Shadow Work

Haunted Times Cartomancy Reading

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Once Upon a Time Playing CardsThe prompt for this reading came from one of my Discord servers and is as follows: “Alright! It’s Halloween/Samhain, so let’s do some divination about what’s “haunting” us in our lives.”

What’s sitting over my shoulders and/or clinging to me?

Nine of Hearts, King of Spades atop Five of Hearts – Your inner narrative is a demanding taskmaster with harsh judgements and a sharp tongue.  It is putting in overtime trying to crush happiness under its boots and leave you aching and in need of retreat.

Is this something that will always be with me, or that I should try to work into my life?

Four of Hearts, Queen of Clubs atop Jack of Clubs – Although that inner narrative may be permanent, the amount of influence it has over your emotions is temporary.  Make sure that you are leaning into your passions, and dipping into creative endeavors and those things that motivate you, to help provide you with extra strength to resist that negative inner narrative when it rises up.

Or… is it something I need to banish and/or does not serve me to keep?

Eight of Diamonds and Nine of Clubs – Only hard work and good boundaries can keep the influences of that negative inner narrative at bay. It cannot be banished entirely, but it can be controlled and mitigated if you’re willing to put in the effort.

What is the best way to handle it at this time?

Three of Hearts atop Three of Spades, Jack of Hearts – Lean into others in your life to help lift you up when you start to feel the darkness creeping in. They have the ability to teach you how to lean into the positive and seek out optimism for an emotional lift during these times.  Something you’ve yet to master on your own quite yet.

DECK USED: ONCE UPON A TIME PLAYING CARDS

Morning Bonus Read – Shadow Dossier

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The prompt for this reading came from one of my Discord servers and is as follows:
“Use the mini-deity dossier to communicate with your shadow self for some shadow work.”

Golden Deer Casino Playing Cards - Cartomancy

Spirit – Jack of Clubs – Been through a lot but eager to try, your shadow self isn’t ready to give up yet and is excited to be getting some attention after being ignored for so long.

Personality – Queen of Clubs – Supportive of your endeavors, helpful in sparking inspiration, and desires to be involved in the process. They may not know the way but they’re happy to be your cheerleader and will be with you along the way.

Abilities – King of Diamonds – Again we see a supportive energy here with a heavily grounded foundation.  They encourage you in creating that stability you crave and are, in fact, the inspiration for that craving.

Traits – Three of Spades – All that grounding takes a tole and so does the fact that they’ve been pushed aside for so long.  Because of this, there’s a lot of negativity there that bleeds out when you’re feeling down, tainting the water and polluting the optimism you are trying so hard to foster in your life.

Omens and Signs to Look For – Seven of Diamonds – Progress takes time, but there are moments along the way when if you pause and really look, you can see their touch in your growth. Their fingerprints smudged upon the glass.

Manifestation – Five of Diamonds – In the past, your shadow self has had to fight to manifest in your life.  This process was always a struggle and took a lot of energy to accomplish, leaving you feeling drained as a result because you were resisting and forcing them back down and away.

Appearance – Ace of Spades –  They are looking for a new and better way to communicate with you.  With the old habits of shoving them away left behind, it’s time to find a better way to connect and thus a different way for them to make an appearance in your life going forward.

What They Want From You – Nine of Spades – They want you to help them with their worries and fears, anxieties and troubles.  Your shadow self holds on to a lot of these things and it needs help to release them, confront them, or process them in a healthy way so that they will no longer be a problem.

Things to Know – Six of Diamonds – They want to get better and be better, even if they don’t act like it sometimes.  It can be hard to move on to better things when sometimes it means leaving shit behind in the process that you’ve been clinging to for so long.   It’s the same for them as it is for you.

Things to Avoid – Nine of Hearts – Don’t get so cocky in feeling things are good that you forget about them.  It’s okay, of course, to fee good.  Just don’t leave them behind and alone in the process.

DECK USED:  GOLDEN DEER CASINO PLAYING CARDS

Shadow Work (The Less-Than Whisper)

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I hit a bit of a wall on research concerning the shadow work and steps for moving forward.

After some thought I decided to reach out to someone with a bit more experience, who suggested that the reason I’m having trouble assimilating this shadow is that it is not entirely seated In the shadow self at all.

They suggested that perhaps It may be tied to something that is a part of my core and needs further development. Meaning that the whisper has a source that isn’t wholly external to my ‘light side’, and there is something where it is rooted that needs growth or development within me. And once the ‘soul’ has grown, developed, and transformed, then the shadow/whisper can be reassessed if needed.

This has a ring of truth to it. There are parts of myself that, because of the way I walled myself off emotionally and grew up so fast, never developed properly or fully.

They suggested doing a chakra reading to look for blocks, which I have, and I will post next week when I am at a computer and have had a bit of time to analyze the results and dig deeper into it.

Shadow Work (The Less-Than Whisper)

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So I have not done all that much this week in the shadow work prep department.   The holiday rush has officially started and the “boom” of the beginning this year kind of took me by surprise.

stress

I do have my books out, and at the end of December I will pull a couple of my shadow work decks in preparation for revisiting things in January.

That “Less Than” whisper is still there, the “pissant” word still lingering on and causing me some issues, but I’ve managed to set it aside for the most part and will continue to do so until I can commit some time and effort to confronting it properly in the new year.

Shadow Work (The Less-Than Whisper)

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leaves

I have not done much in the realm of reading for shadow work this week, but I have been researching from writing prompts and tarot spreads that I will be able to use along that path once the holidays are over.

I have also decided to continue with the Tarot for Growth for another month, as although I sometimes find the prompts a little deep and skimming a little close to sensitive subjects, I am also enjoying it and I haven’t had anything from it actually trigger me, so I think it’ll be okay.

I may switch things up in December, though, and do a monthly challenge that’s a little more lighthearted.  We’ll see.

I am grateful, though, that the rawness that had caused that whisper to rise has eased off for the time being.  It was more than just the vulnerability of the drop, but incorporated the whispers of my father coming through when the veil was thin, as well as what has been going on with my mother over the past few weeks.

Now that her opportunity to “pimp me out” to her foundation buddy’s son for the Halloween fundraiser, all I have to deal with is her badgering about being disappointed in me, which is much easier to deal with somehow than the fact that she views my sexuality (and me at all) as a bargaining chip for social prestige.

Shadow Work (The Less-Than Whisper)

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Tarot Shadow Work by Christine Jette, (the first 1/3 of) Tarot for Troubled Times by Shaheen Miro and Theresa Reed, and Tarot For Your Self by Mary K Greer

I went to the storage unit over the last week and dug out the shadow working books and resources I have that I will be using in this journey.   I’ve begun re-reading one of those books, and am in the process of making a plan on how I want to go about the shadow work involved in this issue.

The picture of the books to the left are the three books that I dug out.  I will also be working with a variety of sources from online, and some notes I have taken over the years from previous shadow work and methods I’ve come across and/or done. One (very brief but informative) site that I discovered recently and you may also want to check out to better understand some of what shadow work entails can be found here.

On Thursday, the question for the TarotforGrowthOctober was how to better connect with the shadow self.   What I got from that reading was a warning that now is not the best time to do my shadow work, and I had to sit back and think about this for a while.

Trick or TarotIn all honesty, I think that the reading is right, and so I’m going to adjust my plan a little bit.  The holiday rush is looming large in the very near future, and in order to do shadow work safely, I feel it needs to be done at a time when I’m less at risk for overwhelm than that time of year provides.   I put a lot of strain on myself during those six (or so) weeks.  Not just mentally, but physically as well.

So between now and the end of the holidays, I am going to spend this time not in shadow work, but in brushing up on techniques and creating a more thoroughly thought out plan of action.   This will keep the task fresh in my mind without putting the extra strain on myself that very probably could exacerbate the stress that the holiday rush puts me under in the first place.

I AM still going to use a Wednesday post to keep me on track, though.  I want to make sure I don’t just shove the planning and preparation task off into a corner and forget about it.