Lets goo.

 Heyy there, long time no write.

Getting back to my roots, quite literally it seems haha. Even on blogspot writing a new post, initially wanted to come and take notes for some questions that one would classify under Shadow Work, then my quick brain jumped to "Hey but why not make it a blog, better to track process and notebooks get so messy", and well here I am. 😊

I started reading this new book called "Codependent No More" by Melody Beattie, it's a bit Christian for my taste but I'm getting the general message of the book. Just converting the "God" to "The Universe" and making it work for me. 

This book is calling me out big time, I've thought my approach has always been to help people but seems its a lot about controlling others and giving away ones own power, I guess I've always had some voice in the back of my head whispering.. sometimes even screaming to just let it go and stop trying so hard for people who don't want to help themselves. Now dwelling, i can recall quieting that voice in most cases when advising friends, family members, partners, heck even strangers. 

My codependency knows no bounds?! I guess it makes sense, as much as I've gotten from this book and reading online about codependency, it develops in people at a young age when they're raised by parents who have unexpectable behavioral patterns. It forces the child to anticipate negative reactions from their parents - which echoes on to relationships with other peers, romantic relationships and so on- and thus quite literally adapting to care for and satisfy other peoples wellbeing before their own. This in fear that if this prioritization is not done then the person they depend on might leave, abandon, punish or simply get upset with the codependent. 

Analyzing and discussing the topic with myself really helps me go deeper into my own codependency and recognize which patterns in my behavior are affected by it, unfortunately as of now it seems like my whole persona revolves around being codependent and this scares me a bit.

I've thought about SW for a long time, the signs for me to get on with it have been around for this entire year but I just haven't felt ready at all. Where to get started, who knows... *Universe sends a SW guide every second TikTok*; *Universe makes that one witchy insta start a SW course* - oh god, don't know where to get started. 🙄

Enough denial, I can literally feel my spirit guides hovering over my bed watching me procrastinate watching TikToks. So back to this book, it's not in any way related to WC but at the end of each chapter there are prompts, questions to get you started on unraveling your own codependency mess and finding a way out of it. I've skipped over a bunch of questions but now we're getting into some part of the book that's really pushing me to take notes so after i'm done writing this intro to the new blog, i'll start the next post with the prompts.

I've made the blog public because Shadow Work is something that came hard to me, very hard. It was tons of "i can't think of an answer" to "that's too heavy right now", literally almost an entire year of procrastinating and pushing this task away. But how much time do I really have to keep pushing this? Until I've morphed into a part of this codependency mess surrounding me and I start making other codependent people? Thank you no, I want to be happy and at peace at the soonest please so let us get on with it! 

For those who do not know what Shadow Work is then allow therapist Akua Boateng, Ph. D to elaborate: 

"Shadow work involves getting in touch with the parts of yourself that you've repressed — or what many might refer to as their "dark side." ... It's called "shadow work," and involves "diving into the unconscious material that shapes our thoughts, emotions, and behaviors,"

The term Shadow was explained to be the unknown dark side of ones personality by psychiatrist Carl Jung. I'm a big Jungian myself so there's a side of me that's very excited to see where SW will take me. 

Feel free to research more into this, there's tons of resources on the web and videos on YT about this, even TT has a hashtag for prompts and guides to get started! 💗