I see a lot of talk about "the great awakening," "the age of Aquarius," and "5D ascension" that uses what a psychologist might call, magical thinking (not to be confused with Doing Magick, which I totally do - hi, fellow Pagans and Practitioners!). What I mean is that often I see these things discussed in a, "we don't have to do anything, it's just happening" kind of way. And that I very much disagree with. A lot.

Now, don't get me wrong. I do think we are in a time of awakening. But not in some fluffy unicorn, one day you're going to get the wisdom of the ascended masters just downloaded into your brain like POOF! Now you're enlightened! And all you gotta do until then is think happy thoughts.

Real ascension, real enlightenment, real awakening, requires work. Hard work. Difficult work.

It requires working with your shadow - and society's shadow.

Shadow Work

Shadow work is basically, tearing away the veils that mask the ugly reality that people don't want to face. It's facing off with your inner demons. It's acknowledging your trauma, your faults, and your pain.

So, say you had an abusive childhood. And your little child brain locked those memories away in a little lockbox as a coping mechanism and you went about your life pretending like everything was fine, and never dredging up those old memories to properly process and heal. Eventually, that's going to kick you in the ass one way or another, right? Your brain did what it needed to do to survive when you were a helpless child, but as an adult, continuing to live that way as though it never happened, you're going to have unresolved issues. Maybe that manifests in mental health problems. Maybe that manifests in trust issues. Maybe that manifests in a series of also abusive romantic relationships, and you wonder why you keep attracting that type of person into your life. You're unlikely to ever get out of that negative loop until you face the hard, ugly truth of what happened to you as a kid, and begin to heal from those psychological, emotional, and spiritual wounds.

Life will do this to you until you wake up and face the truth. LOL

Shadow Work in Society

But this concept doesn't just apply to your personal life - it also applies to society. In the US, there is a cultural norm of sorts to say, "Oh, that was a long time ago, just forget about it." And so we never learn from our past, and we keep repeating the same mistakes over and over again.

When Black people bring up how slavery and Jim Crow laws and modern racism effects them, or Indigenous people bring up broken treaties and genocide, a certain type of person who finds facing those truths to be unpleasant, will say, that was a long time ago, get over it, live in the now. Except, it's still effecting the now - and denying that is only making it worse and ensuring it continues to happen. It's like telling the child who grew up with abuse, who as an adult, has serious trauma and trust issues, no, I don't want to talk about it, that was a long time ago, get over it. You can't magically erase that trauma by pretending it isn't there. You have to face it. Denying its existence makes the other people in their life more comfortable, but further wounds the traumatized person. And so it is in society at large.

We have to face what is wrong in our society - not say, "well that's not my issue" and go live in our happy little bubble of high vibration thoughts and wonder why bad things keep happening. The only way society as a whole is going to be lifted from its cruel, decidedly unenlightened past and present into a more enlightened future is to acknowledge those painful parts and work to heal them.

A good visual breakdown. I also recommend the book, "My New Gender Workbook," which talks about all the intersections of privilege like this.

If you think about it, in order to lift the dark, you have to shine a light on it. Turning your back on the darkness doesn't make it light. We have to go digging in our proverbial closets, and deal with what's inside them. Only then can we be rid of that which no longer serves us.

Tl;dr

Accusing people who are trying to do the real work of healing themselves and/or society of "making it worse" because they acknowledge and talk about it, is slowing down our progress. It isn't "divisive" for an abused person to talk about the abuse they suffered. Demanding "good vibes only" is a form of denial.

If you truly want to raise consciousness, transform society, and heal the world, you don't get to sit around waiting for some external being/force to magically show up and do the work for you. It's the same difference you see between some Christians: those who read the words of Jesus and say, "OK, this is the work I should do, to care for each other with love, and not judge," and those who say, "Eh, Jesus is going to come back and end the world as we know it anyway, so there's no point in trying to make things better." Both of those people are Christians, but they have wildly different views about what the teachings of their faith mean they should do with their lives. Either you think Jesus told you to do the work, or you think you can screw it up royally and it's fine because your mom Jesus is going to come and clean up your mess.

We have to clean up our own messes, people. Chop wood, carry water, eh?

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