Okay, so let’s get back into the subject of the shadow…
We touched on what shadow is, and how we accumulated in our psyches, and then we moved into stage one of the alchemical process: Negredo. And then I asked you to start looking at your triggers - ouch.
So let’s look at what might have come through for you in there. Perhaps it was in the idea of “Projection” that you found some aspects that you may have shoved away to hide in the shadow.
Or maybe it was in “Overcompensation” where you found your shadow in the exact opposite of your conscious persona…
If you’re new to this process or interested in starting your own alchemical transformational journey that you might want to start an alchemy journal. This would be a dedicated space for you to consider these questions or ideas, where you can write down all those raw ugly feelings and to sit with your realisations/insights, without judging them or wishing they were different.
Something that is helpful when working with shadow, is to reframe the way you look at your shadow by refocusing the way you speak/your language around it.
For instance, rather than saying, “I am bad for feeling this” or “I am ashamed of this aspect of myself”, perhaps you could change it to seeing it in a different light. That whatever aspect of yourself it is, is just raw material waiting to be refined in the Forge.
So let’s move on to phase 2 Albedo, the whitening.
This phase represents a stripping back. It’s a purification and washing away of illusions, projections and perceptions; an act of clarity.
Where phase one, Negredo, was the exposing, raw, painful breakdown of the ego, the exposing of deep old wounds, Albedo is a little bit like the calm after the storm. Where the smoke has cleared and perhaps you’re now able to see your shadow from a different angle. Objectively.
When we can sit in this phase we are aiming, or rather we are giving ourselves, grace and space to no longer look at our shadow with shame, or disgust, or revulsion, but to look at it with either detachment or deep compassion for older versions of ourselves.
Projection reclamation
This is where you begin to fully accept that the things that trigger you in others are actually just parts of your whole self. You might experience a shift when you are able to stop blaming outside forces for your internal emotional state.
The real time experience of this is that when someone irritates you and you feel that knee jerk trigger or anger, it starts to dissipate as it becomes replaced with a softer understanding and articulation of “aaaah that is that part of me again that I shoved down”
Nuanced thinking
This is where we begin to soften our polarised, rigid, black-and-white judgements over our traits and aspects.
E.g. “I am good, but my anger is bad”
We start to understand that our traits are neutral energy rather than moral failings of our personality… and the shift here is in the way we stop trying to suppress and hide the shadow aspects so our shame becomes neutralised.
The real time experience of this is that understanding that a trait like” selfishness” is in fact just an unrefined self protection response, or that” arrogance” is just unrefined self-worth.
Grieving the perfect self persona
In order to hit the melting point of the alchemical process to break open and let the light in, we must grieve the ideal of the perfect version of you, or the perfect image you used to present to the world.
The shift here is in accepting that you were never, that you will never, and that you cannot be perfectly nice, strong, successful or anything, all of the time.
The real time experience of this is a deep felt sense of psychological relief, perhaps even spiritual lightness as you are able to, or allowing yourself to, drop the masks that you’ve been carrying for so long.
You are the observer
This part is perhaps the hardest as we try to maintain this new understanding as a constant when you first start. Because this is where we begin to develop detachment or psychological distance from our thoughts and impulses. The shadow is no longer in control. We are no longer swept along in the tidal wave of its power because we are watching it from a distance.
The shift here is in the way we are moving from being or feeling the emotion and it being the ultimate truth to observing the emotion and watching it play out.
The real time experience is being able to feel that surge of envy or rage and to sit with it calmly and softly, sitting in that discomfort for a moment and allowing it to dissipate gently. And then choosing how we will respond rather than reacting from that place of blind emotion.
So we find ourselves at the end of this stage of the alchemical process, ready for the third and final phase of spiritual alchemy in the context of shadow integration, which is the Rubedo, the reddening. And this is the integration, where the transformation begins.
See you in the next one xx