Healing + Releasing Emotional Shadows
Releasing stored or repressed emotions moves us to higher level of consciousness. Keep reading for FIVE powerful practices to delicately unearth and illuminate emotional shadows.
“When things are hidden they can’t be healed.”
Here’s what you’ll GAIN from this article:
Learn about the climate of emotional acceptance.
Our top five methods for gently healing and surrendering to difficult emotions on both a conscious + subconscious level.
A guided visualization recording designed to dissolve difficult emotions.
Let’s get to it!
CHECKING IN
Last week, we shared three of the most common modes of emotional processing along with the energetic outcomes of each.
One of the three modes—surrendering—allows us to move up to higher levels of consciousness.
But it’s actually much more common to process through the other two modes—stuffing or suffering.
This has so much to do with cultural conditioning and what we’re taught about emotions through our environment.
In other words, the patterns we fall into with emotional processing have much more to do with nurture than nature.
As babies, we come into this world surrendering to our emotions. We don’t stuff them and we certainly don’t swing to the other extreme of wallowing and building an identity around our suffering.
We surrender to what is, integrate it, and naturally release it* once it’s been processed.
But as we grow into children, teens, and eventually adults, we repeatedly encounter the message that it’s not appropriate to fully feel our feelings.
Phrases like, “Oh, quit being a baby…” condition us to equate emotionality with weakness and immaturity when this couldn’t be further from the truth.
So, we learn to hide our emotions and bury them deep beneath the surface.
For some individuals, the stuffing approach doesn’t work, so they bury their emotions until they no longer can.
Then, they swing to the other extreme of ego-indulged suffering, exhibiting intense emotionality and the false belief that they are their emotions.
While the climate of emotional acceptance has evolved considerably in recent years, many of us have accumulated emotional baggage from decades of avoiding surrender.
So, what are we to do?
We know that surrendering to what is and feeling the full breadth of our emotional experience is part of what allows us to climb the ladder to higher consciousness.
But how do we integrate decades of suppressed or overindulged emotions?
How do we heal and release energetic shadows** so that we can return to the emotional setpoint of the Present moment?
Thankfully, there are a multitude of ways to do this. The methods for doing so are not only healing, they’re incredibly empowering and heart-opening, too.
Keep reading for our favorite spiritual tips, tricks, and practices to delicately unearth, integrate, process, and illuminate emotional shadows.
*Traumatic incidents create exceptions to this rule, of course. Even in tiny babies, there are innate protective mechanisms that shield the conscious mind from what it can’t yet handle by burying it deep within the subconscious.
**Many people use the term “block” instead of shadow, but we find “shadow” to be more approachable to the mind—a spot to be illuminated as opposed to a wall to be knocked down. Use whichever term feels most aligned for you.
ILLUMINATE YOUR SHADOWS
“Your shadow is willing to be dissolved by love as soon as you recognize fear as illusion. Ask to meet your shadow and become its friend. Shadow has many secrets, for really your shadow knows exactly where you are stuck in your inhibitions and insecurities. When you feel brave enough to change and break through your attachments and all the fears you resist, your shadow will reveal all you need to see about what imprisons your ego self.” — Belinda Womack, Lessons from the 12 Archangels*
Below you’ll find a handful of our favorite techniques for gently healing + releasing energetic shadows. These practices are designed to bring darkness into the light for compassionate examination.
Color-Enveloping Visualization
By Belinda Womack, Spiritual Messenger
In your mind’s eye, envision a difficult time period, moment, or occurrence as being enveloped in translucent shades of purple/violet/periwinkle while reciting out loud the phrase, “I forgive, I forgive, I forgive.”
Envisioning the color purple activates the 7th Chakra—the Crown Chakra—which calls in the wisdom of oneness and protection to heal and surrender.
This simple but powerful practice is profoundly effective at healing traumas and emotional wounds.
Calling All Angels
This practice might feel a bit strange or out there, but we encourage you to release any judgments you might have and give it a try.
Angels are nearby and ready to assist at all times.
Might sound crazy, but it’s true. Those illuminated, winged beings are at your beck and call, and they’re ready and waiting to offer you guidance.
Calling in support from the angels is particularly useful when you’re sensing a bubble-up of previously repressed emotions.
The only catch? They need you to ask for their assistance out loud.
In terms of the specifics, you can use whatever words you wish to call upon them. But if you’d like a starting point, here’s a go-to we use when we’re asking the angels for help:
“Please help me surrender to this experience. Please help me uncover the resources that will allow me to move through this with grace.”
We say this in a completely surrendered state with our eyes closed and our hands folded gently over our heart.
Once you’ve made the request, be open to signs and synchronicities that come your way.
Our biggest tip: Stay nimble and be willing to stray from your routine if you’re being guided in a different direction. The angels work in miraculous and mysterious ways.
Reunite With + Heal Your Inner Child
It’s easy to lose touch with your inner child as you grow up.
And yet accessing the pure wisdom and unconditional compassion of your inner child is an exceptionally powerful practice in healing shadows.
This is because your inner child is highly intuitive and deeply connected to your soul. Because of this, she’s able to peer directly into the purity of your soul’s essence.
In other words, your inner child sees you as you really are. And she sees the perfection in your being.
Where the adult you perceives weakness, the child you perceives strength.
Your inner child asks for just one thing from adult you—love. She wants only for you to love yourself as you are and to care for yourself as you would care for her, a small child.
There are a variety of ways to reunite with your inner child, but guided meditation tends to be the most effective.
A quick YouTube search for “inner child healing meditation” will bring up a variety of options.
Here are a few we love:
Healing Hypnosis for Meeting Your Inner Child (Healing for Anxiety + Depression)
Dr. Hew Len’s Inner Child Guided Meditation
Healing Childhood Wounds—Emotional Detox
Healing Your Inner Child (Hypnosis)
Note: It’s not uncommon to experience unexpected weeping or crying when reuniting with your inner child. Hold space for the experience and let it flow.
Light Healing Visualization
Read through the below. Then, close your eyes and move through the visualization exercise.
Alternatively, you can listen to this guided audio file with Ashley walking you through the visualization practice—tap the spacebar to pause as needed throughout the recording.
Take a moment to think about the emotion you tend to resist most or the feeling you’re most afraid to experience. You know this emotion exists within you but when it pops up, you do everything you can to push it away quickly and be done with it. (Some of the most commonly resisted emotions are worry/anxiety, sadness/depression, loneliness, shame, worthlessness.)
Once you’ve identified the emotion, pinpoint its associated physical location. Where do you feel it in your body? Do you feel it in your gut? In your heart? In your mind? Where does this emotion live and how does it feel?
Does it feel heavy like a rock? Twisted like a knot? What does it feel like?
Once you’ve located it and identified its feeling, gently bring your hands to that location.
Now, imagine your heart filling with love and bright, white, healing light.
Once your heart is filled, begin sending that bright, white, healing light to the location of that emotion. Imagine that healing light surrounding and permeating the energetic field of the emotion.
Continue to send the light there until you feel the emotion beginning to dissolve.
Repeat this visualization as often as needed.
Healing Frequency Music
We touched upon this in a previous post, but it’s worth mentioning again here that certain tones and frequencies have exceptional healing properties.
432Hz is known as the “miracle tone of nature” and is hailed for its emotional healing properties, especially when it comes to anxiety, fear, and worry.
Meditating to music tuned to 432Hz activates the pineal gland and synchronizes the two hemispheres of the brain to create whole-brain synchronization.
Because these frequencies activate subconscious healing, you can listen to them while awake or asleep.
Here’s one of our favorites:
Destroy Unconscious Blockages + Fear—Energy Cleanse
INTENTION
I bravely and compassionately make space for all emotions.
3 RESOURCES
Book: Lessons from the 12 Archangels* by Belinda Womack
Book: Energy Speaks* by Lee Harris
Practice: Light Healing Visualization by Ashley
*This is an affiliate link. Purchasing through affiliate links helps fund us at no extra cost to you. Thank you for your support!
