Meaning of Shadow-Worker & Lightworker | Understanding Ego & Spirit
Understanding your ego is the process of shadow work, while understanding your spirit is the process of light work. Both are important for enlightenment, especially when you desire to pursue your soul purpose.
As a Spiritual Mentor & Intuitive Guide I work with empaths, people pleasers, sensitive souls and intuitives who desire to awaken their soul truths and feel connected to the Universe. The journey of trusting your intuition in order to walk down your soul path includes both shadow work and light work because you need to know your fears in order to lead with your spirit.
The term lightworker is quite popular in the spiritual community, however shadow-worker is less known. In this blog I will share the meaning of both a shadow-worker and a lightworker and how they are important when bringing harmony to your ego and spirit.
WHAT IS A SHADOW-WORKER
A shadow-worker is someone who is willing to work through the shadows of oneself in order to create emotional and spiritual healing.
Your shadows are often the internal spaces you avoid, deny or ignore.
As a society we have developed a fear around feeling our emotional pains, which turn into subconscious thoughts that become belief systems built on pain and fear.
The reason why you have worries is because either you experienced something traumatic, you were taught something that doesn’t align with your soul truth or you carry the emotional pain from the generations that came before you in your family. Your worried thought pattern is built on deep emotional wounds that you carry, and these worries are now a belief you hold that says something bad is going to happen.
Let’s say you worry about other people judging you, this might be because you experienced a lot of bullying as a child and people in your community always pointing you out as being different. Maybe you carry this worry because your mother was always worried about her perception and she worked hard to put up a façade so the neighbors wouldn’t see her insecurities. The depth of this shadow carries the emotions you experienced as a young child and you were never properly supported and comforted in order to release and heal those emotions. You were taught a belief system that prioritizes the opinions of others over how you feel about yourself.
For myself I always carried a fear of judgment because I always felt different from those around me. I wanted to “fit in” and in growing up I was taught that being a “good girl” meant I would be nice, respectable and always wear a smile. As an empath, everyone else’s happiness around me was important, so in trying to “fit in” and be the “good girl”, I worked hard to please those around me. All of this led to me carrying deep insecurities about myself, feeling like I didn’t know who I truly was, and in the process of uncovering who I was I’ve had to battle a lot of self-doubt in my ability to overcome my fear of judgment. Being authentically me meant I needed to uncover the shadows behind my fear of judgment and understanding that by identifying with being a “good girl” I was limiting myself, and that trying to “fit in” I wasn’t allowing myself to stand out in my own gifts. The depth of my shadows carried a lot of emotional wounds and I had built a belief system that was unsupportive if I wanted to truly follow my soul path.
A shadow-worker is someone who, exactly as it says, works through the shadows in order to overcome the fears and heal the emotional wounds attached to those fears.
Most spiritual mentors and healers are considered shadow-workers, as they support and guide their clients through the process of energetically healing the fears, insecurities, pains and outdated belief systems.
One of the main things I teach all of my clients in my Spirit of Air group program is how to guide themselves through their own shadows. I help you become a shadow-worker for yourself. It’s extremely empowering to be able to comfort yourself through your own emotional healing journey.
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WHAT IS A LIGHTWORKER
If a shadow-worker is someone who works through their inner shadows, then a lightworker is the opposite.
A lightworker is someone who ignites their inner light in order to bring more radiance into the world around them. Every single one of us has our own gifts, and by acting on our gifts we are able to bring more joy, love, and connection into the world. This is the purpose of a lightworker.
The journey of a lightworker is not always as easy as simply bringing love into the world. Often lightworkers carry resistance that stops them from trusting their path as a lightworker. Imposter syndrome, insecurities, fear of failure and doubt are major blocks lightworkers experience.
A lightworker needs to trust their intuition, as their Spirit guides them to act on their passions.
A lightworker needs to rely on internal validation, opposed to external validation, in order to act in an aligned manner.
A lightworker needs to lead themselves with purpose rather than allowing pressure to guide them.
We all have shadows, and often it’s our shadows that block us from living out our lightworker purpose.
A lightworker doesn’t do their work to gain approval from others, instead they live out their truth as a light-being feeling fulfilled in the process.
To be a lightworker you need to understand the power of also being a shadow-worker. You cannot have one without the other. As humans we have ego, which means we carry shadows. The only way to uncover ourselves as Spirit, is to know our ego and bring our light into our own shadows. This is the process of bringing harmony to ego and spirit.
BRINGING HARMONY TO EGO & SPIRIT
When you become aware of your thoughts you start to notice the worry, doubt and fear that plagues your mind on a daily basis. The most common thing I hear in the world of manifestation and law of attraction is how you need to use affirmations to change your thought patterns.
Repetition may work over long periods of time, but I’ve learned a more effective way to shift your thought patterns. This includes doing the shadow work and actually uncovering the root of the thought pattern. When you know the root of the issue you are able to heal the emotional and spiritual wounds in order to re-write your belief system in a supportive way.
Bringing harmony to ego and spirit is not about denying your ego thoughts. It’s actually about bringing compassion and comfort to yourself when those repetitive, unsupportive thoughts come forward. Your ego believes that you are not safe, which is why it repeats the worries and fears because your mind wants you to understand that life isn’t safe.
The reality is that you actually are safe in this moment, and you need to learn to make yourself feel safe, even in the uncomfortability of the unknown. The moment you are able to feel safe and comforted it becomes easier for you to hear your Spirit and to lead yourself from a space of trust and faith, this is your light.
This is a process I work with all of my clients in both the Spirit of the Empath 1:1 Mentoring offer and in the Spirit of Air Group Program. The 1:1 mentoring is definitely the path of least resistance and gives you the support you’re looking for in healing your shadows as a people pleaser.
Differentiating between ego thoughts and soul messages is how you can understand the shadow versus the light. Integrating this practice into your everyday life will allow you to overcome worry, doubt and fear in the moment so you can trust your intuition more easily. This is exactly what my group program focuses on over the 12 month journey together.
If you are wanting to embody your authentic spirit and stop allowing fear to dictate your experience, then the Spirit of Air group program is the space for you.
Inside Spirit of Air you will connect with your Higher Self and you will create a life with more peace and purpose. The freedom of your Spirit is calling on you to start listening to the guidance of the Universe. This is where you will follow your path to becoming enlightened and aligned with your soul.
Until next time, sending love & light on your spiritual journey,
Sydney Smith
Spiritual Mentor
Founder of Adventuring with Poseidon Wellness
