Tag Archives: shadow work

Chuck's Blog

Chuck’s Place: Loosening The Divine Imagination from Its Divine Shadow

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Know Thy Fullness of Self…
-Artwork © 2026 Jan Ketchel

Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung were the founders of a new psychology, one that grappled with an unconscious region of the psyche that cast a huge shadow over one’s fate and fulfillment in life.

Their healing technology was psychotherapy, an approach that brought to awareness those hidden influences from the depths, and enabled consciousness greater freedom in choosing the course of one’s life.

Freud’s contribution centered on one’s personal unconscious, repressed instincts and traumas that severely compromised normal adaptation to life. Jung, went far deeper into the shared collective unconscious of humankind, which contains all the experiences of human history that weigh heavily upon the present life of every individual.

Simultaneous with this fledgling new world of psychotherapy was the mystical world of hypnosis with its explorations of the fuller capacities of the subconscious mind, as well as The New Thought Movement that focused on the divine capabilities of the human mind.

Jung discusses his early meetings with William James, considered the father of American psychology, where he felt professionally encouraged to explore more deeply the mystical and spiritual depths of the psyche. However, Jung was reticent to alienate the new science of psychotherapy from mainstream science and he exposed little of his own personal transcendent experiences.

Consequently, both Jung and Freud remained steeped in bringing a rational perspective to the structure and dynamics of the shadow of the unconscious mind. Ironically, William James was far more open to validating spiritual approaches to the psyche, as well as being far more appreciative of the power of autosuggestion.

Today, mainstream science largely dismisses psychotherapy, which has been replaced by the deepening materialist emphasis upon brain functioning. New Thought is alive and well but has largely been dismissed as lay positive psychology.

The consequence of these dismissed and varied approaches to the mind has left humankind largely ignorant of both its shadow roots and its divine potential. Shadow is real, but so is divinity. Both the history of the human race and our personal history overshadow access to our human imagination, the divine center of our being.

When we are unconscious, and unreconciled with our shadow roots, it creates a veil over our divine imagination that confines it’s divine creative capability to repeating and generating the negative worldview of our suggestive inner dialogue. Our divine capacity to manifest remains fixed on generating powerlessness and victimhood.

Yes, our shadow is divine and must be lived, as ultimately, all that is, is one divine being. But the karma of shadow is to seek completion through spiritual liberation. One approach to shadow work remains with psychotherapy, as the shadow is identified and integrated through inner and outer work.

Neville Goddard, of New Thought tradition, recommended the art of revision to address the shadow. Here we are instructed to fully acknowledge the play of our shadow in our regretted behaviors in life. With total acceptance we then allow ourselves to fully inhabit, in the imagination, the state of being that fully lives out that which we would have wanted to do instead.

In order to fully imagine this correction, we have to fully feel it and live it in the imagination. When this is accomplished we indeed  change, or evolve, the past into complete resolution. With this we are freed to release the divine creative capacities of the mind to manifest the reality we truly want to live in. This is not rejecting or repressing shadow, it’s evolving it.

Go to that which you desire. Imagine it accomplished. Bring your physical senses into the realness of your imagination; see, hear, smell, touch and taste. Luxuriate in gratitude and awe.

If something from down below refuses to loosen its grip to your happiness then slide down and bring light and compassion to that shadow part. Insist that it bless you and let you carry on, free at last.

Imagination is the heart of the Law of Attraction. What we truly believe about ourselves, and what we truly believe is possible, is that which we will manifest in our lives.

Acknowledge the roots of your divine shadow. Then, imaginatively grow them into the flower at the heart of your deepest desire. Truly imagine it, and just let it become.

Becoming,
Chuck

Chuck's Blog

Chuck’s Place: Taking The Pain Out Of Archetypal Bite

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We are all frozen children when our triggers show up…
-Artwork © 2025 Jan Ketchel

When we get triggered we are involuntarily seized by the power of an archetype. Archetypes are the core building blocks of human experience that lie dormant in the ocean of our shared collective unconscious until called forth to define and respond to a situation we encounter. 

The terror of a trigger is a tidal wave of emotional archetypal energy that floods both body and mind with panic. “Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men? The Shadow knows!” is an apt definition of the Shadow archetype, as presented by the 1930’s radio mystery series. When we are caught off guard by an encounter, the Shadow archetype—the mystery and danger of the unknown—is activated, and we are in its grip.

Jung defined the shadow globally as everything that we are but don’t know about, which exists in the dark; hence, the term, shadow. Many things that exist in this dark region of the unconscious mind are purposely kept there because they evoke both fear and anxiety, which greatly compromise our stability and ability to function.

We are all frozen children in relation to our triggers. A child state is one of innocence. Shadow shatters innocence. We are no longer safe. We then install the protection of constrictive body armor. Our freedom of movement is checked by insistence of advance notice of everything.  Our breath is shallow and often held.  Our mind is either hypervigilant or not present at all.

The normal child state precedes the age of responsibility. The child, by definition, is taken care of. The overpowering danger of the greater world is held in abeyance until it is confronted by the shadow of the unexpected. When our adult state of confidence and autonomy is overpowered, we too become like children, overwhelmed by the unknown.

If we choose childlike defenses, we are caught in the existential kink of anguish, which contains the emotions of archetypes, generating the illusory belief that we are in control. Truthfully, however, we are like children playing hide and seek. We are victims, clinging to the child state of non-responsibility. We become like Little Red Riding Hood, haunted by the shadow of the Big Bad Wolf.

To defuse the power of archetype, we must first be willing to turn on the light in the shadow. This can be initiated by stating the intent to master the unknown trigger. Here, consciousness is taking a stand and presenting a suggestion to the subconscious mind. Previously, the subconscious mind was given the suggestion to avoid the trigger. That became its marching order and, consequently, an automatic habit.

This intent mobilizes the subconscious mind to channel the High Self, who then arranges a series of experiences tailored to achieve the necessary steps toward mastery. These experiences will show up in outer synchronicities, dreams and relationships. Slowly, the shadow archetype will be refined to reveal other archetypes that are the root causes behind the trigger.

For example, fear of approaching a woman might reveal the overwhelm of the Goddess archetype in all her piercing beauty; or terror of the Witch archetype, who threatens to castrate. Reflection on the terror experienced with an authority figure might reveal an encounter with a God archetype like Kronos, who would not even grant his children life.

The basics of achieving dominion over shadow require that we, as ego, undertake the Hero’s Journey. This will likely require that we revisit the triggers many times, as we gradually desensitize from them. When a trigger actually becomes boring, we are freed of emotional disruption. We are done.

There may be many other tasks to complete, as well, such as talking with or confronting someone, despite our trepidations. Inner mastery of the central nervous system through various kinds of breathing practices and body practices will support challenging tasks and build needed confidence.

Perseverance in all of these practices will eventually lead us to neutralize and integrate the shadow of all of our triggers. With this comes the restoration of a child’s innocence in the personality, coupled with an adult knowing that indeed, we can navigate the big bad world with truth and right action, the essence of love and wisdom.

Reflecting,
Chuck 

Chuck's Blog

Chuck’s Place: Learn To Love The Dweller On The Threshold

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Time to Love The Dweller…
-Artwork © 2025 Jan Ketchel

Mystical traditions appropriated from fiction the term, Dweller on the Threshold, to describe an inner psychological character who serves the role of initiator to deeper spiritual realization.

The Dweller is a psychological complex that is an amalgam of all of one’s fears and unresolved inner darkness at a personal level of present life, as well as the spiritual debts, or karma, one has accumulated from the soul’s journey through infinity.

The Dweller is a universal character that might appear as a powerful archetypal demon in a dream encounter. However, the Dweller is also quite uniquely fashioned to reflect that which is suppressed, repressed or unknown within the darkness of one’s personal unconscious, what Jung termed The Shadow. Nonetheless, the human race, as a single organism, bears its collective Shadow with its own guardian Dweller on the Threshold.

In order to grow, we must know thyself. In order to know thyself we must ultimately subdue the Dweller who tempts, taunts and exposes us to our darkest deeds, desires, habits, thoughts and primal impulses. To subdue the Dweller we must shine the light upon and accept the full truth of all we have hidden from, or all that has been hidden from us, behind the  door to the Shadow.

The Dweller might appear to be an evil entity, and in our encounters with it we might be tempted to act out our hidden compulsions, but full responsibility for all one’s actions resides within one’s conscious personality, named the ego. The Dweller is not responsible for the ego’s failure to grow. The Dweller indeed leads one into temptation, but one no longer faces temptation who has reconciled with the wholeness of who they are through inner shadow work.

Ultimately, the Dweller is entitled to deep gratitude and love for the service it performs in helping one to reach the maturity needed to open the door to higher spiritual enlightenment. Failure to love the Dweller is an attachment to hatred that bars entry to higher consciousness.

Though the Dweller often appears in dreams, it is most often met in the projections that unknowingly issue forth from our Shadow and take on mental and emotional life, as reflected in our daily interactions and relationships. Anyone or anything in waking life that gets us emotionally charged, for better or for worse, is a strong candidate for a potential showing of a character within ourselves.

Those we admire might reflect our unknown innate potential. To own that potential and develop it, rather than living it vicariously through another, is the shadow work of broadening one’s personality. To shine the light on one’s inner darkness rather than blame and hate its outer reflection, in the person of another, is the shadow work of accepting the unacceptable within the self. We are challenged to love, with equanimity, the best and worst of ourselves.

Self-knowledge, self-acceptance and self-love are the key technologies required to effectively open the door to higher consciousness. As regards our projections, we are equally charged to love thy enemy as thyself. My enemy is indeed acting from the same venomous impulses buried in my own heart. I must own and love these impulses, and accept that the law of karma applies to all actions. With awareness, I can pay my dues and make my amends as I become able to somewhat look through the window of higher consciousness.

Behind the door of initiation to higher consciousness is our access to psychic powers, and the astral world with its greater access to the divine powers of the subconscious mind. As we, as individuals, must pass the tests of the Dweller to realize our soul’s potential, so the human race too is facing its own developmental challenge.

There are several Dwellers on the Threshold in positions of power throughout the world, currently, who are challenging the organism of humanity as a Whole Being to face the truth about itself. We are on the threshold of a major leap in human evolution, however, we are too weighed down by the burdens of our disowned Shadow to advance.

Our greatest challenge at present is to accept that we are in an accelerated period of major transition. The antics of the Dwellers mark this speed of transition.

Face the truth and have gratitude for all the Dwellers. They insist that we do our preparation by truly admitting the depths of our narcissism and by learning to love all beings, as necessary parts of our one human family. To love the Dweller is to love the self in its entirety, the ticket to higher consciousness.

Loving,
Chuck

Soulbytes

Soulbyte for Wednesday June 19, 2024

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-Artwork © 2024 Jan Ketchel

In the play of light and dark, in the shadows of the self, find the inner you that calls out for acknowledgement and healing. You are all complicated beings with many sides, many issues and many agendas. Get to know all these sides, issues and agendas so that as they arise and ask for time and attention you are able to give them what they need. Acknowledge them, question them, listen to them, get to fully know them, accept and integrate them. In this manner, reconcile with them so that they do not rule you but still have their place, so that they do not blindside you over and over again but become so known that you see them coming from miles away. In knowing yourself fully and reconciling fully, life will begin to take on a calm, more focused agenda, with truth in the fore and illusion put to rest.

Sending you love,
The Soul Sisters, Jan & Jeanne

Chuck's Blog

Chuck’s Place: Accepting The Truth

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The truth will set you free…
-Artwork © 2024 Jan Ketchel

The greatest challenge of all, in this life of physical form and beyond, is accepting the truth. For one thing, truth is relative.

In childhood we believe we are responsible for everything. Mature adulthood allows us to accept the separate existence of others, including their contributions toward our difficulties.

Wisdom, the next level of truth, takes us full circle. Reflecting objectively upon life, from the  pinnacle of spiritual acuity, we see ourselves in everyone. From this perspective our oneness is restored.

Our evolutionary journey requires that we traverse successfully these developmental stages of truth.

The Buddhists suggest that we reincarnate into bardos, into dreams of our own construction, until we are at peace with the full truth of the lives we have lived, which then enables us to be open to life beyond them. This is the true achievement of detachment—the freedom to move into new life, fully resolved from dilemmas of previous lives lived.

Frequently, loyalty to unresolved issues results in counter-suggestions to the subconscious mind around changes we intend to make in our lives. For example, if one fundamentally maintains the belief that they are unworthy, a suggestion for prosperity may be cancelled by this blocking belief of unworthiness.

In this case, the subconscious may generate incidents to reinforce one’s loyalty to the felt undeservedness. Detaching from this belief will require recapitulation of formative experiences that reinforced this belief. This may expose distortions that were formerly needed to protect a significant other, or a part of the self.

This recapitulation may also lift the veil of narcissism shrouding the belief that dates to the primary narcissism period of childhood. From this view, one is able to assign responsibility for events where they should be truthfully assigned, unseating younger interpretations of reality. From this perspective one is able to accept the fuller truth of self and other.

Ultimately, one might reach a perspective that once again assigns one full responsibility for the life one is in. This might include realizing one’s decision to enter life in the time period, and family constellation, one was born into, as one’s contribution toward one’s greater soul’s journey of infinite growth and awareness.

This does not absolve a perpetrator from responsibility for their behavior. However, it might explain the choice of a victim-experience as part of one’s spiritual growth.

Accepting the truth also requires that we face the ulterior motives within the self. From a holographic perspective we are comprised of the same everything as everyone else. If we attempt to solve the polarities that live within the self via projection onto others, we lose the thread of our fuller inner truth.

Fuller acceptance of our shadow self, with all of its desires, manipulations, cruelty and greed, allows us to be in full truth with ourselves. Acceptance requires that we live our wholeness as responsibly as possible.

Every day we are offered countless opportunities to be in truth with ourselves. We just need think about the world and our relationship with others; what truths are we being asked to face each day, in each moment, as we live out our lives.

From a place of higher truth, we are quite likely to manifest the kinds of experiences that will bring us fulfillment, as we eliminate negative counter-suggestions from an unknown shadow self. And then we can fully own our whole, integrated and wise self.

Be in truth. The truth will set you free.

Truthfully,
Chuck