OVERVIEW
The journey to awakening is a journey of falling in love with our spirit – our true Self. Yet, like potholes in the road, those parts of ourselves we hold outside of love can snag at us, holding us back. They weigh us down and hinder our acceleration to our joy. We call these parts of ourselves our shadow side. The Cityside Practitioners have created a Sunday experience that brings clarity to this and maps a way to more fully integrate our shadow and awaken to the love of our whole self.
TRANSCRIPTION
Speaker 1:
I’m, Gordon Dickinson, one of your licensed spiritual practitioners. And as you are aware, today we are exploring our shadow side. Exploring Our shadow side is closely connected to our October theme of Awakening and Awareness. And as we go through this, we are going to ask you to participate in this essentially ritual by doing some writing. So we had some cards. I think if everybody in the room I think has a card or a pencil, if you don’t, they’re in the back. If you are, if you’re online, um, would encourage you to have a piece of paper in a pen or pencil so that you can do some writing in a minute. Oh, our, our shadow side is a dark aspect of ourselves formed by fear and anger based on family or other societal influences that we have repressed, that we have pushed away from our awareness. It is a valuable spiritual practice to make friends with our shadow, our shadow side, and to honor it and to thank it for the lessons it teaches us. That is our intention today, to make friends with our shadow to honor the lessons it teaches us. So to begin,
Uh, we invite you to write a word or a phrase on your card or piece of paper that identifies a shadow element in your life that you would like to embrace and release. As an example, as a simple, cuz we’re looking at just, you know, just an element of your shadow that you recognize. And just as an easy example, and you’re gonna have more examples in a minute, but an easy example from, for me, a major aspect of my shadow is just fear of rejection and judgment against me, which is what it is. Um, I’m gonna invite one of our, we’re gonna have two spiritual practitioners share with us today, their own experiences with their shadow. And we will begin with, uh, Rob Wozniak, who is going to share his experience.
Speaker 2:
Take this one. Sure.
Speaker 3:
Hi, I’m, uh, oh, excuse me. I’m Rob Wozniak, one of your, uh, licensed spiritual practitioners. Um, and I was asked, uh, by Gordon and John to, to give a testimony on what my experience with, uh, shadow is. And I thought, I’m going just check the time real quick. Make sure I don’t speak forever. Uh, cuz you all want to get home, right? And watch football like me. No, um, uh, you know, I, so, so I was chosen and I was like, well, well, the shadow, right? It’s not true because here we are in spiritual community, we’re always professing. Well, God is all, there is, God is holding this. God is freedom and I am that. But I love, I love this definition, those things we put outside of love, you know, And, and oh boy, do I have some experience with that? And you know, what kept coming up for me as I thought about this topic, it was, you know, the the gift of of, of spiritual community, um, and, and practice.
You know, when I first was exposed to a science of mine community, you know, I was told by a good friend, uh, that I knew before I, I, uh, found, uh, uh, science of mind community, uh, you know, you need to stick around for as long as it takes for you to develop a practice. Now it’s like develop a practice. What is that? You know? And that’s for me, you know, that is still very important for me to have a regular structure to my day, to my morning, uh, to my evening where I’m reflecting, where I’m praying, where I’m meditating, where I’m getting in touch with this power and presence that has the ability to, like, we, we talk about, you know, really change my heart to, to call me to a higher purpose, to call me to my purpose and my reason for being here.
And, you know, that, that has been a gift. You know, I’ve been held in, in spiritual community. That’s, that’s my experience. And, um, you know, I’ve been brought to specific modalities of, of healing. And, and the first one was, uh, you know, Tiffany was up here this morning and she said, Oh, you know, I want you to, I want you to stand up and, and, and sing with me and, and shout it out and, and all this stuff. And, and I remember being very early in spiritual community and, you know, as I would, as I was accustomed to do at that time in my life, you know, I would show up to service, uh, under the influence, you know, and, and, you know, I was, I was, uh, you know, I’m a drunk <laugh>. And, um, you, that’s how I live my life. I didn’t do anything and, you know, where, where without some kind of substance in my, in my system and, and I wouldn’t be able to, I wouldn’t be able to stand up.
I would actually fall over. Um, and this is in service. And, and I remember, uh, having a friend, you know, as I was, I was laying down on, on the floor in the middle of, of a service very similar to this one. Um, and her saying to me, you know, Do you have a drinking problem? And I said, Oh, no, no, no, no, not me. Um, and you know, I, you don’t need all the details. But, you know, within a few weeks after that, you know, I was in the rooms of recovery, um, that that’s not a coincidence. You know, I was, I was brought, you know, I was brought to community and, and, and people that started showing up in my life who told me the truth, you know, and, and had me look at things, you know, we talked about, uh, you know, that, that reading that, uh, Reverend Judy read this morning, uh, you know, talked about being able to look at those things we don’t wanna look at.
And I did not wanna look at that. I did not wanna look at my life, um, in any kind of objective way. I was very content to, you know, entertain, you know, grandiose notions of myself, importance. Um, so, so I’ve, I’ve developed these relationships and, um, you know, more recently as I’ve, as I’ve, you know, uh, grown in spiritual community, you know, there’s, there’s this notion that occurred to me that we’re brought to healing when we’re ready for it. Um, you know, and, and there’s a, there’s a willingness and a preparation that happens through, through study, through, you know, things I did and like prac training and, and so on. And, you know, I had a, I had a, a 12 step sponsor. I said, You know, you really need to go talk to this person. And he gave me a name and a number, and it was, it was a trauma therapist.
And I was like, you know, I think I’m good. You know, I’ve got, I’ve done practitioner training, I’ve done this, I’ve done that. Um, but I trust you so much, um, that I, that I’m willing to look at this. And I’m, I’m just an emotional person. And, and, uh, so I, so I get emotional when I talk about these things. Um, and I, and I and the, the, the, the best way I can say it, What, what was the outcome of that? Or what did that look like? I, this is what my therapist said to me. She said, I don’t, I don’t see, I don’t see why, I don’t see why you’re always defending your childhood. It doesn’t seem that great to me. Um, you were sexually abused, you know, your, your, your boundaries were violated and, and, you know, your, your thoughts and emotions, um, were consistently invalidated.
Um, and I was like, Don’t say that. Ah, no, I don’t want to hear that. Um, you know, but the, the important thing for me in terms of, of this work that we do here was what did I take away from that? You know, what, what were the decisions I made about myself and about my life, um, that, that impacted me? And there were things like, I’m not lovable. I’m not worthy, I’m not worthy of, of, you know, having nice things, um, uh, in my life. And, you know, uh, having a, having an intuitive sense of, of what’s important, of, of how things, um, uh, what, what’s important for me. You know, I knew that there was a sense of like, I’ve, I’ve seen what I’ve need, needed to see, you know, I’ve, I’ve been exposed to something that I did not want to look at and I didn’t even think was, was relevant.
Um, but I need healing now. And, and, and I need to take this to, to a practitioner that I found that could help me, um, you know, engage in a practice of forgiveness, of, of bringing these old beliefs, these old ideas, these experiences to the light and, and really have a willingness to be healed, to have God work through and change my heart, like we talked about, um, in the reading this morning. And that has been my experience, and it has been miraculous. Um, you know, it’s hard to convey in words, but, um, you know, I, I know that something, something happened to me that I didn’t, I don’t necessarily understand, but is, is greater than, than myself or what I could do on my own. Um, and I, and I, the last thing that, that really occurred to me, you know, kind of, again, going back to this idea of, of being part of spiritual community, being in this work, being in this, you know, being open and willing for things to come to me, um, in terms of healing.
And, and one of the things I’ve always been fairly skeptical about, um, uh, physical, um, what do I wanna say? Like body healers, body workers. Um, and, and, you know, four or five years ago, without me really noticing it, a number of healers came into my life. Um, and, and we started doing, I, I said, Well, okay, I’ll try that. It seems like what, that’s what everybody else is doing. All the cool kids are doing it. So, uh, I’ll do that. And, you know, it’s been absolutely essential, essential that as I’ve, as I’ve done my, my healing work, my, my trauma healing work and, and, and, you know, the things we learn in, in practitioner training about releasing old ideas and false beliefs, it’s been absolutely essential that I do in parallel to that, the body work, because so much, and I think Reverend Judy, you talked about this, um, last week, which is, you know, so much of what’s unprocessed, so much of what we don’t understand is, is stored in our body, and we can use our body as almost like a barometer of our, of our spiritual development.
And that has been absolutely true for me. Um, it’s been critical that I be doing, you know, these various modalities of body healing as I’ve done, you know, sort of the mind training work of, of, of forgiveness, of releasing, of letting go. And, you know, once again, it’s, it’s just like, um, it, it, it, I didn’t ask for it, let’s put it that way, but it, but it came to me. And, and I think that was my point today, that, you know, sort of staying around, you know, staying around for at least as long as I’ve had a practice, I’ve been able to develop a practice. You know, it’s just, it’s just pay dividend after dividend after dividend. So, uh, I think that’s all I have to say. That’s my testimony and I’m sticking with it.
Speaker 4:
<laugh>.
Speaker 1:
Thank you, Rob. I appreciate that. Um, I would just invite you if you’re in the room or if you’re online, to write a little bit more. And this time I’d ask you to, uh, maybe write down, um, an action that you’d like to take to make peace with your shadow. So what action would you like to take to make peace with your shadow side? And you can write that down now. You can add it later anytime. You can write more. So now I’m going to invite Connie Hudak to come up and share, um, her experience and also, um, another reading. Do you want this one?
Speaker 5:
Sure. Okay. Hello. Human beings, we’re human, right? We were born in this world as perfect beings, Absolutely perfect. And yes, we’re human, but really we’re spiritual beings having a human experience. Let’s give ourselves a break here. When we were born, we are absolutely perfect. So what the happened, family <laugh>, we are born, and then from that moment, we’re domesticated. And in whatever family that we are born in, they have a set of values, okay? They start their domestication immediately, and they instill in us what is acceptable and unacceptable. What is right and what is wrong, how we should act, how we should think, what we should do, yada, yada, yada. And in this process, we experience highs and lows and love trauma, events and emotions. Some of those things stay in your conscious mind. They’re right out there. And some of them go inside to your subconscious mind. And there’s the rub.
All of our experiences become a part of us. We don’t actually separate it. It’s all there. We think we do. But amazingly it comes out. We are light and shadow. Now, I’m a geek. Those of you who know me know I’m a geek, right? And the rest of you, I just told you <laugh>, I like theater, I like art, I love cosplay. I love costumes. I love fantasy and sci-fi, Star Wars and Star Trek and Wizard of Oz. And recently I had encounter with Doth Feder. My daughter has a vr, virtual reality. And then she has the Star Wars. And she goes, Here, mom, try it. So I’m a captain of a ship, and I get captured kinda like being born, and I’m standing there in my capture, and in comes Dar Theder, boy, he’s fucking tall. And I’m looking face to face. Well, no face to belt with Darth Theder. He is tall. Oh, frightening. Very frightening. And I actually experienced a moment of fear, Real fear. My body reacted, my mind reacted, and my mind finally says, Oh, come on. This is just fake. It’s not real. It’s not real. So I took a deep breath and I continue with the program, and the whole robot was talking at me later, I pondered. What was it that triggered me to such a big reaction?
Well, I have past experiences. The tall people that are not too good, Okay? Everybody’s taller than I am. Even my grandson is one inch taller, and he’s 11. But a had really abusive, horrific experiences with a person who was very tall and much stronger, much stronger than I. And that VR experience triggered memories and emotions and brought them to the surface. My shadow reared up its ugly head. It surprised me. I’ve been working a long time in some of this stuff, but there it was. And it’s just like Jetta. Yoda, Master Yoda says is, fear is the path to the dark side. Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads us to suffering. Indeed it does. Your shadow side is your suffering. Those things that make you suffer, those things you’re trying to hide from others, even yourself, Even myself, I was hiding things, and that was causing me suffering.
Things like anger, jealousy, being defensive, being stubborn, things that didn’t make me a good girl. But some of of those things are not all bad. Being stubborn means having fortitude. Being defensive means protective. Being protective. Some of those things have a good side. Now I have flashes of anger, and they go, you know, that guy gets angry in the head, top hops up. That’s me in traffic. I, I’m working on it. I know, but they didn’t use a turning signal. Again, if you’re gonna turn left, put the fucking signal on, but it’s real. And when I, if I’m awake and aware enough in that moment, I go take a breath. And I go, Okay, what is it that’s really triggering me? What’s going on here? Usually I’m in a hurry or I’ve got a preset con condition. I’m not open to what’s going on around me. You know, relax, girl, It’s gonna be okay. You’ll get there, What? 30 seconds later. It’s okay.
Now, I have been blessed to work with some of the most wonderful spiritual practitioners to help me do my shadow work. Shadow work is discovering those traits that cause us suffering, for giving ourselves for them, healing from past trauma that may have caused them, and processing them in order to grow, to become awake and aware. It can be really scary work and very uncomfortable sometimes. And yeah, there’s a lot of tears sometimes, At least for me, there was. But trust me, it’s worth it. You must be vulnerable. You must be super honest with yourself. Learn who you are as a person and work through all those less desirable attributes. Accepting all signs of yourself, moving towards a happier life, a more accepting mindset. Your life will change for the better minded. And I’m not exceptional. I’m just human. Now we have wonderful spiritual practitioners who do practitioner sessions helping and guiding people to do their shadow work. You will find them on the website. Humans aren’t perfect. And if we would like to have a better, happier life, never stop learning, especially about yourself. Now, I would like to read a poem to You by Ernest Holmes.
It’s she Let go. It’s in your program. She let go without a thought or a word. She let go. She let go of fear. She let go of judgments. She let go of confluence of opinions swarming around her head. She let go of the committee of indecision within her. She let go of all the right reasons, holy and completely, without hesitation or worry, she let go. She didn’t ask anyone for advice. She didn’t read a book on how to let go. She didn’t search the scriptures. She just let go. She let go of all the memories that held her back. She let go of all the anxiety that kept her from moving forward. She let go of the planning and all the calculations about how to do it just right. She didn’t promise to let go. She didn’t journal about it. She didn’t write the projected date in her ti Daytimer. She made no public announcement and put no ad in the paper. She didn’t check the weather report or read her daily horoscope. She just let go. She didn’t ize whether she should let go. She didn’t call her friends to discuss the matter. She didn’t do a five step spiritual mind treat treatment. Excuse me. She didn’t call the prayer line. She didn’t utter a word.
She just let go. No one was around when it happened. There was no applause or congratulations. No one thanked her or praised her. No one noticed a thing like a leaf falling from the tree. She just let go. There was no effort. There was no struggle. It wasn’t good. And it wasn’t bad. It was, it was. And it is just that in the space of letting go, she let it all be. A small smile came over her face, a light breeze blew through her. And in addition, sun and the shown forevermore.
Speaker 1:
Hey, now we’re gonna take some time for prayer. So I would invite the practitioners in the room to come up front, get in line, or next to each other. And I would invite those of you in the room who would like prayer to come up and do prayer with the practitioner of your choice. And those of you who are online who would like prayer, I invite you to, uh, go to the Cityside Me website and you can request a prayer on the website. So I would in, We’ll take a few minutes. I would invite you to come up and have a prayer. And you can also take this time to write more on your cards, your pieces of paper about your shadow and what you would like to do to make peace with your shadow. Oh, thank you. Now, we would like to close out this portion of the service by just acknowledging that these candles sitting in the front of the room really represent the divine light that flows Yana and through all of us. And we bless the time and opportunity today to honor our shadow side and to honor what it teaches us,
And surrender to the truth and the wholeness that is spiritual. So it is when you’re coming.
Speaker 6:
Beautiful, beautiful. So our mission, you know, is to create safe space. And how do we do that? We do that by saying yes and being vulnerable and being sharing. And we’ve done that today. So I just applaud all of you for being part of this. Thank you all so much.