What is "Doing The Work" and How To Use It To Heal
If you've embarked on a spiritual or personal growth journey, you have most likely heard about "the work." So, what exactly is the work? And is there only one way to do it? The answer is “no,” the work can look very different for each person, but there are a few core principles.
THE WORK:
The work is essentially when someone is taking purposeful steps towards self-healing, self-love, and self-improvement. It is a long, hard, intense, and emotional journey that is often done by looking at past traumas, childhood wounds, subconscious impressions, karma, and societal programming.
These factors result from uncontrollable instances that happen to us in life. We often try to suppress trauma or anything negative, and by pushing these down into our subconscious without feeling and understanding the emotion, we develop samskaras.
This is a concept in Yoga, and the Sanskrit word samskara (संस्कार) can be translated to "scars." Samskaras are the mental and emotional patterns that shape our experiences and responses to life positively and negatively.
They accumulate from this current life and past lifetimes that create karmic wounds. Healing the scars takes a ton of time and "work." If you think about a physical scar or scab or thorn stuck in your arm, they all take time to remove, disappear and heal.
They also worsen when you just pick at it or irritate it and definitely don’t heal overnight. In the modern-day, this concept has been coined as "shadow," which is why you may have heard of "shadow work."
REVEALING AND HEALING OUR SHADOWS:
Every single human has shadows - some shadows can be super old, or sometimes they’re brand new. So, what's important is first to reveal them, which is surprisingly difficult because often, we have no idea they're even there since they lay in our subconscious. So, to reveal them, we need attention and awareness.
STEP ONE: becoming aware
We first have to tap into the subconscious through meditation to become aware.
Another step to creating awareness is to see what triggers you. If you don't know what a trigger is, something happens outside of your control that causes a mental and bodily reaction that usually is negative. When this happens, our fight or flight instinct kicks in because it brings us a past trauma suppressed into our subconscious by our ego. So when you get triggered: 1. become aware of it, 2. don't suppress and 3. write it trigger down.
If you're busy or not in the mindset to process, I highly recommend writing down what happened and how you feel on your phone in the notes/on paper. Then, take the trigger into meditation or journal about it when you have time later.
STEP TWO: transforming the trigger
While triggers may be uncomfortable, they are pure gold. Once you learn to notice and feel the trigger, you can transform it. This is done by getting to its root because often, the "trigger" is never what is upsetting you; it’s just what sets off your subconscious and creates an emotional reaction.
To get to the root, turn to your practice. This can include meditation, movement, and journaling. All three work with the body and mind to heal the scars.
There are a few ways to work with our scars in these practices:
First, you can go into your practice with the trigger in mind and think, write, or meditate on it. I recommend setting the intention to heal the trigger by seeing what comes up and then realizing how this shadow is within you but is not you.
Go into your practice and notice any triggers or thoughts that need to be worked through.
Be intuitive! When you notice a strong emotion, sit with it, and breathe it out
The third step is important because our potential to heal and change lies in the breath. Our breath is our life force, so if we can control our breath, we can control our shadows.
STEP THREE: healing the shadow
Once you start becoming aware of all these scars, you’ll notice a pattern, and similar situations are always arising in your life. The same frustrations and challenges are always attacking us. This is because the universe is trying to get us to finally break the pattern and heal the shadow, which can be done by replacing the negative shadow with positively reinforcing a new way of thinking.
By changing your thoughts, feelings, and actions in meditation, movement, and journaling, you are being positively reinforced and building new impressions of yourself, your life, and your past.
By becoming aware and healing our scars, you are tackling a ton of heavy stuff, so be sure to take your time. I recommend incorporating other lighthearted ways of healing like spending time in nature, listening to music, spending time with loved ones, and indulging in self-care. Give yourself some love, and healing will follow.
STEP FOUR: finding your true self
By doing the work, we get closer to our authentic selves. This can be called our spirit/Self. It is the part of us that is pure love and compassion. I like to call her my highest self. This is what we all strive to be, and it looks different for all of us!
We get more intuitive by revealing, healing, and transforming our scars. We begin to realize what our souls want to manifest in this world and stop living for other people or out of fear. Everyone deserves this, and I hope that your work journey allows you to find your authentic self, as I have.
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Emily Campbell is a Hawaii-based writer, event planner, and certified yoga instructor. She believes in slow island living and creates events that showcase meditation, breathwork, and holistic living. She can be found connecting to herself and nature in Hawai’i and creating personalized stories and content on Island Em.