Happy New Year!

Mine started off with a bang.  How about yours?  I got one last go around about some stuff that has been kicking my butt for years and for a moment, I thought it was going to win.  That it was going to get the better of me.  That I was finally going to give up.

And then I had a good nights sleep.

Man does that change everything.  EVERYTHING.

I will divulge that my greatest shadow is victim-hood.  It lurks in every corner and taunts me ceaselessly.  And truthfully, most of the time I treat it like a friend who I feel better than.  I listen to it’s thoughts and smile kindly at it’s options, then explain why I’m going to do precisely the opposite.  But it took years to get there.  YEARS.

Moving to Maui turned the chapter and somehow, flying with my stuff across the ocean magnified that shadow, and since I got here it’s been growing steadily bigger until New Years, when it became the bully in the schoolyard.  And I couldn’t just pretend to listen anymore…I was not only listening, I was believing.

It’s not a pretty sight.   At least not for me.  And un-luckily for that particular shadow I have created a life full of catch  guards for scenarios just such as these.  My traps get bigger and bigger until last night it hit the last one and all the alarms were triggered.  Last night, before bed, my very sweet soul sister reminded me to talk to my heart and not my head…(that was tremendous advice.)

And then I had a really really good nights sleep and when I woke up, it was gone.  I don’t even sense it lurking today.  I don’t have any illusions that it won’t sneak back…we have an entire lifetime of history, but for now…my breaths are bigger.

How did I set these up?

I must admit, it started unconsciously, but over time I programmed the responses and it became even more substantial.

How to Catch your Shadow:

1) The first step is realizing the shadow.  My real shadow is not feeling good enough…but for me, the loudest representation of that is the victim-hood.  What’s yours?  It’s the one that makes you feel most shameful in my opinion.   (You can tell I’ve done a lot of work on this because I can write it and share with the inter-web and get only a tingle of shame versus the lions share I used to have even just thinking about it!) (Please don’t think this part started easily…it DID NOT.)

2) Find people, situations, activities, and places in your life where you absolutely don’t feel that way.  For instance, I have amassed a legion of the most amazing people around me, and when they sense this lack of integrity in me, they start flooding me with love, and telling me why they love me, and reminding me who I actually am.  And it starts off with me not hearing them and moves steadily into active listening, and then by the time the alarms are going off, someone will really step up and offer me a truth I can’t deny.

3)Take all that, all that yumminess you were offered, and bring it to bed.  Before sleeping, ask for those truths you learned about yourself today to be stored in your cells, in your brain, in your being…and that your higher self figure out the puzzle through dreams.  Ask to wake up with a clear picture of how to move forward.

4) Sometimes I feel like I’m having a really physical reaction to all this, so I drink a lot of water and also drink hot Dandelion Leaf tea to move energy out of my liver system…which loves to hold the shadow if it isn’t cleaned up every now and again.

Really. That’s it.  It seems like it wouldn’t work, but let me tell you, if you had been in my head last night you would not have recognized the scared mouse running around in there.

I consider summer solstice to be the new year.  It’s where I put all my energy and manifesting for what’s coming.  But we live in a world where many feel January 1 is a new beginning, so it has it’s own energy.  And unlike solstice which has the power of nature behind it, and for me feels gentle and loving and compassionate….January 1 feels rushed, and dramatic, and full of expectation.  And while we can try to ignore that….it’s energy has become real.  And as energy beings, we pick up on it.  But that is a shadow in itself.

Just food for thought…

So from the sunshine again today I offer you these simple remedies in case shadow has creeped up to test you again here in the New Year.  And today I can actually say…I think it’s going to be a very good year!