Spirit Hacking: Shamanic Keys to Reclaim Your Personal Power, Transform Yourself, and Light Up the World - Shaman Durek 2019

Take Responsibility
Shake Up To Wake Up

If it’s so easy to manifest, I can hear your beautiful, stubborn mind protesting through the quantum field, then why are so many people in lack?

Because, my dear, we still share a universe with dark matter, which means that darkness is still a thing here on Earth, and—as you already know—the darkness is all about lack and limitation. But, guess what? You are here to remedy that. That’s right. You see, you are not just here to get lit, and to manifest joy, health, prosperity, a poprocks life, and a Giant Age, you are also here to ascend the darkness.

ASCEND THE HUH?

As we discussed a few chapters back, the darkness is the part of this dimensional reality that is held in density. That density exists to illuminate the possibilities that are not held in the field of love. Remember, we live in a quantum reality of infinite possibility, which means that all possibilities exist, including those that are not aligned with love. A lot of people misunderstand these possibilities as being somehow separate from God, and thus misunderstand the darkness itself as being separate from God, and the oneness of all that is. This is false.

The oneness is infinite and eternal, and is thus held in a field of consciousness that expands far beyond the limitations of human perception and understanding. God is not of us. And while God imbued humans with free will, which gives us creative powers similar to God’s own creative powers, our creative capacity is not the same. Free will is the ability for humans to choose from whatever possibilities exist. God is all the possibilities that exist. God is not a box, and God is not a fixed destination. God is eternal expansion; and within that expansion, we humans have sovereign agency in which to create. This means that we can create forms that are aligned with love, and we can create forms that are not aligned with love. But that creation is still held within the oneness that is all possibility, which is God.

The density that comprises the darkness—when utilized intelligently—creates the friction necessary to fuel our evolution. As I’ve already explained, Earth is not a planet of perfection, but a planet of refinement. We choose to incarnate on this planet to learn, and to grow. The density that the darkness holds—when utilized intelligently—is actually a tool for human evolution. The more we allow ourselves to open and accept all realms of possibility, the more our minds will grow and expand into higher levels of consciousness. This means allowing ourselves to perceive the density that comprises the darkness without judgment, and without aversion, and without opposition. This is how we expand our consciousness.

But because God imbued humans with free will to create whatever it is we choose, humans have chosen to utilize that density to create structures and belief systems that limit our ability to expand our consciousness. We do this by reacting to the density, and by judging it as an obstruction, instead of perceiving it as a neutral energy that we can transmute and transform. This judgment is what has humans stuck in duality, wherein we mistakenly perceive these options as diametrically opposing forces, which keeps us trapped in a perpetual quantum entanglement of right versus wrong, and good versus bad, instead of simply perceiving these different energy forms as options with which we can choose to align our energies, or not.

Further complicating the problem with this orientation is the human tendency to attach all types of rules, and labels, and identities to each dualistic field they choose to align themselves with, and categorize others according to which field they choose. These identity constructs keep humans trapped inside the limitations they have imposed upon those dualistic fields. And so instead of learning from these denser energies, and understanding these denser energies, and utilizing these denser energies as teaching tools to develop our creative capacities in an infinitely expanding universe, humans judge these denser energies as wrong, and as bad, and as worse, and then align themselves in opposition to them by way of rules, and labels, and identities, to make themselves feel virtuous, which—ultimately—blocks them from experiencing the oneness that is.

THE DARKNESS HAS NO FANGS

On a physical level, the darkness is a realm that houses everything that is not aligned with love. For a lot of people, the darkness conjures up all sorts of dramatic visions of demons with pitchforks, and monsters with claws and stinky breath. But that’s not what darkness is. Not by a long shot.

Religion has programmed people to associate the darkness with scary, horrific forms and imagery, so that we will fear the darkness, and judge the darkness, instead of engaging the darkness. Remember, religion is a tool of the matrix that exists to keep humans from developing their own authentic relationship with Spirit, and to keep us tethered to the energetic frequencies of lack, limitation, fear, and discord—all of which fuel the darkness. These images and these stories function to perpetuate these energies to feed the dark realm, while manipulating people to think the darkness is something to be avoided at all costs.

The truth is, darkness has no form in and of itself. Darkness simply puts on the costumes that humans project onto it and appears in dreams, visions, over-the-shoulder glimpses, and spirit world sojourns, based upon whatever fears and images we are harboring in our own imaginations (which are the fears and images the matrix programmed humans with in the first place). It’s another reason why I don’t watch scary movies. Because I don’t need the darkness showing up in my room in the shape of a blood-sucking zombie, or a fire-breathing demon, thank you very much.

DARKNESS IS …

So, if darkness isn’t the monsters, or the vampires, or the goblins we have been indoctrinated to believe it is, then how does darkness show up in this reality? Great question, love. The way darkness shows up in this reality is as that disembodied voice in your head that whispers, You can’t or You’re not good enough or Everyone will laugh at you. While not necessarily demonic, that little voice is insidious and incredibly destructive, because it exists to disempower us, and to isolate us, and to keep us from realizing our potential and our purpose; and, we let it.

As a human being incarnate on planet Earth, you’ve probably experienced this type of interaction with the darkness at least a dozen times today, if not a dozen times already this hour. The darkness creeps into our minds as a negative thought. The more we focus on that negative thought, the more access we give the darkness to our being. Focusing our attention on the negative thoughts the darkness generates is pretty much the same thing as opening your door to darkness, and inviting it in for coffee and scones, and saying, Hey, Darkness. Come shit all over my internal landscape, and fuck up my vibratory field. Would you like almond milk in your macchiato, or hemp?

But who would we even be talking to? Whose voice is it that wants us to think such terrible things about ourselves? Well, this might be a little hard to swallow, but—believe me—it’s the straight-up truth: the voices in our heads are underworld spirits. They are the voices of our brothers and sisters who are stuck in the darkness, and who need our help getting back to the light.

THE UNDERWORLD SITUATION

The underworld is a specific realm of darkness—much like a city, or a region—that sustains itself on human discord. Again, despite all fairy tales to the contrary, the underworld is not populated by ghouls, or demons, or monsters. The beings who populate the underworld are human beings who’ve walked before us, and who got stuck holding on to certain energies they couldn’t forgive themselves for back when they were incarnate. You see, when we die, we are shown everything we’ve ever done in our life, and all the ways that our choices, and our actions, and our behaviors affected everyone around us, and the world at large. Only if we are able to let it all go with unconditional love and acceptance are we free to move on to other dimensional experiences, or to new Earthly incarnations, or to whatever we choose. But if we allow ourselves to get stuck in judgment and opposition to the darkness that we ourselves acted out while we were here on Earth, and if we can’t let go, then we are sent to the underworld, which is a specific realm of the darkness that we, as incarnate humans, have a responsibility to clean up.

The underworld is dependent upon human discord to feed its inhabitants, which is why it goes to such great lengths to generate fear, and lack, and limitation among human beings on Earth. The way it works is that the underground spirits—who look and act as human as you and I do—utilize certain neurological algorithms to tap into the consciousness of human beings whose own unintegrated trauma matches the frequencies of the issues the spirits themselves are still holding on to. Let’s say you have trust issues with male authority figures because of an incident you had with a priest when you were a child. If you haven’t healed that trauma, and integrated the lessons from that trauma, then you would very likely attract an underground spirit who incurred a similar trauma, and who was dealing with similar trust issues, which inspired him to enact certain behaviors or actions in his own lifetime that he couldn’t forgive himself for when he passed on.

You see, the spirits need fear to survive. They cannot feed on light, because light is pure love. So, the spirits infiltrate the minds of the people here on Earth and corrupt them with fear, and lack, and doubt, and separation, and whatever other unresolved stuff the spirits attached to us need to work through. This is why people are in lack, and this is why people are in fear, and this is why people play small—because they listen to the negative thoughts the spirits are generating in their heads, and they buy into them and give their power away to them.

HUMANS LIKE THEIR UNDERGROUND SPIRITS, THOUGH

The truth is that most humans don’t want to be in their power. In this way, darkness is like that low-vibe friend who’s a bad influence on you, because they enable you to play small, and to keep sabotaging yourself so that you continue to generate the energies that feed it. Darkness is that codependent energy sucker who’s rooting for your disempowerment.

Most humans are afraid of aligning themselves with the light, because it means accepting our responsibility as creators. Humans already feel so much survival pressure from the stress of bills, and bureaucracy, and insurance premiums, and kids, and credit card debt, and mortgages, and cholesterol levels, and all of it. The survival program the matrix imposes saps a lot of energy that could be put into focusing on who we are, and on what we want to create. But because most humans are struggling to juggle so many have-tos, they don’t have the bandwidth to deal with creating new realities. And so the idea of having some kind of creative power becomes overwhelming, because we can’t come into that power unless we know our true selves. And to know our true selves would mean having the time, and the energy, and the support to learn about our true selves, and to develop our true selves, inside a system that does everything it can to dissuade us from knowing our true selves.

In this way, the setup creates a codependent, symbiotic relationship between humans and their underworld spirits, wherein humans get to keep themselves stagnant, while making excuses, dodging responsibility, and playing small, while the darkness gets to feed on their discord and their misery. And so it is that we have all these bobbleheads walking around on autopilot, giving their power away to the spirits in their heads, when what they really need to be doing is taking them to the light.

THE DARKNESS DOESN’T HATE YOU

The darkness is devoted to maintaining its dimensional realm, because as long as darkness can sustain its realm, the beings in the darkness are safe. Remember, the darkness is not evil. Evil is a judgment based on humans’ duality hang-ups. The darkness has no nefarious agenda, and the underworld spirits aren’t messing with humans to be mean. People are so narcissistic. It’s like saying that human beings are evil for killing cows and goats for food; or like accusing people of being mean to daisies and cilantro when we cut their stems. It’s absurd. The darkness is not enslaving human beings and feeding off their fear because it hates us. The darkness is just doing what the darkness needs to do to survive. It’s not all about humans, all the time, in every dimensional plane of existence. I mean, really.

The thing is, the darkness created this intricate structure, and the darkness goes through all these elaborate measures to create discord on Earth—all so it can serve the beings in its dimension. It’s almost endearing, because the darkness goes to all this trouble to take care of its own. The thing is, the beings the darkness is bending over backward to feed don’t actually belong in that realm. The underworld spirits belong with the light.

DARKNESS NEEDS LIGHT

The underworld is like a kind of purgatory. It’s a way station for stuck souls. But it’s not the kind of realm that any being would consider “home.” It’s kind of like when your flight is delayed, and so you sleep on the floor of the airport, and you wash your armpits in the airport bathroom, and you drink juice at the airport café. Sure, you’re living at the airport while you’re there, but it’s not your home. It’s not your realm. So while it’s admirable that the darkness shows up so full force to provide a safe space for its spirits, its efforts are misplaced, because those spirits don’t belong there. Those spirits have their own stories to play out, which means that what they really need to do is to get out of the darkness, and into the light, so they can get on with fulfilling their own journeys.

That’s where we come in. The spirits can’t get out of the underworld of their own accord. They need an embodied vessel to escort them to the light. That’s you. You are that which clarifies their redemption for them. Human beings are the ones Spirit has entrusted with the task of taking the spirits from the darkness to the light. It’s another reason the spirits berate us with negative thoughts after glomming onto our matching trauma frequencies. They’re trying to get our attention, so that we will realize that they are with us, and do something about it. We’re like cosmic custodians, here to clean up the darkness, and to bring it home to the light.

TRAUMA

Unresolved trauma is like a magnet for spirits. The trauma itself resonates at a frequency that attracts spirits whose own unresolved issues are a vibrational match, and who will then guide our life events to affirm the trauma and the beliefs it creates. So if there is an underlying trauma that is creating the unconscious belief that says I want to be angry at the world, then I need reasons to be angry at the world so that I can give myself permission to be angry at the world. That trauma will then go about magnetizing a spirit from the underworld to connect me with people who betray me, and events that piss me off, while whispering in my ear about how infuriating everything is so that I will have plenty of reasons to be angry at the world.

Trauma is trapped energy that has not been properly released from the physical or emotional body. The mind holds on to the energy because it is waiting for something to meet the trauma with love, and to tell it that it’s going to be okay. Trauma is a portal to emotions from our past that are trying to get our attention so that we can acknowledge them, and embrace them, and move forward. But when people don’t step through that portal, and don’t acknowledge or embrace those trapped energies themselves, but instead wait for some imaginary savior to come do it for them, the energies calcify in the body and create a belief that says that something went wrong, and that it could happen again, which distorts future decisions while schizing out the nervous system, and programming reality accordingly. And it also attracts underworld spirits.

DISCERN THY SKETCHERS

Any thought that is not pure love is not coming from you; it’s coming from the darkness. That means that anytime you hear a negative thought in your head, you can be sure it’s a spirit, and you can be sure it’s coming from the darkness. This is why the voices in your head—which I call sketchers—need to be discerned immediately. Most people hear a voice in their head, and they just go with it. They don’t put in any effort to discern who the voice belongs to, or where the voice is coming from. So they let themselves be manipulated by these thoughts, which run wild and distort the psyche, instead of having the wherewithal to realize, Oh, this isn’t even me. This is a spirit, and then dealing with the spirit accordingly.

It is important to discern the thoughts in our head as quickly as possible. This means that when we hear a negative thought, we must invoke the feminine factor, and check in with our emotional body, and take note of how the voice makes us feel. Do I feel lifted? Do I feel nurtured? Do I feel honored? Do I feel respected? Do I feel empowered? Do I feel good? And if we get a bunch of nos, then we know we’re dealing with an underworld spirit, at which point you want to ask it point-blank, “Are you from the underworld, spirit?” And if you get a yes, that’s when you know that it’s time to transport it to the light.

AVK (AUDIO, VISUAL, KINETIC)

There are three ways that people can receive spirit communication: through sounds, through images, and through feelings. Some people are auditory, some people are visual, and some people are kinesthetic. The sensory option that is the easiest/strongest for you is the one that your spirit will allow.

For people who allow themselves to hear spirits, the voice that they hear sounds like their own voice. Just like how the darkness takes on the forms that we already hold in our imagination, the spirits take on our own voices so that we will listen to them.

Feelers get specific feelings in certain parts of their body, and they learn from experience what those feelings in those particular places mean. Visual people get images in their mind’s eye, or upon objects, or reflective surfaces, like glass, or mirrors.

I have a client who isn’t very adept at hearing, or feeling. She’s visual. She came to see me for guidance when she cut her mother-in-law out of her life. I led her through a mediation in which she saw an image of two people hugging, which she took to mean that she should mend the relationship.

You can tell which sense people are most comfortable using by the way they speak. Kinesthetic people will say things like: “I feel you” or “I feel that _________.” Auditory people will say: “I hear you” or “It sounds like __________.” While visual people will say: “I see your point.” I can always tell which sense my clients are going to be most comfortable with by the words they use.

That Time My Friend Didn’t Discern the Voice in His Head

A lot of people think the idea of talking to the spirits masquerading as the voices in their head sounds crazy. But let me tell you, the true crazies are the ones who aren’t questioning their own thoughts and engaging their spirits. Those are the ones you really have to watch out for, because those are the ones who are losing their minds.

My friend Stephen decided he was going to move to the middle of some forest in the Pacific Northwest and live off the grid, surrounded by nature. This thought just occurred to him out of the blue (Hello, underworld spirit), and he didn’t think to question it. When he called to tell me his plan, I knew it was a bad idea.

“Why don’t you at least take some botany classes?” I suggested. “Or, some horticulture classes?”

People think discerning their spirits is all shaman mumbo jumbo, but really, it’s very practical. Like, how did Stephen think he was going to survive in the middle of nature with no skills whatsoever? As it turns out, Stephen never took the classes I suggested, and Stephen never paused to interrogate the voice that was telling him to move to a cabin with no electricity in the middle of the forest, which is why Stephen died from eating water hemlock.

Spirit Hack: Get Thee to the Light, Spirit

Given the intensity and the acceleration of the Blackout, we have to start taking action, and we have to start doing our part to put the planet back into balance. This means cleaning up the underworld spirit situation, and escorting our brothers and sisters back to the light where they belong.

You want to do this spirit hack standing up, because underworld spirits like to put you to sleep. So be sure you’re standing in a strong, powerful stance, with your arms crossed over your chest, so that the darkness can’t fuck with you.

STEP 1: INTERROGATE THE SKETCHERS.

§ Ask the voice, “Where are you from, spirit?”

First off, you want to be questioning any voice in your head that isn’t coming from love and isn’t lifting your spirit. This means asking it point-blank if it’s from the darkness.

§ Utilize your AVK sensory tool to receive the spirit’s reply, then grill it for self-knowledge.

Once you get confirmation that you’re dealing with an underworld spirit, then you want to take advantage of your proximity, and gather more information, so that you can get clarity as to why it’s in your field.

Some questions you can ask the underworld spirit include:

“How are you serving me, spirit?”

“Spirit, what benefits are you offering me?”

“Spirit, why have I held on to you for as long as I have?”

So, let’s say you hear a thought that says, You’re doing it wrong.

You want to challenge that voice, and ask it: “Who are you to tell me that I do everything wrong? Where do you come from?”

And the spirit will say something like, I am the voice that keeps you small. I am from the darkness.

So now you have confirmation that it’s an underworld spirit. Cool. Next, you can ask the spirit something along the lines of: “What do I get out of being small?” and then follow that pathway of inquiry to get clarity as to where and why you are hiding in your life.

What you don’t want to do is get nasty with the spirit. You might have some emotions come up around the issues the spirit is playing out with you, but you definitely don’t want to take them out on the spirit, or let the emotions knock you off your center—which is unconditional love and acceptance. If you are engaging a spirit through the lens of judgment, you’re not going to get any real clarity as to why it’s in your life; and you’re definitely not going to be able to send it to the light.

In Case of TSD (Temporary Spirit Deafness)

If you don’t hear the spirit respond to your questions, it’s because you’re afraid to hear the answers. The spirits never withhold information.

My uncle taught me this spirit hack when I was a kid, when my own fear of the darkness was keeping me from hearing the spirits. It’s a two-step process, and it always does the trick.

1. Clap your hands five times while saying aloud each time: “I am not afraid to confront the darkness.”

Clapping is a traditional shamanic technique to break up blocks, fear, and stagnation. Make sure you smack both palms together with strength and conviction. The noise it makes should be sharp and loud.

2. Next, say out loud to yourself: “I know you’re afraid, but I’m here with you. I’m not going to abandon you. You are completely safe with me. I love you. You can let the darkness speak. You are completely protected. You are so powerful. You can hear the darkness, and you can hear the spirits, and it is easy for you.”

I used this spirit hack on this macho Mexican guy who came to one of my classes with his wife. He told me flat out that he didn’t believe in any of my shamanic mumbo jumbo. I sat him in a chair in front of the class and led him through these steps, and within two minutes, he had these big, fat tears rolling down his face, while he chatted up his guides like they were long-lost friends. The whole class was crying. The guy now follows me on Instagram and comments all the time. He’s a full-on believer.

STEP 2: SEND THOSE SUCKERS TO THE LIGHT!

After you’re finished interrogating the spirit, now you’re ready to take it to the light and get some radical closure on this disempowering thought invader that’s been messing with you for God knows how long.

§ Say: “Spirit, I am taking you into the light, to a place of unconditional love and comfort and acceptance and freedom.”

§ Then ask: “How do you feel now that you’re in the light, spirit?”

It’s important to get confirmation from the spirit after you’ve transported it to the light, so that you know your efforts were successful, and that the spirit is out of your field for good. Plus, confirmation is helpful and encouraging when we are practicing our shamanic skills.

§ Once the spirit confirms that it’s in the light, ask: “Do you have any wisdom to share with me now that you are in the light, spirit?”

Because, guess what? Now that the spirit is in the light, it is speaking from the consciousness of light intelligence. When we transport a spirit to the light, that spirit goes from being a nuisance to being a great helper. Remember, you and that spirit were energetically enmeshed for some time, and you are the one who released it from the darkness and facilitated its return to the light. Now, that spirit’s got your back. As soon as it is reunited with the light, that spirit becomes a part of your spirit force, supporting you from the light realm as a lasting ally you can call on whenever you need.

§ Offer the spirit your gratitude, and a fond farewell.

After you receive the spirit’s wisdom and teachings, you thank the spirit, and you say good-bye to the spirit, because it’s good manners, and you weren’t raised in a barn.

Your Spirit Force Is a Thing. A Very Good Thing.

I bring spirits to the light all the time. I once dealt with a spirit that was generating a lot of self-hatred. After I interrogated it, and brought it to the light, I asked if it had any wisdom to offer me. The spirit taught me that the more that I love, the more love I have to give; and that the more I embrace people with love, the more powerful I become. And by powerful, I don’t mean power that is based on having agency over others. I mean power that is sourced from my devotion to being a servant of love and healing for humanity, and power that is sourced from my devotion to helping shift humanity into a new consciousness by choosing to take my love to greater heights, and expanding my capacity to hold, and give, and share, and emanate love. That spirit gave me a whole different perspective on love that allowed me to transcend my parental programming, which was Love is pain, or Love is when someone buys you something, and to be able to love for the sake of loving, for the sake of loving, for the sake of loving; and to know, with every fiber of my being, that through my love, transformation arises.

LOVE-AND-LIGHT, MY ASS

I meet a lot of New Age types who claim they’re all about love-and-light because it sounds cool, and it’s on trend. Except, they’re pretty much just talking out of their asses. These are the people who won’t deign to entertain the notion of bringing an underworld spirit to the light, because it’s too dark, or it’s too low vibe, or it doesn’t fit into the love-and-light brand as according to how social media tells them love-and-light is supposed to look and be hashtagged. These people have no idea what the hell they’re talking about.

You can’t claim to be all about love-and-light if you can’t stand in the face of darkness. Light consciousness is not swayed by underworld spirits, or by negative emotions, or by any perceived lack of love. Light consciousness is the consciousness that loves infinitely, in constant form, unconditionally, and without expiration dates. The light does not run from darkness, the light does not yield to duality, and the light does not give in to the lie of separation. The light holds its position, and keeps holding its position, until the darkness taps out, and surrenders, and harmonizes its vibration to the only truth there is—light.

A lot of people in the New Age spiritual scene are blinded by their misunderstanding of love-and-light and therefore won’t acknowledge anything that contradicts their perspective, which is Darkness doesn’t exist if I pretend it doesn’t exist. This denial is what got us into the Blackout in the first place, and this denial is going to be the end of the species unless we get to engaging the darkness, and quickly.

That Time I Learned to Meet the Darkness with Love

When I was fourteen years old, the darkness showed up in my room as a bunch of demons. Because I had given those images validity in my consciousness, the darkness projected those images back to me, and—voilà, demons. I called forth a blade on the astral plane and began fighting them with it. To the outside observer, it just looked like I was lying in my bed, having an intense dream. But on the astral plane, I was at war.

Then, an angel appeared. She looked like a regular human, but I wasn’t buying it.

“Is that what you really look like?” I asked, still clutching my blade.

The angel immediately transformed into her true form. She was very tall, and very thin, like an ET made of white fire, with lights beaming from the inside out. Her wings looked like they were made of opalescent jellyfish liquid. She didn’t have visible eyes all over her body, but it felt like she did, because her whole body was a sensory apparatus, and it was clear she could see everything.

The angel told me that I had forgotten the truth of why I had come to Earth, and that she wanted to show me something. Suddenly I was riding a white horse in a scene straight out of Braveheart. I was leading an army of people from all races, and all cultures, and all ages, who I knew were of the light. Across from us, in this massive green meadow, was another army, comprised of killers, and rapists, and witches, and evil sorcerers, and all kinds of wretched-looking beings from the darkness.

I led the army of light as we charged across the grass, weapons in hand. A powerful old wizard appeared in front of me, laughing in my face.

“The child of light!” he yelled. “HA! You are so foolish.”

The wizard smacked his staff to the ground, as a serpent made of fire slithered up from the earth, flew into the air, shot across the field, and went straight through the center of my body, leaving a big, burnt hole in the middle of my chest. It hurt like a motherfucker. And as I lay there on the ground, coughing up blood, I looked up to see the army of light collapsing all around me as they were being killed by the darkness.

I heard a voice say: “Again!”

Suddenly, I was back on the horse, readying my light army to charge, once again. I instructed my army to put down their weapons and told them that, instead, we were going to fight with our fists, and with our magic.

As we charged across the grass, a woman with pale white skin and fiery, red eyes appeared in front of me. She sneered and laughed, waving her hands in the air and conjuring all these mystical symbols, which caused my entire body to erupt in massive boils, which were bursting with blood and all sorts of nastiness.

“This is the child of light who has come to wake up the people?” she cackled as I lay there bleeding, and my army of light collapsing around me. “This is the child of light who has come to help them remember the truth?”

And then I heard that same voice say: “Again!”

Again, I was back on my horse.

“What are you doing, child of light?” asked the uniformed general who suddenly appeared over my shoulder.

Again, I addressed the army of light as we prepared to charge across the meadow, where the beings of darkness were taunting us.

“We cannot fight with our fists,” I yelled over the hollers, cackles, and screams coming from the dark army. “We cannot fight with magic! We cannot fight with weapons! There is only one thing left for us to do!”

I instructed the army of light to think of someone they love. Then I told them to take one another’s hands, and to walk with me across the grass to greet our brothers and sisters. I told them to hold that thought of love in their consciousness, and to beam it toward the dark army with unwavering devotion, regardless of what weapons or magic they tried to use against us.

Hand in hand, we walked across the field, beaming love straight from our hearts as the beings of the darkness ran toward us with knives, and daggers, and magical weapons. As the light hit each one of them, the beings emerged from the other side in human form, dressed in white. Their faces lit up, as they remembered themselves, and they remembered each other, their cheeks wet with tears of joy, as they were reunited with the people they had once known.

In the midst of this joyful reunion, a grouping of massive stones etched with circles emerged from out of the ground, in geometric formation, like Stonehenge. An ancient Druidic woman named Helga stood in the center of the rocks. She called me to her, placed a gold medallion around my neck, and told me to look up. As I lifted my chin to the sky, I saw dozens of angels floating above us in a circle.

“Do you understand what must be done, child of light?” she asked.

“Yes,” I said.

“You can never fight darkness with anger,” she said, affirming the lesson I had just learned. “You must always meet darkness with love.”

That was the last time the underground spirits appeared to me as demons. Now they appear to me as people, as my fellow brothers and sisters, and I always, always meet them—and all darkness—with love.

ENGAGE THE DARKNESS

Shamanism is all about engaging. When we happen upon something we don’t understand, we don’t judge, we don’t contract, we don’t attack, we don’t shove our heads in the sand, and we definitely don’t run away; we engage. We say, Oh, hey there, voice of doom and gloom. Who are you? Oh, you’re a sketcher. Got it. Why are you here? How are you serving me? What’s your medicine? Okeydokey. Off to the light you go, dear one. And then we take the wisdom, and we let it propel us on our poprocks paths.…

Our refusal to engage our collective shadow has made us an arrogant culture, blindly devoted to consumption and profit, and oblivious to the magnitude of suffering and discord we create in the process. This distorted perspective is greatly limiting the spectrum of evolution available to us at a time when humanity needs to be expanding their capacity to evolve. We are not being honest about our waste, our corruption, or our addiction to oil, and to sugar, and to screens, and to doubt. And we are not being honest about how we are disrespecting our planet, our bodies, and our fellow beings.

The Blackout marks a turning point where human beings have no choice but to take responsibility for the darkness we are perpetuating here on Earth—the darkness we hide from, and blame everyone else for, and victimize ourselves, too.

BVP

Human beings are currently under full-fledged assault by the victim program. The matrix is flooding the masses with false ideas about the virtues of victimhood, and false ideas about the value of victimhood with astounding intensity, thereby turning victimhood into a competitive sport, with people literally fighting for the title of Biggest Victim on the Planet. The program is like a virus that spreads rapidly and ferociously through gossip and filtering—gossip, meaning the lens through which facts are distorted to individuals through conversations with other people; and filtering, meaning the lens through which the events taking place are being distorted to the masses by the media.

The system uses the media to program the people, and to control their minds. Our trusted news organizations manipulate the information they are disseminating to deliberately disempower the populace. They no longer tell stories objectively in such a way as to allow the public to engage their critical thinking, and to draw their own conclusions. The media tells people what they are supposed to think, and how they are supposed to feel, while angling their stories through the system’s agenda, which is to profit, and to divide, and to control. The media filters objective facts through fear, lack, duality, and negativity, and through the tired old formula that pits an evil aggressor against an innocent victim.

The vast majority of Hollywood movies indoctrinate people into thinking that those who suffer the most, and endure the greatest hardship, are the ones who rise to the top. This programming only exacerbates the disconnect humans are already experiencing when it comes to elevating themselves spiritually, mentally, and emotionally—by choice—because the system doesn’t teach us how, and the system doesn’t encourage us to try, and the system offers no models or myths that would inspire us to follow suit. The media doesn’t traffic in stories about conscious evolution, or deliberate transformation, because the people choosing this kind of growth for themselves don’t make for marketable influencers in a culture that prays at the feet of victimhood. So we conflate our elevation with pain and suffering, because we are beholden to the false belief that adversity is the path to fulfillment. Ugh.

But it’s not just media and entertainment that are propagating the victim program. Organized religion is not only doing its part to squelch the masses, but getting them pumped to disempower themselves, as well. Look at the whole Jesus narrative, which is, like, the worst public relations campaign in the history of public relations campaigns. Millions and millions of people worship this image of a man in his underpants, nailed to a cross, bleeding from his skull and his hands and his feet, while being tortured to death on the worst day of his otherwise magnificent life. Like, that image is representative of this man’s legacy? Seriously? And these devotees have the nerve to hang that image in their homes, and to wear that image around their necks, when it’s this massive, pulsing testament to victimhood? It’s no wonder we live in a culture where people are fighting to win the BVP trophy when that’s the best picture they could come up with for the freakin’ messiah. I mean, really.

EVERYONE SUFFERS

Look, as much as I love being prosperous and abundant, and manifesting wonderful things and experiences, the reality is that we didn’t come to Earth to be pampered in luxury every minute of every day. We came to Earth to actually do something—to lift and to shift, and to create, and to transform the system, which happens to be riddled with darkness. Which means that when we incarnate, we agree to take on obstacles, and challenges, and loss, and trauma, and pain, and humiliation—all so that we can learn about ourselves, and grow, and teach, and lead.

Everyone suffers—until we learn how not to, that is. But no one incarnates on planet Earth, and gets a free pass that allows them to skip out on the trauma, and the sadness, and the terror, and the pain. That’s all part of the ride. Just because someone has a particular skin tone, or a particular body part, or a particular belief structure, or a particular net worth, doesn’t mean they are immune to the human condition, and to the wheel of suffering we all incarnate into.

Right now we have people on the planet who are claiming that their suffering is greater than anyone else’s suffering, and that their suffering is more valid than anyone else’s suffering; and it’s ridiculous. There are no levels to suffering. Suffering is suffering. Each person’s perception of suffering is based upon their own experience of pain, and their own relationship to pain. Some people have endured a lot of pain and therefore have developed a high tolerance for pain, and do not suffer through the sort of experience that would inspire suffering in other people. So to offer such a person pity for what you perceive as suffering is misdirected, as well as useless. Because what value does pity have, except to allow the person offering it to feel superior to the person he pities, which isn’t really very empowering at all, now is it? People hear my story, and say: “Oh my God, I can’t imagine how much you’ve suffered.” But to me, it wasn’t suffering. It was an opportunity to become Shaman Durek—to learn about the human condition, and human resilience, and to become a steward of human nature, and to help people to develop into superhuman versions of themselves. I don’t see it as suffering at all. I see it as a necessary part of my authentic path.

ACCEPTANCE

People who are operating in victim consciousness are seeking sympathy and external validation for the parts of themselves they are not willing to love and accept themselves. Because they are not willing to bring love and acceptance into the fold of their own lives, they choose to position themselves as victims to rationalize the hurt and the trauma they are not dealing with. It’s unfortunate that our society has been set up to reward such a disempowering orientation, especially when the external validation our victim stories beget does nothing to quell the pain we are attempting to mask. Trauma is not transmuted by pity. The only way to transmute trauma is through acceptance.

Healing occurs when we accept reality as it is, and when we acknowledge that everything happens for the greater good of our being—that our trauma is leading us somewhere. Maybe it will lead us to stand more firmly in our power. Maybe it will lead us to take more responsibility for our lives and our relationships. Maybe it will lead us to communicate more clearly and more compassionately. It could mean a multitude of things. But we will never find out where our suffering is meant to lead us if we don’t accept that it happened, and that it happened for our benefit, which means being willing to step out of the identity construct of being a person who got hurt.

FROM VICTIMHOOD TO VICTORY

Look, under no circumstances do I condone any behavior that causes any harm to any being whatsoever. However, we live in an ever-shifting, anything-can-happen-at-any-moment kind of world, populated by a handful of people who are sick, and who are traumatized, and who are looking for a victim to share the pain they feel inside.

When life configures itself in such a way that we do experience trauma, or that we are victims of abuse, or pain, or misfortune, we must not dwell in the place of suffering, or self-pity, or Woe is me. We must not stay in victimhood. We must acknowledge that yes, I was a victim. Take me, for example. Yes, I was molested by my babysitter as a child. Yes, I was abused by my father, and my stepmother. Yes, all these things happened, and, yes, I was a victim. But I chose not to stay a victim. I chose to use my experiences as fuel to amplify me from victimhood to victory. We must all utilize our every experience to propel us into greater iterations of ourselves, and into success and empowerment—not just for us, as individuals, but for humanity.

Gandhi was a victim. Nelson Mandela was a victim. Martin Luther King Jr. was a victim. But they didn’t sit there and dwell in their victimhood. If they had, they would never have impacted society and the world the way they did. They didn’t cling to their victimhood. They moved on, and they turned their experiences into material to learn from, and to grow from, and to empower themselves with.

You see, the deeper you delve into the shamanic path, the more you realize that all the hurt you have experienced—all the mistakes, misfires, and miscalculations, and all the stumbles, and fumbles, and faceplants—have all been absolutely, unequivocally necessary for your evolution. When we remove the judgment from our past, and we embrace it in its entirety with love, our traumas and our hurts become the source of great power, wisdom, courage, strength, and love.

That Time My Client Got Stabbed, and—Ultimately—Saw It as a Blessing

I had a client named Jane who was stabbed coming off the subway in New York City. For as long as she could remember, Jane’s biggest fear was getting stabbed, so I wasn’t all that surprised when she was. Her recovery was long and arduous. She was in the hospital for months, and left with one less kidney and a serious chip on her shoulder. When I asked Jane if she could accept what had happened to her, and if she could be grateful for what her assailant had done to her, she said no. She said she would never accept what had happened, and that she would never forgive the man who stabbed her, let alone extend any gratitude his way.

I explained to Jane that until she found her way to gratitude, she wouldn’t learn the lesson that Spirit had sent to help her in her evolution. Jane’s immediate response was to ask if I thought it was okay for children to be raped and murdered. It’s funny how many people leap to this hypothetical when I invite them to thank their perceived aggressors. It’s like standard-issue victim consciousness pushback at this point.

I replied that no, I do not think it is okay for people to harm children, but that the fact remains that we must utilize our every life experience to elevate ourselves to higher levels of consciousness. I told Jane that yes, it was horrible that she had lost her kidney; and that yes, it was horrible that she had to spend all that time in the hospital, and in pain, and in recovery. But none of those terrible things changed the fact that in order for her spirit to reveal the hidden reason as to why the stabbing had to happen, she had to find a way to be grateful for it, and she had to find a way to extend that gratitude to her attacker.

It took some time, but Jane came back about six months later with a very different perspective. You see, she had found her way not only to gratitude but also to jujitsu. Jane’s experience in self-defense classes stirred something deep inside her that she had never felt before. As a kindergarten teacher, Jane had thought her path was in educating children. It turned out that her passion and her purpose were in empowering women to protect themselves, and to empower themselves. Through her willingness to accept the stabbing, and to be grateful to the man who did the stabbing, Jane realized that it wouldn’t have even crossed her mind to pursue her true path if the stabbing hadn’t happened.

Spirit Hack: Milking the Medicine from Our Suffering

When we cling to our trauma, and to the victim stories we attach to it, all we end up doing is perpetuating our own pain. Pain is that which we experience, while the wound is that which still needs healing. In order to heal a wound, we must open the wound up and allow it to be exposed, so that we can air it out, and allow the light of day, and wisdom, and consciousness to work its healing magic. This spirit hack is a three-step shamanic process that allows us to air out our wounds, and to use our suffering to lift and shift, and to get lit.

For this spirit hack, be sure to set yourself up in a safe space, away from any noise, or interruptions, or other people. This exercise invites you to explore tender territory, so be sure to make yourself comfortable while doing this by sitting somewhere cozy, and comfortable, while wearing loose, warm clothing, and surrounding yourself with comforting items, like a favorite pillow, or blanket, or crystal, and a nice, warm cup of tea.

§ Ask yourself: How did the experience serve me?

First and foremost, you want to explore why your spirit chose to create these experiences for you, and to examine how this suffering has served your evolution.

Take me, for example. When I look back at the experience of being molested as a kid, in spite of the many ways it distorted my character through alcoholism, and drug addiction, and homophobia, it also heightened my energetic sensitivity in a really practical and applicable way, what with me being a shaman and all. To have been so consistently sexually charged at such a young age activated my sensorium and allowed me to start attuning my energetic sensitivities from a unique perspective/entry point. At this point in my shamanic undertaking, I can sense frequencies to an extraordinarily subtle degree of energy exchange, just as I can feel the slightest of energetic shifts when frequencies are communicating with one another. That early sexual stimulation is what allowed me to start working with such subtle sensorial energetics all those years ago and has definitely contributed to my shamanic mastery. So, while I don’t condone what happened to me, when I look at the experience from a shamanic perspective, I can say that the molestation was a blessing.

§ Thank the person who inflicted the suffering.

Thanking the person who caused our pain requires a great deal of humility, and a great deal of compassion—both for the other, as well as for ourselves. It is a way of recognizing that all parties involved shared an energy that needed to play itself out on the physical plane in order for each of you to attain certain levels of information and knowledge that you wouldn’t have gleaned without that experience. Thanking the person is a way of acknowledging that your suffering served your spiritual growth, and that your transgressor is your teacher, as well as your medicine.

Note: When we offer our gratitude, it is a simple internal act that we perform in the confines of our own mind. There is no need to reach out to the person directly.

§ Ask yourself: What do I want to do with this gift?

Now that you know the medicine this suffering holds for you, how are you going to put it to use in empowering yourself? How are you inspired to utilize these gems you’ve just mined in highest service to yourself, and to humanity?

People get stuck in a victim mentality by continually asking themselves: Why did this happen to me? Except Why isn’t the right question to be asking yourself. Why keeps you stuck in victim consciousness; and victim consciousness slows down the process of evolution by creating more aggressors, more attackers, and more pain so that you can be right, and stay hurt, and play small. But this book isn’t about playing small. This book is about getting lit, and living large, and manifesting poprocks amazingness while ringing in a Giant Age on Earth, which means the questions you want to be asking yourself are:

What can I do now that this has happened to me?

How can I use this experience to empower me?

What can I learn from this experience?

What can I do with this experience?

How can I use this experience to better the world?

How can I use this experience to create change in my own life?

How can I use this to help other people avoid the same pain that I endured?

“CHILDHOOD PAIN,” UGH.

When we hold on to pain, we suffer. But pain and suffering are very different things. Pain is a sensory experience we feel in our physical form—either emotionally, or physically. Suffering is a psychic experience that occurs when we hold on to that pain. Pain is a natural occurrence. Suffering is a choice.

People who hold on to mental and emotional pain that was inflicted in the past are identified with the perspective that something unfair or unjust has been done to them. They cling to the pain either because they are waiting for some sort of grand act of forgiveness, or because they are rationalizing the distorted worldview they’ve built upon it. But even just the act of calling it our “childhood pain” creates a quantum entanglement in affirming it, and making a proclamation of it. When we name things, we legitimize them as constructs that exist, and as organizing structures in our lives. Childhood pain is a generic label we slap on top of stagnant old trauma we haven’t dealt with. The real issue we are failing to identify when we rationalize something in our current reality as “childhood pain” is that we are stuck. “Childhood pain” is just a ruse we play out to justify the limitations that we are imposing upon ourselves.

HURT COLLECTORS

I call people who identify with their pain hurt collectors. Hurt collectors attach to their suffering and brandish it like a badge of honor. Hurt collectors use their pain as a way to avoid taking responsibility for the areas of their lives they need to be bringing love to. It is also a way of justifying their failings, as in: The reason I’m not stable, or aligned, or moving forward in my life is because I went through all this pain in my childhood.

I always think of Helen Keller when I hear people make these kinds of excuses for their lackluster lives. This woman was blind, deaf, and mute, and she transcended the horrible odds against her and figured out a way to make her life work. But you can’t pull it off because you’re lactose intolerant, and your dad had an affair when you were eight?

Hurt collectors are operating from the perspective that something was done to them. The choice to frame oneself as a victim of an experience that was perpetrated upon them, instead of as one of any number of players in a neutrally unfolding event that simply happened, is what differentiates someone operating in victim consciousness from someone who takes responsibility for their life. The victim narrative blinds the hurt collectors to the larger perspective, and limits them from realizing that every pain they experience is a gift from Spirit meant to open them up to greater depths of truth and wisdom within themselves.

At this phase in the Blackout, a lot of people want to be acknowledged for their hardships, which is why we have so many people sharing their sob stories, and hashtagging their trauma, and telegraphing their pain out to the world, thinking that if people Like their suffering, and if people comment on their suffering, and if people respond to their suffering, then their suffering has value. Again, we see people selling themselves down the river in yet another attempt to collect the external validation that they really need to be giving themselves. This is because people are operating from a very limited perspective on suffering, and they don’t understand its true value from a spiritual point of view. It is only when we stop seeking external validation for our sad, sad stories that we can genuinely understand that our suffering was a pivotal part of our evolutionary path, and that we can empower ourselves by contextualizing our experiences as spiritual growth instead of responding to them and victimizing ourselves by labeling them as childhood pain, or injustice, or suffering.

You see, redemption does not come from telling our victim stories, or from collecting pity from our victim stories. Redemption comes from taking responsibility for them. The moment we take responsibility for our suffering is the moment we realize it had to happen. And that’s when the spirits spring to attention, and leap in to support us, because they’re like, Finally! You took responsibility for that thing you’ve been giving your power away to. Hurray. Now, let’s open the door, so you can walk through it, and see why that experience was necessary, and how it served you. And that’s when you get to see that there was a method to the madness all along.

RESPONSE-ABILITY

Because people associate the word “responsibility” with the idea of some outside authority imposing itself upon them, they avoid the act of taking responsibility altogether. True responsibility has nothing to do with external agents or hierarchy. True responsibility is the ability to respond with love. The act of taking responsibility means we are responding to whatever the situation is with love. It’s very simple.

This means that when life illuminates one of our less favorable qualities, and when we are confronted with a pattern or an aspect of ourselves that isn’t serving us, we don’t respond with blame, judgment, aggression, defensiveness, or what have you, because all that those reactions do is cut us off from the greater wisdom the experience has to share. We cannot access the method to the madness if we’re letting darkness run our emotional body, and thereby judging ourselves, or beating ourselves up. But when we take responsibility for what is by rooting ourselves in unconditional love and acceptance, then we are aligned to receive the wisdom the shadow holds for us.

Spirit Hack: Responding with Love

To respond with love means to listen and embrace. It does not mean to judge, or to figure out whether the emotion or the energy deserves our embrace, or is worthy of our embrace. It just means to be fully present with, in a field of unconditional love and acceptance.

Be sure to set yourself up in a safe, private spot while doing this spirit hack. You can do it when you’re feeling acute emotional upset—like if you just had a fight with someone, or messed up at work. You also want to do this with emotional upsets that happened in the past but that still trigger you. You’re also going to want to have a bowl of water at the ready, as well as a journal, and a pen.

§ Call up a belief or a situation that upsets you emotionally. Allow that emotional upset to arise inside you, and allow yourself to feel it.

§ Say: “I’m here with you, and I’m here to support you.”

§ Take a deep breath, then say: “I see that you are upset, and I understand why you are upset.”

§ Take a deep breath, then say: “I invite wisdom into the situation, so that I can see it more clearly.”

Wisdom is energy. When we call upon wisdom, it comes to us immediately. Avail yourself of the wisdom you are calling in.

§ Take a deep breath, and say: “I accept the wisdom into this situation.”

§ Place your left hand over your belly button, and place your right hand over your heart. Take a deep breath, and say: “I am now willing to see this situation through the lens of love.”

Remember, your navel is your place of knowing and courage. This positioning allows you to magnetically connect to love, and to perceive through love’s lens.

§ Take three deep breaths, while still holding your right hand on your heart, and your left hand on your belly button.

§ Say: “Now that I see it through the lens of love, this is what I see: ____________”; and then speak aloud the wisdom and the clarity that you see.

§ After you’ve spoken aloud all that you see, say: “Now, it’s time for me to let it go.”

§ Take the bowl of water, and hold it up to your face. Say: “I blow all of the energy around this situation into this water.”

§ Blow into the water.

§ Take the bowl, and then dump out the water—preferably in a garden, or a plant, somewhere outside. But if you’re in an apartment, the sink is fine.

§ Then take your journal, and write about your experience of this spirit hack.

THE SHADOW

The shadow has been so maligned, and is so misunderstood, that people avoid it like it’s a plague, which is a shame, given that the shadow is one of our greatest evolutionary tools. People confuse the shadow with the things the shadow holds on to for us—which I call the junkery—and then they judge the shadow as bad, or wrong, or scary, when none of this could be further from the truth.

The shadow is called “the shadow” because it is the projection that the light is casting onto our world. The dictionary defines a shadow as an image cast upon a surface by a body intercepting the light. This means that the shadowy bits we perceive are not indicative of some evil outside entity, rather they are the projection of light off the intercepting body, which is you, and which is me, and which is every human on the planet. If you’ve got a body, you’ve got a shadow. And you’d better be able to dance with it, babe.

The shadow is the part of our being that is pure light and that holds on to the things that we are not taking responsibility for. The shadow holds on to our pain, and our fragmentation, and our distorted belief systems. It holds on to our judgments, and our vices, and all the lies we tell ourselves. The shadow is the part of you that knows you judge, and knows you steal from the lost and found at the gym, and knows that you pretend not to see the homeless people panhandling on the subway because you think they’re dirty, and beneath you. The shadow holds on to all these parts of us that we don’t want illuminated, and that we definitely don’t want to look at, much less deal with; and it patiently waits for us to lift, and to shift, and to deal.

THE SHADOW IS OMNISCIENT AF

The shadow isn’t just some passive cosmic schlub waiting around for us to get brave enough to look at our junkery. The shadow is a treasure trove of self-knowledge that’s totally psyched to dance with us anytime we say the word. The shadow knows everything about you, and can show you everything you need to see, which is why it is so important to develop a conscious relationship with your shadow. Your shadow knows you better than anyone possibly could. When I’m working with a client, and I want to get to the truth of the matter, I always address my questions to the client’s shadow, because there’s nothing it doesn’t know, and it always tells the truth.

Like, I asked a client why he had cancer. He shrugged and said it was genetic; but his shadow told me it was because my client hated his job, and felt confined in his marriage, and because his mental processes were all messed up from the constant self-flagellation, which was activating high levels of inflammation, and degrading his cellular walls, and expressing itself as cancer.

Or, when I asked a client’s shadow why she was chain-smoking, and the shadow said it was because she was trying to manage her high sex drive, and that once she found a safe, healthy outlet for that energy, she wouldn’t need to smoke anymore. And, you know what? My client started getting Tantric massages and quit smoking altogether.

I talk to my shadow all the time. (Worry not, my love; you will learn how to do this yourself in the next chapter.) My shadow tells me, straight up: Get off the dating apps. When I ask the shadow why it’s telling me to delete the dating apps, it says it’s because I’m on the apps out of fear—fear that I’m not going to meet anyone because I’m so introverted. My shadow says I’m playing out a belief construct that has me using sex as a way to initiate connection, instead of refraining from sex, and drawing in people who are vibrating at more expansive frequencies, and building conscious connections from a more authentic place. My shadow is always weighing in about my life choices. Now, whether I always choose to listen to my shadow is a whole different thing.…

SHADOW DANCING

A lot of spiritual/therapeutic traditions, practices, and modalities put a value judgment on the shadow, and orient to it as though it’s something we need to transmute or transcend. This is incorrect. From that perspective, the shadow itself is, yet again, conflated with the junkery it’s holding on to for us, and is therefore demonized as bad. The bigger issue with this framing is that the shadow isn’t actually asking you to transform your hurt, or your discord, or your shoplifting habit. Your shadow is just asking you to take responsibility for them—to own these aspects of your being (and every aspect of your being) with unconditional love and acceptance. The only thing your shadow wants you to do with your junkery is for you to take responsibility for it.

The shadow does not share humans’ need to be loved, and to be liked, and to feel safe, because the shadow is the projection of pure light intelligence, which is already safe. This means the shadow doesn’t sugarcoat. The shadow tells it like it is, and the shadow doesn’t hold back, because the shadow loves you unconditionally, and has no fear of hurting your feelings, or of you being mad at it for saying something you don’t want to hear.

Shadow dancers don’t fear the truth. We dance with it. When the shadow throws us whammies, we must be able to step, and to sway, and to shimmy with the reflections, no matter how unseemly we judge them to be. We must dance with the truth so that we are able to embrace the truth, and allow it to enrich our lives.

At this stage in the Blackout, it is crucial for people to begin to integrate the shadow into their lives. People need to be developing an authentic, engaged, and deeply curious relationship with their shadow; and they definitely need to be communicating with their shadow on the regular.

Spirit Hack: The Morning Shadow Dance

For starters, you want to check in with your shadow first thing in the morning to set yourself up to be as poprocks as possible for the day ahead. So, grab a pen and a piece of paper.

§ Draw a line down the center of the page, and write the questions you want to ask your shadow on the left side of the page. You want to ask your shadow questions like:

Shadow, what can I do to raise my frequency?

How should I prioritize my day, Shadow?

How can I optimize my productivity today, Shadow?

Shadow, how can I boost my energy today?

Shadow, how can I optimize my health today?

Shadow, how can I expand my joy today?

How can I optimize my connection to other people today, Shadow?

Where shall I focus my energy and attention today, Shadow?

You always address the shadow—and all energies—by name. We do this as a way of acknowledging that what we are engaging in the spirit realm is real. Also, to be respectful.

§ Ask your shadow your questions out loud.

§ Using your AVK sensory perception, write down the answers your shadow gives you in the right-hand column of your paper.

Having a physical representation of your shadow’s insights gives it greater validity, while helping you strengthen your ability to communicate with your shadow.

§ Finish this spirit hack by saying: “Thank you, Shadow. I love you, Shadow.”

§ Use the insight your shadow gives you to design and organize your day.

Spirit Hack: The Moment-to-Moment Shadow Dance

In addition to checking in with your shadow first thing in the morning, you want to touch base with your shadow as choices and decisions present themselves to you throughout the day, and throughout your life.

For instance, if you’re invited to an event that you’re not sure you really want to go to, ask your shadow:

§ “Will it serve my highest joy, health, and happiness to go to this event tonight, Shadow?”

Or, if you’re trying to figure out if you should wake up early to go to yoga, or take a recovery day, you would ask your shadow:

§ “Shadow, is it best for me to take a recovery day today?”

Then your shadow might tell you that calling it a “recovery day” won’t change the fact that it’s actually just you being lazy and wanting to sleep in because you’re hungover from wine and carbs, when what your body really needs is to move and to sweat.

Now you have clarity as to what will serve your highest; and you can utilize your free will to honor that highest, or to not honor that highest. It’s totally up to you. Choice rocks.

§ Remember to finish this spirit hack by saying: “Thank you, Shadow. I love you, Shadow.”

Spirit Hack: The Why the fuck do I keep doing this to myself? Shadow Dance

Developing a relationship with the shadow allows you to access the insight and wisdom it holds, which you, as a lit leader, can then use to level-up your life. This means getting real about what isn’t working in your life, and allowing your shadow to show you how to shift it.

§ Again, draw a line down the center of a piece of paper, and write your questions on the left-hand side. You can ask the shadow things like:

Show me how to increase the joy in my life, Shadow.

How can I be more effective in my work, Shadow?

Shadow, why have my last four boyfriends all cheated on me?

Shadow, what do I need to do to get out of debt?

Basically, you’re asking your shadow to give you clarity and advice on the aspects of your life that are proving difficult for you. Be brave, and be honest. The shadow can only take you as far as your honesty. The deeper you are willing to delve into your authenticity, the more the shadow can assist you.

§ Ask your shadow your questions.

§ Write the shadow’s answers on the right-hand side of the page.

§ Finish this spirit hack by saying: “Thank you, Shadow. I love you, Shadow. I will take responsibility for all my junkery at some point, and we will be able to merge as one with the light.”

EVERYTHING IS A CHOICE

Have-to is a way that people victimize themselves to what they perceive to be their earthly obligations. It is important to remember that we are all operating under free will, which means that everything is a choice. Just because your shadow tells you to get up and do yoga, or tells me to get off the dating apps, doesn’t mean we have to make those choices. We might not want to make those choices. We might not be ready to make those choices. If I choose to get off the dating apps just because my shadow tells me to, that’s not me authentically lifting and shifting, that’s me trying to control the situation, and wanting to appease my shadow. Free will means that I can choose to utilize the shadow’s insight if I want to, or I can choose to use the shadow’s advice to draw me into a deeper inquiry into the fears and beliefs and experiences that are informing my dating app use, and unravel them at an appropriate pace. I can empower myself through the process of accepting that this is where I’m at, while taking responsibility for the fact that this is where I’m at, knowing that I’m not going to be here forever, because, like my girl Chaka Khan says, everything changes.

A lot of people feel burdened by the have-tos the matrix imposes upon them, but the truth is we always have a choice. You can choose to pay your bills, or you can choose to not pay your bills. If you want electricity, then you probably want to choose to pay that bill, because that’s what the exchange is. Same with cell phone service, or waste disposal. But most people don’t see it from this perspective. Most people see their bills as some terrible affront that is being perpetrated upon them, instead of recognizing their agency in their choice to participate in the exchange the bill represents.

Framing our agreements and our obligations through the lens of have-to victimizes us to our reality. Have-to is a disempowering energy suck that weakens the spirit. The antidote is free will. Free will gives us back our power. I am not a victim to oral hygiene, and I don’t have to brush my teeth twice a day. I choose to brush my teeth twice a day because I value the function of oral hygiene, and I value my teeth for helping me masticate, and for making my smile that much more amazing. So I choose to honor my teeth by choosing to take care of them; and the power that is embedded in that choice is what fuels me to give my pearly whites a thorough brushing, even when it’s late, and I’m exhausted and would much rather be asleep in bed.

The act of acknowledging our actions as choices is both energizing and empowering, because the energetic frequencies of choice align us with the truth of our nature as quantum creators.