your imagination doesn't work like this quite yet.

Anyway,

I asked my psyche to show me the part of myself that's resisting doing this that's resisting writing this promotional email.

And what I saw in those moments actually,

Let me just tune in and see who it is right now.

And I'm imagining like being at my computer again and the physical sensations and just seeing who shows up.

Okay,

So who shows up is the perfectionist part of myself.

And it's different aspects of myself at different times.

But in that particular time who showed up was this and if I imagine her there,

She's like,

She's like emaciated.

And she's about 13 years old.

And she's wearing glasses.

And she's just really rigid and and she has to control everything in order to feel safe.

So she's like she's not fed like the emaciated quality of her is really intense.

I can see her bones sticking out.

And so what I do with these,

I call them shadow figures is these are beautiful parts of ourselves from earlier in our life that are trying to protect us right.

So this what I did and I won't go through the whole thing right here because we have to get to our own practice here.

But what I did is I basically asked her what do you need?

I really looked at her with open curious compassion and I asked her what do you need?

And sometimes she says love and whenever she says or whenever any shadow aspect says something abstract like that I asked them a follow up of how would you love to experience love right now.

And what if I ask her that right now?

Like what do you really need?

What she tells me is she really needs to feel like she belongs to me.

I need to feel like I belong here.

Because she's made her identity out of being separate and superior and controlled and perfect right.

And so I my next step is to imagine myself really seeing sensing feeling myself meaning that need for just saying you belong.

You belong sweetheart.

And so this is an example of how I have worked with some recent self sabotage quote unquote within myself.

But it's really important again to know that there's no such thing as self sabotage because all of these patterns and behaviors come from parts of us that are trying to protect us.

And you're going to experience this very directly for yourself today.

And Tina,

You want book recommendations,

We'll do that after the hour.

So I'm going to stay after 10 o'clock Pacific to give book recommendations answer any questions because yes,

The short answer is yes,

I have lots of book recommendations.

All right,

Let me just look at my notes here really quick.

Okay,

So we're right about to jump into the practice here.

I want to make a little disclaimer.

So I just gave you kind of a very brief example of this,

What this work can look like.

I can't I can't tell you exactly what's going to happen because I do open myself to be guided when I lead these experiences.

But I do want to say that if that my work can be disarmingly impactful and potent for people because it seems very simple.

And yet it will take you to a really core part of yourself.

And if you know yourself as someone with a history of anxiety attacks,

Or panic,

Or a trauma history,

I just really invite you to either just listen to this without maybe fully participating or maybe keep one foot in one foot out,

Or just have a or make sure you have support that's supplemental to this and this goes for any of my shadow work practices that I do consider them supplements to other kinds of personal or professional support that you have in your life because this work is really,

Really powerful.

And it's very rare for folks to have anxiety attacks doing my work,

But I just want to as a trauma informed practitioner,

Make that disclaimer that please make sure you have some extra support to process this experience or any of my shadow work experiences,

Or at least a trusted friend that you can really share your heart with.

Because this stuff is not to be taken lightly,

Like you will be going right where you need healing and that often brings up a lot for us including physiological responses,

Sometimes in some people with a history again of anxiety,

PTSD,

Etc.

Yeah.

So,

Yeah,

Know yourself and know know the ways that you calm down best,

Right,

Maybe that's lying on the floor.

If you feel anxiety coming on,

You know,

Disconnect from this practice,

Maybe you're not feeling it,

You're not feeling on,

You know,

Disconnect from this practice,

Maybe lie on the floor holding a pillow,

Maybe tune into your five senses.

What do you see here?

Taste,

Smell,

Feel at this moment,

Let's look around the space.

You know how you best calm yourself down.

Again,

I don't expect this to be the case for anyone,

But just just in case.

All right.

So just to give you a very short overview of what we'll be doing in the practice,

I'm first going to be asking you to just bring to mind,

Maybe maybe you already have this in mind,

The behavior that you'd like to change.

So whatever the quote unquote self sabotaging behavior is that you would like to change today.

Maybe it's procrastination,

Maybe it's numbing out with Netflix,

Maybe it's your phone,

You know,

Always going to your phone to get extra stimulation.

When things get quiet or hard.

Maybe it's an addiction of some kind.

Yeah,

So just so I'll ask you to bring that to mind.

And then I'm going to ask you to really feel in your body.

Just humor me and let your imagination see sense and feel what might it be like to be free of that behavior?

What might it be like to be completely liberated of that self sabotage?

And then what we're going to be doing after you really let that take over your being is I'm asking you to do that so that we can then identify the resistance that's coming up to it,

The resistance in your body to really doing the thing that the self sabotage seems to be preventing you from doing.

And then we're going to use that resistance to go in and then identify that shadow aspect just like I demonstrated in the example with myself,

We're going to be allowing that resistance in your and identifying the the the body sensations that's part of it and then allowing those body sensations and emotions to become a shadow figure.

And we're just going to trust whatever comes up as your first impression.

So at least in terms of Jungian psychology,

This is called this process is called active imagination.

Probably colonized and co opted from,

You know,

Indigenous dream time practices,

Shamanic journeys,

Stuff like that.

So this humanity has been doing this for as long as human humans have existed,

That is trusting what comes up in our imagination as truth.

So I invite you to just try that out today.

Trust whatever image you see first as truth.

Trust whatever body sensation is true for you.

Just trust it.

Okay,

And then we're going to be doing again,

Meeting the need of that shadow figure,

And doing some deep really compassionate witnessing with that shadow figure in order to then integrate it into your,

Your being yourself,

Because the goal of this again is to integrate.

And the idea is that when we integrate those shadow aspects,

When we see them,

When we witness them,

And bring them into us and allow them to feel that they belong to us,

They don't need to be so loud anymore.

And so what myself or people I work with always tell me is that when they do these practices,

It's like,

If they're working on a trigger,

They get less triggered if they're working on like a self sabotage behavior,

Somehow it's softer after doing this work.

It's just like,

It's screaming less loudly,

Because you're,

You're bringing it to the light of your conscious awareness.

And as Jung would say,

Whatever is unconscious comes to us as fate,

Right?

So whatever we become conscious of,

We're liberated from we're liberated from that screaming voice that wants to get our attention through symptomology,

Or through aspects of our lives we would rather not have.

Oh,

Thank you,

Paula,

For your donation.

Donation dance.

Do a little dance when someone donates.

All right.

That is unless I'm deep in leading a practice that I will not do a donation dance.

Okay,

So let's go ahead and get started.

Go ahead and find a spot that's comfortable either seated or lying down.

I'm going to experiment with playing some music in the background just really softly with my computer here.

So I'm going to get that started.

Okay.

So wherever you are,

Go ahead and close your eyes if you're comfortable doing so.

And begin to feel that your body has mass allowing the body to be heavy in this present moment.

If it feels nourishing to you,

I invite you to bring one or both hands to your body.

And if you feel that your body is being nourished,

I invite you to bring one or both hands to your heart or to your belly,

Wherever you identify as your center.

And send some slightly deepening breaths to that place very gently.

Noticing any areas of unnecessary tension in your body now.

And seeing if you can bring just 10% more softness to those places.

Letting go of any trying hard,

Letting go of attachment to an outcome here.

Feeling yourself open to whatever arises.

And go ahead and bring to mind now the behavior,

The pattern,

That way that you're behaving that seems to get in the way of doing what your heart knows is right for you.

And just name it right now.

Perhaps remembering a time in recent memory where you were doing that behavior.

Noticing that there's some contraction in your body,

Or maybe you were doing that behavior.

Noticing that there's some contraction in your body while you do it.

Noticing that when you do this behavior,

It's a kind of bracing against the flow of life.

Just noticing and naming that now.

And I invite you now,

Having named and noticed this self sabotaging behavior to open your imagination to how it would feel and look like to be free of this self sabotage.

Let your mind and your heart completely open to this potential reality.

Feeling the expansiveness that's here.

And breathing into this potential reality of freedom.

What would you be doing?

What does it feel like to be you in this potential reality of freedom?

Completely unbound by this self sabotage.

Feeling if you can expand that feeling of what it's like to be you here to fill the entire room you're in.

Breathing and expanding this feeling of total freedom in this pattern.

And so now remember that we're doing this in order to bring the resistance to light that's here.

So notice now,

Is there part of you that doesn't want this to be your reality?

Is there part of you that fears the freedom that's here?

And for now just notice how that feels in your body to fear the expansiveness of that reality.

What are the physical sensations that come up?

That feel like contraction and holding back when you're invited to expand into this freedom.

Where is that contraction in your body?

Just name it.

Are there any emotions that come up for you?

Or any inner voices that have things to say about making this expansive freedom your reality?

Just note what they're saying or what those emotions are for you.

Some of us will feel the resistance mostly as body sensation,

Some as emotion like fear or anxiety.

Some of you might feel it or hear it as an inner critic or inner voice saying you can't do that.

Making note of what your experience is now.

How you experience this resistance in yourself.

And now the invitation is for you to completely allow this resistance to be here.

Say to yourself yes it's okay to feel this way.

Because when we resist the resistance,

When we judge ourselves for it,

We keep it stuck in our body.

What we allow and accept has the freedom to change.

Perhaps you're holding your heart or your belly or wherever you feel that resistance viscerally and just say it's okay to feel this way.

And as you hold yourself in that resistance,

I'd like you now to imagine just allow your imagination to open and be vivid and show you the aspect of yourself that is this resistance.

Ask your imagination to create a figure that you can speak to that represents this resistance.

Imagining yourself now as the strongest version of you looking at this figure from a respectful distance.

Notice what you see here.

Is this figure a version of yourself?

Maybe a younger version of you?

Or it might be an amorphous color or shape or something else entirely.

Anything is right.

Anything is perfect here.

Just keep looking.

Notice the body language of this figure now.

Note to yourself how they feel.

What are the emotions present with them?

And take a moment to reflect on how does it feel in your adult body to be witnessing this part of you?

And if you notice some resistance,

Just hold yourself and say it's okay to feel this way.

Turning your attention back to that figure now.

What else do you notice about them?

Have they changed at all?

Feel that in your heart,

You have a sense of open curiosity about them.

They're curious about their experience,

About who they are and what they need.

So looking at them with compassion and curiosity now,

Go ahead and ask this figure,

What do you really need?

What do you really need?

If they don't know what they need,

Just go ahead and validate.

It's okay to not know what you need.

And keep looking at them with that open,

Curious heart.

If they've told you what they need,

See sense and feel yourself meeting that need for them.

And if they've said something abstract,

Like love or protection,

Ask them the follow up of for example,

How would you love me to show you love right now?

If you experience that they have animosity toward you or hatred,

Your job is to validate that it's okay to feel that way.

Telling them it's okay if you hate me.

Telling them you don't have to trust me.

It's okay not to trust me.

Telling them one more time,

What do you really need?

Tuning in now to see and ask them if there's anything else that's needed here for this encounter to feel complete.

Making sure that whatever comes up is on their terms.

So if you feel like going up to them and hugging them or saying I love you just refrain because this needs to be on their terms.

So do they have anything else that they need for this to feel complete?

Telling them they don't have to trust me.

And just look at them as we close this encounter and feel in your heart that there's a place for them there.

And hear and feel yourself telling them from your heart,

You belong here.

You belong here.

Taking some deep breaths.

You belong here.

If that feels like too much to tell them that just be very real with where you're at right now and validate that within yourself like it's okay to feel that way.

We're not forcing anything here.

Just keep opening to whatever your authentic experiences and knowing that that's okay.

So looking at this figure now.

Let them know in a moment that it will seem like your consciousness is shifting.

But that they can come with you if they choose.

You're not leaving them unless they want to be given space.

Accepting exactly whatever they're saying.

Wherever they are,

And just say it's okay to feel that way.

It's okay even if they don't want to come with you.

It doesn't make this healing process any less because the healing here doesn't happen in a goal oriented way.

The healing is in the witnessing and the seeing them which you've already done.

So if they happen to want to come with you,

Just see sense and feel that they are in your heart now.

And wherever you're at,

Just start to very slowly imagine the room that you're in,

The walls around you or the outdoor space you're in perhaps.

Start to lengthen your inhales and start to very slowly bring yourself back.

Whenever you're ready,

Going ahead and opening the eyes now.

Looking around the space you're in even behind you now.

Maybe taking some movement if that feels natural.

And just coming back to your body in the here and now.

I'm glad to hear from folks that that was powerful and revealing.

And I always get questions about like what if this figure was saying really terrible things to me?

What if they were just judgmental and they hated me?

And my response is when in doubt,

Validate.

Your job is just to validate.

And this might seem like the last thing you want to do.

But believe me,

It is exactly what they need to integrate in you.

No matter what and remembering that there's no better or worse form of this meditation.

It's all in the journey of it.

It's not about attaining a specific form of the meditation.

Yeah.

And I saw a question about like what if somebody said like what if the origin didn't reveal itself?

So remember that this is not first of all,

A goal oriented process.

So if this isn't about digging,

This is not about and none of my work is about digging into a traumatic memory to remember that we know from contemporary trauma studies that that's actually counter that's not effective and is actually harmful.

And that we can heal trauma by actually not accessing the specific memory at all.

We don't need to dig it up.

In fact,

That can be re triggering and harmful and actually deepen PTSD symptoms to go back to the original memory.

So this isn't about digging anything up.

But if you if you experienced like difficulty visualizing it,

Just know that that's completely okay.

And that's completely normal.

First of all,

You might be a different kind of learner or human like maybe the visual field isn't how you navigate the world as much or maybe the internal visual world is just not,

Not your jam.

Maybe there's other ways for you to access maybe body sensation or tactile or something like that.

And yeah,

So just be be as open as you can with yourself about that what you experienced was whatever you experienced,

You got information from it,

Right?

Even if you were numb or disconnected,

What that's information is asking of you is to love that.

Just say yes,

That's okay.

It's okay to feel that way because I have good reasons for feeling that way.

I have a trauma history or I wasn't taught that this was okay to accept these hard feelings,

You know,

Or,

Or yes,

Maybe,

Like Johanna said,

Maybe you felt like personally just really hurt by what this figure was saying to you.

Yeah.

And that's all okay.

And maybe a meditation like this isn't the best way to access that if you can't,

If it's hard to get past that feeling hurt,

Maybe there's another way and I definitely have a lot of different shadow work experiences on insight timer that you could try out,

You know,

If you go to my teacher profile and follow me as a teacher.

Like you'll get a lot of different access to a lot of different meditations to do that are similar to today.

So the meditation on insight time where that's most similar to today's work is called dialogue with a shadow aspect.

And there's also if you feel comfortable,

Comfortable enough,

Actually getting to the childhood roots of a modern day trigger or behavior or whatever you're working on.

My most popular meditation is called shadow work for inner child healing.

So I really recommend that if you if you're curious about actually your history,

Historical origins of the patterns in your current adult life.

And that one is always really powerful for folks.

Yeah,

I'm just reading some of the comments.

Can I scroll through the comments?

Yeah.

So someone says,

So Liz says it was helpful.

Now I need to work toward being willing to stay in contact with my procrastination in a more loving way.

Yeah,

So this is what this is about.

So shadow work as I understand and practice it is really about healing our relationship to our resistance,

Healing our relationship to the aspects of ourselves that we would like to turn away from.

Right?

Because as Carl Jung said,

What we resist persists.

And that absolutely includes resisting our resistance.

In other words,

For example,

Judging ourselves for the ways that we are different from we want from the way we want to be.

Or judging ourselves for the way that we do have self sabotaging behaviors,

Right?

The actual paradoxical way to heal self sabotage is again,

To soften and allow it to be there just as like just as we experience in today's meditation.

Yeah.

So Kelly says this was really different from your other experiences with the practice I felt intimidated by the figure.

It seemed foreign and like it didn't acknowledge me.

Yeah.

That just tells me that it needs it just needs your patience.

And more and more validation like it's okay not to acknowledge me.

It's okay not to trust me.

Yeah,

Lisa,

Exactly.

So I find that doing shadow work will often involve your shadow self being angry or lashing out at you.

So what's important is to witness and validate.

Yeah.

So Lisa and everyone else with that experience,

Some of the most powerful shadow work I've done with myself,

And I tend not to lead this publicly,

Because if you do have a history of anxiety,

It can cause panic.

So take this with a grain of salt.

But some of the most powerful shadow work that I've experienced is actually taking a shadow aspect or a figure like this,

And just witnessing it and saying yes and allowing it to do or say whatever it needs to say and I just continue to say to it.

What else?

What else and I imagine that I am invincible that I have like a protective shield or like divine light around me.

And I just let the shadow figure be as violent or big or say the most terrible things that could possibly say.

Some of the most transformative experiences I've had have been like the shadow figure,

Like we're talking about like killing people,

Saying the most horrible things,

Destroying the planet,

Destroying all the planets in the universe,

Like getting as big and violent as it could need to be.

Again,

This is why I don't lead this with the general public.

But the amazing thing is that in my experience,

The more I allow that there will always be a point where it stops,

There will always be a limit that it reaches.

And it just reveal it changes and it reveals itself as a wounded aspect of me that just needs my loving attention.

Like without an exception in my experience.

Yeah,

So Gemma says,

I saw a version myself that was grieving so much that she wasn't interested in life.

She's so physically weak that she was lying laying on the ground.

Yeah.

Yeah,

That's real.

So she just needs your loving attention.

She needs to know that that's completely okay just to lie on the ground and be weak.

The worst thing that we can do to our shadow aspects is force them,

Force them to be a certain way.

That's a recipe for keeping them stuck as they are.

So does anyone else have anything you'd like to share about that experience for you today?

I think someone asked,

Can you comfort your inner child over and over again?

Yes,

And you should.

I do it all the time,

Like many times a day.

Tom says,

Is letting the shadow say the meanest things like squeezing the pus out of an infected toe?

Well,

That's graphic,

But yes.

So Tina says,

Thank you for this deep work.

My exhaustion turned into anger and aggression.

Important to feel but still screaming in there.

Hope I can go back and give the attention needed.

Yeah.

Oh,

Thank you for your donation,

Erin.

Donation dance.

So this is so Tina,

I want to speak to this.

It's actually from my perspective,

It's actually really positive that that that what was it?

Your exhaustion turned into anger and aggression.

That's actually positive because anger and aggression,

That's more energy than before.

And in order to feel angry,

We have to have a sense of self in order to feel angry,

We have to have a sense of I deserve something better.

Right?

So that's actually bringing you up,

So to speak.

And I don't like to think of emotions hierarchically,

But that's bringing you up the emotional ladder like it's bringing you from from the depths of exhaustion to more energy and more self worth actually.

So then you just be with the anger and you validate the anger.

We tend to be terrified of anger,

Especially if we're socialized as girls.

So I know it's can be challenging and scary to keep validating anger,

But it's really important and then it will it will shift.

Yeah.

Okay,

Let's see.

G says,

Do you take time to dive into shadow work or intuitively feeling when it is time to go in?

I'm not sure I exactly understand your question.

So I do both.

So I think if I answer your question,

As you intended,

Sometimes I do more lengthy shadow work sessions like this.

But since I've been doing it so long,

It's,

It just kind of happens for me now and all because I can identify very quickly the resistance that's coming up in me with body sensation and feeling and this is practice.

It's just like going to the gym folks like this doesn't this doesn't happen right away,

Right?

This takes sometimes years of practice.

But the way that I've distilled my own shadow work process,

I don't think it'll take you years,

You really have the steps to do it simply to go right into it and to learn it much more quickly and make it your own very quickly.

So again,

Not to be goal oriented,

Like you should do this quickly.

Yeah.

So Johannes says,

My shadow figure just asked judgmentally,

What did you do with it?

Like I haven't done anything worthwhile with my life and my talent so far.

Yeah.

So you have a really powerful,

Really powerful shadow figure,

Johanna.

And I would just,

I would just say,

You know,

It's okay to say those kinds of things,

You know,

I understand like,

Of course,

You're,

Of course,

You're scared that I that you think I might not have done anything with my life,

That's okay.

And then just keep coming back to like,

It's,

It sounds like you're really angry.

Like just validate the actual emotion.

But don't get into a back and forth with it.

It sounds like you're really angry,

And then it'll probably say like,

Yeah,

I'm really angry.

You're right.

Of course,

I'm angry,

Right?

You just continue to validate.

But does it if it feels like so here's the thing,

And this is really important to note.

If anything,

And if any of this work feels unproductive to you,

If it feels more like,

Like actually doing this work is like scratching the itch of a pattern,

Or dare I say,

If doing shadow work is a form of self sabotage itself,

Which it has been for me,

If I'm completely honest,

Like,

Like diving in deep again and again,

And like,

Just shadow diving,

Shadow diving,

Shadow diving,

Trying to get to the bottom of things again and again,

That actually is a trauma coping pattern for me personally,

If I'm completely honest.

So I've had to actually pull back a lot of times and reassess like,

Sometimes it's not the right thing for me to do shadow work for something and Johanna,

This might be for you too,

At least some of the time.

So just really get real with yourself about like,

Is actually continuing to go deep and find the root of things is this myself sabotage pattern.

I have a YouTube video called shadow addiction.

That's part of this.

I have a podcast episode,

Which is here on insight timer called the inner parent,

Which is also about this.

How to discern if actually doing personal work is yourself sabotage pattern and then what to do if you've made that conclusion,

How to handle that.

So just be really aware of that in yourself.

So Loretta says would EFT also help shift shadow diving?

Potentially,

I mean,

I can't make a general statement for everyone,

But EFT,

I think you mean tapping like that?

Yeah,

Like any kind of,

If you're a shadow diver,

If this is your sabotage pattern itself,

I would definitely experiment with somatic methods like that.

For sure,

But you just have to experiment.

Yeah,

Johanna,

I'm glad that that made sense.

Thanks for asking that,

Johanna,

Because it brought up a really important point that I wasn't planning to cover today,

But I really needed to.

Elisa said like,

You weren't really focused because you were cooking,

But you kind of went deeper because of that.

Sometimes yeah,

Like sometimes when we are kind of half present or like half asleep or half doing something else,

It seems like different parts of our brain come online and sometimes we are able to access different places.

So Amanda,

You said I visited,

Let me just scroll here.

I visited a version of myself that has been waiting for me to rescue her and take her away.

Wasn't sure how to show up for her.

Yeah.

So Amanda,

What I would say is like,

Imagine yourself taking her away.

Imagine yourself like when I say like see sense and feel yourself meeting the need of that figure.

Absolutely.

There are many shadow figures that want you to take her away,

Take them away and just see sense and feel how that shadow figure is changing in that new location.

Like a lot of clients I've worked with in the past,

They end up taking their inner child or their shadow figure to a beach.

Like that's a really popular location.

And then they observe what they're,

How they're feeling on the beach and they usually just feel expansive and free and it's beautiful.

Yeah,

But but the healing is in meeting the need on their terms.

So a problem I have with a lot of inner child work that's out there is that it's kind of like see your inner child and then go hug them and tell them you love them.

Whereas actually for a lot of inner children,

That's a boundary violation.

Because the healing happens,

Like by giving them something they didn't have growing up,

Which is a boundary and the right to have their own needs and opinions.

So we heal them by respecting their own needs and opinions instead of just submerging them and enveloping them in what we think that they need in that moment.

So that's why it's so important to just keep holding yourself back from giving them that hug and this goes for shadow figure work as well as inner child work,

Right,

And just doing it all on their terms and let's see,

Jess,

Absolutely.

This is a lot like IFS.

Yeah.

So I'm not professionally trained in IFS,

But I hear that from a lot of people and I in the superficial research I've done on IFS,

It does,

There's lots of similarities because it's,

It's,

These are both under the umbrella of what's called parts work,

You know,

Works with with different aspects of ourselves or seeing the human being as multitudes,

Right,

Instead of like a single force of will,

Which we're not,

It's not helpful to think of the self that way.

Glad that helped Amanda.

So Laurel you say what if you just feel overwhelming grief upon viewing the figure I just saw a toddler who use no words.

Yeah.

So what that tells me is that the wound that you're working with from your past is pre verbal,

Which means that the feelings that are coming up the fro the previously frozen and unseen feelings that are coming up for healing will be like toddler feelings,

They will be overwhelming.

They won't,

You won't have words for them,

Because you're healing a pre verbal wound.

And your job is just,

You know,

And I hope you have support for this,

I wouldn't recommend doing this without professional or really heartfelt personal support.

But your job is to grieve and grieve as intensely as the feeling wants to be grieved.

We're terribly afraid of intense feelings in this culture because we want and culture,

I mean,

The West and westernized world,

Because we don't want to lose control.

But part of you is really longing to grieve.

And so one of my teachers is a Maladoma Somae,

Who's an elder of the Dogara people of West Africa.

And what he says about grief is that grief is like food for the psyche,

Just like the body needs food,

The psyche needs grief,

In order to come back to balance in order to move to whatever we need to move towards.

And we keep ourselves stuck when we keep ourselves from grieving.

We keep ourselves stuck when we don't allow the feeling to move through us because for for Maladoma Somae,

Or that or his particular indigenous perspective,

Grief is simply the release of unprocessed feeling grief is simply feeling an energy that needs to move through us in order for us to change in order for us to be born anew.

So the more we feel stuck in our lives,

I think the more we need to grieve,

The more there is that needs our grief,

Because the grief is what mobilizes and moves what needs to move through us.

Yeah.

Yeah,

Laurel.

Yeah,

I'm sorry to hear that.

But I'm glad that makes sense.

Okay,

And that says what if you are just huddled in the deepest recess of a corner trying to ward off psych blows,

Psychic blows in a protective stance and doesn't even want to be seen.

Your job is just to say,

It's okay to want to hide.

It's okay to need to protect yourself.

Again,

When in doubt,

Validate.

If your question for me is like,

What if and then you give us scenario it's like my answer would almost like would 90% of the time be when in doubt,

Validate,

It's okay to do exactly what you're doing.

Kim.

Does it always come back to grief or a loss?

It does it always come back?

I'm trying to parse what that could be.

Does it like does this process always come back to grief?

I would say yes,

Almost all of the time it comes back to grief.

And my challenge for those of us in the westernized world is can we build a relationship to grief,

Where it's actually a desired experience?

Could you build a relationship with your grief so that it's not something you're trying not to feel.

But it's something that you enjoy,

Because it means that you're growing and you're letting something go.

And you're moving into the next phase of your life.

And I mean,

I'm someone who I cry pretty much every day.

And I always have.

And I've,

I've always had this feeling that I need to cry in order to come back to balance.

And I've definitely had therapists.

And I've definitely pathologized it in myself.

Like,

I've had people say that like,

Oh,

Like,

That's your self sabotage,

Or that's your pattern with that.

And I used to believe that.

But after hearing maledoma,

So maze,

Indigenous perspective on it,

It just landed like,

What if this is actually a beautiful thing about me?

That I grieve a lot.

And you know what,

I'm 36 years old.

And I think that I've like,

I think the grief has really allowed me to grow in a lot of ways that maybe a typical 36 year old has not been able to grow in,

Who hasn't grieved.

So it's all the grief has dug a well within me of compassion to hold space like so I can hold space for others as well.

So yeah,

That is my challenge is can we reframe our relationship to grief?

Yeah.

So my I'm so glad you feel validated.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I'm glad that that speaks to your hearts for so many of you.

Yeah.

If you really resonate with this being,

You know,

An empath,

A sensitive person of feeling things deeply and having that,

You know,

Not be validated by the wider culture,

Make sure to check out my podcast called tender revolution,

Especially the earlier episodes,

I really speak a lot to this and all the earlier episodes are here on insight timer.

So tender revolution is my podcast and it's I speak exactly to people like us.

Yeah.

All right,

Everyone.

Any any other last questions or anything you want to share?

Gemma,

You say,

How do we know we grieved enough?

You won't know it in your head.

Grieving just stops on its own eventually.

It just stops on its own.

And most of us have not most of us didn't have the experience of children of allowing our crying to come to a natural end.

Most of us had the experience of having our crying stopped.

And thus,

As adults were afraid of just letting it go,

Because we don't have confidence that it'll stop on its own.

Right?

So your,

Your job is to experiment and just,

Just grieve and say to yourself,

What if I didn't try and stop this right now?

You know?

And I know that's scary.

You wanna you said,

You quoted me all the grief has dug a well in me for compassion.

That's beautiful.

And always how I viewed the suffering in my childhood.

Yeah,

You wanna Yeah.

I mean,

I could not do this work.

Without all the suffering I've experienced it well,

Particularly in the last year and a half.

For those of you don't know,

I had a rough is rough is the nicest way to put it rough initiation to motherhood,

Which really dug my well so deep.

And I was doing this work,

You know,

Professionally years before that,

But the way I did it completely changed.

I just got a lot softer,

And I got a lot more expansive to hold space for whatever,

Whatever comes through.

Let's see,

I want to make sure I address somebody's comment here.

See,

So come,

You says,

I feel like that too,

Then why are we hiding sensitivity?

Why do you hide your sensitivity?

Because it's not safe in our culture and was not safe in your family of origin to walk around with a wide open heart.

Yeah.

Oh,

Thank you,

Johanna.

Oh,

Vanessa,

I'll check I'll check for you later.

But you can not.

You can always donate after the fact by just going to my teacher profile too,

Even if it didn't go through.

Yeah.

All right.

Thank you all again.

Thanks for reminding me Vanessa to thank everyone for your donations.

Oh,

Tina,

Thanks for the reminder for the book recommendations.

Gosh,

There's so many.

Let's see.

I guess what are you thinking about?

Like,

Tina,

I kind of get the sense that you want like an introduction like a conceptual introduction to shadow work like Jungian shadow work.

I would recommend Robert Johnson's owning your own shadow,

I think it's called.

Or yeah,

Oh,

Thanks,

Elena for the for the reminder.

So everyone who's here,

Make sure you know that we have a shadow work circle that I'm the admin for here on insight timer.

So there's a beautiful community in the shadow work circle.

And that's where we connect between lives.

That's where we share things like book recommendations or recommend other meditations on insight timer that are shadow work.

Yeah,

So that would be actually a great place to put the book recommendations.

But yeah,

Robert Johnson,

He wrote like owning your own shadow or something.

I think that's what it's called.

He also wrote a book called inner work,

But that's less about shadow work and more about dream work.

There's also Robert Bly's book.

Introduction to the human Oh,

No,

A little book on the human shadow by Robert Bly.

But honestly,

Like my favorite material on shadow work is doesn't tend to be from unions because unions and by union,

I mean,

Psychotherapists who are trained in a union model,

It tends to be very highly conceptual and intellectualized.

So if you're into that,

Definitely look up the Robert Johnson books.

But if you're into a more felt experience,

Or somatic experience,

I would definitely recommend Sarah Blondin's book.

Heart minded.

Beautiful,

Beautiful shadow work and all of Sarah Blondin's work.

Yeah,

Yeah,

There's there's so many books that I could recommend.

So we will talk in the circle about that for sure.

Reviews

In all of my prior inner child shadow work, Catherine’s explanations are the clearest and most impactful for me. This is an excellent track if you happen to have been “stuck” in your inner child work as I am. For the first time I now realize there is no goal but rather living the process.

I clicked on so many different talks regarding self-sabotage but couldn't stay with them, because they felt hard, judging, and performance-oriented. To bring healing into it already in the title and allowing and embracing that it is a part of me that is trying to protect me and that I need to get to know them and understand their reasons is incredible. My heart is overflowing with gratitude as your heart energy is exactly what I was searching for.

Your compassion, presence, and guidance are a gift. You’re a beautiful teacher.

🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟

Such deep insights, especially that there really isn't self-sabotage. Recently, I was trying to open my heart more completely to myself and realized that as a young child I couldn't love myself and survive. To my young mind abandoning myself was the only way to live in my home. That belief has been with me for decades. Seeing that I've only been trying to protect myself when I withhold self love has been incredibly painful and incredibly enlightening. Thank you for profoundly helping me on this journey.

Excellent. Looking forward to going deeper into this.

Powerful. Thank you 🙏

Better than expected.

I loved this! So compassionate.

This was so insightful, gentle and healing. Thank you so much for sharing your experience and knowledge with us, it is deeply appreciated.

This was so amazing and just so awesome! Thank you so much ❤️🙏

Thank you so much for this Live, Catherine 🙏 It is so profound to do such meditations in a group live. I came back to this recording and enjoyed it a second time.

I couldn’t attend the live so I’m grateful this recording is available. I find that Catherine shades in a way that is easy to process information about trauma in a way where I can feel safe and supported because someone understands it well. Thank you for uploading this!

Such a powerful practice! I experienced it initially during the live session and listened to it again as a recording. It really enabled me to go deep into myself and it was very emotional and cathartic. Thank you thank you thank you from the bottom of my heart❣️❣️❣️