Hi Friends, I want to have a complete Integral Life Practice. My chosen path for the spirit module is A Course In Miracles and for Shadow work I wanted to mainly use the Sedona method. So I was wondering does the Sedona method fall under the category of shadow work and do the practices in the ACIM Workbook also fall under the category of shadow work. Thanks in advance.
The short answer is “kind of”.
I’m not to familiar with ACIM so I won’t talk about that. I dated a woman who went through it and In my opinion it fed her shadows more than anything else. So I’m a bit biased against it.
I took the Sedona Method about 10 years ago. I would say it does work with shadows, but “Shadow Work” goes a bit deeper into digging to their roots. Though I could also see that digging into the roots of childhood trauma can sometimes make things worse if not directed by a Licensed Therapist. When doing a Shadow Work weekend it’s actually very important to screen out participants. If a person has suicidal ideation, schizophrenia, sexual trauma or several other indicators the organization doing the shadow work takes on a high degree of risk. In summary, actual “Shadow Work” may be contraindicated for some people with some conditions or experiences.
BTW, Scientology actually forces people to re-live trauma hundreds or thousands of times (as much as is “needed”) until it no longer produces a physical response, which I imagine is a horrific experience for many people.
The Sedona Method doesn’t go into actually looking at, evaluating or re-living the experiences that created the shadows, so while it may not “go as deep”, it may be a good place to start.
Just avoid any culty aspects that may tend to arise in ACIM or Sadona groups.
Thanks for the answer @raybennett! Yea I guess that is where I’m unsure because the Sedona Method stresses that we don’t really need to dig to the root causes of our trauma as long as we release all the emotions. Whereas, shadow work the way Ken WIlber talks about has a strong emphasis in knowing and integrating whatever was previously cut of from conscious awereness.
To ask another way:By which results do I know that I’m doing shadow work and not something else?
Well, I’ll have to poke the hornet’s nest and say I disagree with Ken if you are representing what he actually said. I guess it depends on what he means by “Integrating whatever was previously cut off from the conscious awareness”.
We have a subconscious for a reason. It serves an important purpose. I actually think that people who believe they don’t have shadows and have integrated all of them - these people are dangerous or at the very least delusional.
If, however, “Integrating what was cut off from the conscious” means that it can remain in the shadows but it just no longer causes a negative emotional response and does not have a negative impact on your life, then I can agree with that.
One main problem is that most people think of “shadow” as bad and something to get rid of - which is a dangerous path to go down and will ultimately lead to self sabotage. There are shadows that are for our benefit - things we do unconsciously that are good and beneficial to ourselves and humankind. It is the entire purpose of the unconcsious to work for the betterment of the self without letting you know about it. The only problem is that it “solved” some problems when you were at a lower stage of development and didn’t let you know those. The subconcsious just needs a “program update” to work on these items.
I personally love shadow work but unfortunately there are a lot of people trying to cash in on it with $10,000 weekend retreats while shadow work has to be a daily or even moment-to-moment practice.
If you can’t find a shadow work organization that works for you, go ahead and use Sedona for a while. It won’t be a waste of time and I believe it’s fairly cheap. I’d call it an “Entry Level” course to “Waking Up and Cleaning Up”.
Sidra pointed out Doshin at Integral Zen. Integral Zen offers affordable and maybe even free shadow work courses through a Zen “lens”. https://integralzen.org/events
It looks like Integral Zen also offers follow on support, which is critical to shadow work.
There is a funny side note about “Shadow Work”. It is a copywrighted term, so using it capitalized could be a copyright violation, lol. This also results in many organizations doing the same thing but calling it something else. For example, Integral Zen drops the “work” and only uses “Shadow” in all it’s literature. You won’t find the exact phrase “Shadow Work” in many organizations that are actually doing it.