Rather than writing about reiki, I feel more compelled to share this as my first post. It has been on my mind for a while now, and I hope the overall picture would help someone out there understand better.
So what is spirituality? Why are some of us so into healing, awakening, enlightment, energies and vibrations, law of attraction? While some of us are more into astrology, fengshui, bazi, crystals?
I had been wearing crystals and going for bazi and fengshui reading for as long as I can remember. Not that I knew anything much back then about what's going on, but I would say it's in our culture (or at least my family's) to want to be heng heng (meaning lucky in dialect), avoid all misfortunes and basically, have a smooth and comfortable life.
My real journey into spirituality started when I was introduced to the book "The Secret", which explains what is law of attraction and how to make use of it. My life basically went downhill after trying to apply what was taught to me by this book (and several books after), but it also sent me down this rabbit hole to understand more about what is actually going on.
While, yes, most of the information and modalities out there are valid and true, it always feel like a blind man touching different parts of an elephant and go aha! and that's how an elephant is! And in this case that's what spirituality is! or, this is how we make use of the Universal energy!
And that's what I am going to share in this post, tying all of the information and experiences I had, and hopefully save someone out there from having the need to go through what I did.
All path down Spirituality starts with Psychology- particularly Depth Psychology by Carl Jung.
Depth Psychology | Conscious vs Unconscious | Light vs Shadow
To summarize the important bit- we are all born whole. However, through experiences and conditioning, we start splitting ourselves into parts that fall either into the conscious or unconscious.
For example, a child was born into a single-parent family. Because her mother is always busy at work trying to make ends meet, she had to learn how to take care of herself from a very young age- get home from school by herself, do her homework by herself, cook lunch and dinner and eat by herself. Through this experience, she had split her independent self and her childlike self. Her independent self has become her ego/conscious, and her childlike self had to be hidden, and had fallen into her shadow/unconscious.
Throughout our childhood, many experiences will result in splitting ourselves into parts. Say in a separate situation, she cried because she was upset, but someone told her to stop being a baby and stop crying, the part of her who know how to self-regulate when she gets upset will fall into her shadow.
Yes, we might need to hide and condition ourselves to be and behave in a certain way when we are a child in order to survive, but little do we know, this conditioning will affect us to be this way throughout our whole life if we have little to no awareness of it at all. And to be really, really honest, most of us don't.
Manifestation | Law of Attraction
And here's the mistake with Manifestation when applying the Law of Attraction- most people think that just by being positive and thinking hard enough of that thing that we want- we will manifest it. Yes, and no... This probably will work for those whose all of their inner parts (conscious AND unconscious) are in alignment. But for the rest of us, you will realise you are probably getting inconsistent result even though you are getting all the steps correct.
Remember- whenever you try to manifest something, all parts of you will contributes to your vibration, and not just the parts of you that you know of (which is your conscious parts). And trust me, there will be parts of you that you still haven't come to light yet.
Imagine you are trying to get your ship to move faster to get somewhere. When you apply positive psychology- writing affirmations, visualising already having the thing that you wanted etc, this is like adding more sailors (Idk how to sail a ship I probably am talking nonsense), upgrading your engines etc, wishing it will get to your destination faster and quicker. But as long as one you did not attend to and pull up your anchor, it's always gonna drag you down.
Picture from Pinterest
It's not to say positive psychology doesn't work, or we shouldn't use it at all, but the timing of when we use it is very important. Because of the existence of your shadows, not just that positive psych might not have an impact, sometimes it might even have a negative impact by driving your shadow way deeper, which is likely going to make things even worse.
Back to the example of the little girl who was shamed for crying. If she were to use positive psych to be happy and joyful, this will likely drives her shadow even deeper, and in reality, even more unlikely to manifest a happy life.
This is when modalities like inner work, shadow work, dream analysis and active imagination come into the picture. Most people think when we let our shadows out, it's going to take over us and we are going to stay in that state forever. The truth is, instead, we most likely will stay in that state if we choose to keep all our skeletons in our closet and let it remain that way. The more we try to keep it in, the more it's going to control us. On the contrary, when we let them out, we can process, integrate and heal. The more we heal, the more our shadows become our light, moving from unconscious to conscious. By then, positive psych will then truly work for us.
Vibration | Energy
So all parts of us (conscious and unconscious) contribute to our energy and vibration, and this affects our ability to manifest certain things into reality.
Remember at the beginning I mentioned I used to wear crystals to be heng heng (lucky)? Same- if there are parts of you that are conditioned to believe you are destined to lead a life of hardship, no matter how many crystals you wear, how many soundbaths you went to, or you might live in a best fengshui location, it will still be like adding more sailors or upgrading your engines without dealing with the anchor.
However, after you have integrate and heal parts of yourself into balance, adding in positive psych and energy healing modalities will be like turning your ship into a speedboat (!). It will then be like having more sailors, upgrading your engines AND pulling up your anchor.
Energy Healing first, then Inner Work?
A little disclaimer, and a positive one- the Universe is always on your side. The Universe's objective is always for your to expand and live an abundant and amazing life. And one of the ways to get there, is also by knowing your desires and wanting to manifest that into reality.
So there is definitely no harm (and even a lot of good) to go straight into energy healing first. Wear your crystals, go for soundbaths, come in for reiki, but also keep in mind the knowledge of depth psychology. When your vibration goes up, it will show your anchor, and even show you where it is. Then your next move, will be to do inner work with it, attending to the anchor.
Read Part 2 here on Blue Prints, Personal Energy, and Universal Energy.
Resources:
Depth Psychology
Shadow Work (Teal Swan)
Shadow Work vs Positive Focus (Teal Swan)
Disclaimer:
Information provided is solely based on personal experience and knowledge, and does not constitute professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment.
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