April 17, 2025 • 26 mins
In this episode, Mike dives deep into the misunderstood realm of shadow work and how emotional discomfort often reveals the exact area of life calling for liberation. Drawing from his own experiences and coaching conversations, Mike shares how facing the parts of yourself you’ve rejected—your fear, shame, judgment, or insecurity—is the gateway to deeper trust, inner peace, and personal power. Shadow work isn’t something to be afraid of—it’s the very path to becoming whole. If you’ve ever felt like something inside is blocking your next level, this episode offers the clarity and insight to move through it.
Key Takeaways:
- Your Shadow Isn’t the Problem—Avoiding It Is–Facing the parts of yourself you’ve been avoiding leads to emotional freedom, not deeper pain.
- Your Triggers Are Invitations–Emotional reactions aren’t obstacles—they’re signals that healing is ready to occur.
- Healing Happens Through Awareness, Not Force–When you sit with discomfort instead of fighting it, transformation unfolds naturally.
- You Are Not Broken–Your shadow isn’t something to fix—it’s something to love, integrate, and bring into wholeness.
- Power Is Found in Integration–When you stop abandoning parts of yourself, you reclaim the full power of your presence.
Notable Quotes:
- “When you stop trying to outrun your shadow and start turning toward it, it dissolves its power over you.”
- “You’re not here to be perfect. You’re here to become whole.”
- “The shadow will scream for your attention until you love it.”
- “That emotion is not a problem—it’s an invitation into your next level of personal power.”
- “When you stop rejecting what’s hard to feel, you stop rejecting who you are.”
Music Credit: "What's Left of Me" by Wes Hoffman & Friends
Click here to visit our website to access free tools and resources, our Meditation Bundle, upcoming events, and our coaching service offerings.
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Subscribe to my YouTube: / @mikekitko
Mike Kitko is an executive self-mastery coach, speaker and author. He found external success through powerful titles, incomes, and material possessions. He ultimately fell into depression, toxic abuse of alcohol, and the near collapse of his family before he began a journey of internal happiness and success.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:03):
Do you ever wake up feeling like there's something
missing in your life?
Do you ever feel the need toescape your business?
Are you running your life or isyour life running you?
I'm Mike Kitko and I'll helpyou design and create a life so
authentic and aligned with whoyou really are that you'll get
excited just to wake up.
I'll help you create realwealth, success and freedom from
the inside out.
(00:23):
Welcome to the Inner WealthPodcast, where we learn and
choose to live inspired each andevery day.
If you listened to the episodethe Inner Wealth Podcast episode
last week with me and my wife,angie, you know that last week
(00:44):
we held our spring inner wealthmastermind retreat at the Outer
Banks in the Outer Banks, northCarolina, and it was a beautiful
place called Corolla, northCarolina Beautiful.
We absolutely fell in love withthat part of the country.
We had never been to the OuterBanks before and this is, like
Kerala is, I guess, more off thebeaten path.
(01:07):
There's not like one chainrestaurant in the whole area,
it's all mom and pops and therewasn't a lot of people there
because of the time of year it'snot quite high season yet but
what a wonderful, wonderful time, and the first two days of our
trip we had 80 to 85 degreeweather and then, as the week
went on, it really cooled off.
(01:28):
It's like a storm came in andit dropped 40 degrees.
But what a wonderful, wonderful, beautiful experience that was
at the Outer Banks and we'remaking plans, we're thinking
about Angie and I love that areaso much.
We'll probably go back andvisit again soon and just spend
some more time there, because itwas man.
What a great experience.
But we spent.
(01:49):
We saw some dolphins, we sawall kind of animals.
It was awesome.
But when we hold our retreatsand last week was about giving
you a little, you know, behindthe curtains peek at the Inner
Wealth, mastermind and the workthat we do together.
I lead a lot of meditation inour retreats, in our intensives.
(02:12):
I record meditations.
They're available oninnerwealthglobalcom and
meditation has changed my lifeand I run.
I guess I led over the courseof two days probably four
meditations, maybe five.
Some of them were.
One of them was three minutes,one was, you know, a half an
hour or so.
But I lead guided meditationdeep down inside of yourself to
(02:49):
understand what's there, in somecases to install some new
software and in some cases touninstall expired software and
to you could say, to reprogramsome corrupt programs.
So meditation, there's avariety, especially guided
meditation.
There's a variety of ways andmethods and reasons, but either
way it's powerful and it'llreshape.
It'll help you with the rightperson, with the right guide.
(03:10):
It'll help you reshape who youare.
And if you're interested inexperiencing some of my
meditations,innerwealthglobalcom, there's a
meditation bundle.
It's got I don't know eight ornine meditations in there and
both of them are from retreatsor intensives where it was a
good one and I produced it and Iput it in the bundle.
But at the end of the retreat Iwe went around the room and I
(03:36):
asked all of the students, allthe people that were there, not
just the students, but you knowCara Dossi, our operations
assistant, and Angie, and.
But you know, cara Dossi, ouroperations assistant, and Angie
and I shared mine no-transcript,and I love hearing you know
(04:09):
opportunities for improvement aswell.
So when I do this it's not justabout getting you know all
positive feedback.
But when we went around, one ofthe participants said you know,
what I love the most was theshadow work meditation that we
did, and what I loved least wasthe shadow work meditation that
(04:30):
we did and I thought that waspretty profound, because that's
exactly what you would expectout of leading that kind of
meditation.
Now let me tell you a littlebit about what shadow work is.
Deep inside of you are wounds.
(04:52):
Deep inside of you aresuppressed emotions from
experiences.
Inside of you there are beliefs, there are.
In Sanskrit it's called.
They're called samskaras, s-a-m, samskara, s-k-a-r-a, and what
(05:14):
these are these?
These samskaras are littletrauma-based, trauma-filled
emotional wounds that areembedded into your biology, your
physiology.
Sometimes, you know, in yourbrain or just in your body,
could be in your heart.
If you look at the traditionalIndian chakra system.
(05:39):
That's what blocks energy in anenergy center.
It blocks emotion in an energycenter.
It blocks emotion in an energycenter.
It is a samskara and allemotion is is energy in motion
and a traumatic experience willblock this emotion.
A traumatic event, a traumaticexperience, a painful experience
(06:02):
, a painful event, a painfulsentence from someone that can
get lodged inside of you as asamskara.
And we often, when we'reunconscious, we build a life
around these samskaras.
We build a life to avoidfeeling, because what happens is
(06:22):
energy travels in fourdirections.
Energy travels up, down, in andout from you.
You've been around someone andyou've shared space with someone
.
When you stood next to them,you felt really good.
That's because good energy wasleaving their body and entering
yours.
And you've also experiencedpeople that when you stood next
(06:45):
to them or you were in theiraura or when you were in their
energy, you didn't feel so good.
That's because they had somelower level energy in their body
and it was penetrating yours.
Now, please understand thatpeople are experiencing you the
same exact way.
People experience me the sameway.
People experience everyone thesame way, and we've all been
around people that we love beingaround, and we've all been
(07:07):
around people that we just don'tenjoy being around.
That's because of the exchangeof energy that's happening
between us and I.
These, these samskaras they areguiding and they are directing
and they are manipulating andthey are shaping and they are
(07:28):
reforming the aura and theenergy that you're you're
exuding on a on a regular basis.
These samskaras get trapped andwhat I'm talking about is the
lower level, conflict-based,trauma-based.
As these samskaras get blockedinside of us, our aura reshapes,
(07:48):
our energy reshapes and theemotional impact that we have on
people shifts.
When we're living unconsciousand we're just carrying around a
whole lot of these samskarasand a whole lot of this wounding
and a whole lot of this, thistraumatic, these traumatic
traumatic experiences in ourmind, in our body, in our, in
(08:11):
our aura, then then life isgoing to interact with us in
certain ways and the morepowerful your aura, the more
powerful you are, and the moredepleted your aura, the more
depleted you are.
When I started my journey and Ihad a coach, I had a mentor say
(08:36):
what are you scared to lose mostin this world?
And this was right after I hadgotten fired second time in 2016
.
And I hired my coach and mymentor.
He said what are you mostscared of?
And I said I'm most scared oflosing my house.
And I've told this story agazillion times on this podcast
in various episodes.
I was most scared of losing myhouse, and what that was was as
(08:59):
a result of some scars that wereburied inside of me.
Those fears came fromexperiences that I had during my
childhood, my upbringing, youknow area in Baltimore, and it
was a very lower middle classkind of upbringing.
(09:31):
We had just enough to get by.
We really didn't have a wholelot of excess.
We never needed for anything,but we didn't have any excess
and our house was cluttered andit was dusty and all this stuff.
And when, as Angie and I startedto really start to, I guess I,
(09:51):
when I ascended the ranks incorporate and we started
building this life, thiswealthier life and more
successful life, we've purchasedthree homes and our homes kept
getting bigger and my homebecame a piece of my identity
(10:11):
and I built, I forged and Ifounded my identity on my
material possessions, becausewhen you saw my house, you could
see that I wasn't broke and Iwasn't poor and that was what I
was.
You know, that was a badge ofhonor for me.
I think I might have even justtold this last week again on on
this episode, but the pointbeing is, when I left corporate
(10:32):
and I got, I got booted.
What?
What are you most scared of?
I'm scared of losing my house,because that meant that I was
going to lose my identity andthat meant that I was going to
lose my identity and that meantthat I was going to be perceived
as poor, and that's what I wasafraid of the most is being
perceived in a way that waslower middle class or where I
was living in a state ofscarcity.
I was always afraid of beingperceived, and I wanted to be
(10:55):
perceived through my money and Iwanted to be perceived through
my titles and through my success.
That's how I wanted to beperceived.
It wasn't about who I reallywas, it's about how other people
saw me.
So the danger of losing myhouse was the danger of losing
this false identity that I hadbuilt.
And when I told this to mymentor, he says good, well,
(11:18):
we're going to lose it, we'regoing to lose this identity and
we're going to disconnect, we'regoing to unattach your identity
from your house.
And how are we going to do this?
He said I want you to go intomeditation, and I had already
started doing some meditativework, so I was comfortable and
familiar with meditation.
So go into meditation.
And he said I want you topicture yourself on a side of
(11:40):
the road with a sign in yourhand that says help me, I have
nothing, anything will help intattered clothes that were dirty
.
And, by the way, in this, inthis graphic representation,
your family's left you and youhave no friends and you're
completely alone in the world.
And he said I want you to lookat yourself and watch yourself
in in that scenario and I wantyou to feel all the emotions
(12:03):
that you anticipate that youwould feel if you experienced
what you were experiencing.
And I thought it was freakingdelusional.
I thought this was the most.
But at that point I was in somuch pain I would have done
anything to relieve myself ofthis pain that I was feeling
inside.
I always say if my mentor wouldhave said, jump up and down on
(12:23):
one foot and spin in circles andpat my head and rub my belly, I
would have been singing happybirthday.
I would have done that becauseI was in so much pain, I was
willing to do anything to feelrelief from all this pain.
And when I went into meditationand I pictured myself on the
side of this road with this signin my hand and I started
(12:44):
feeling hopelessness and Istarted feeling shame and I
started feeling poor and Istarted feeling judged and
neglected and abandoned, allthese lower level, raw emotions.
It's like all these emotionsthat were inside of me started
(13:06):
to shake free and started to letgo and started to release.
And when you look at emotion,when you look at things like
this, what happens is, if you'rewatching this on video, you can
see this, but if you're not, ifyou're listening on audio.
In my left hand I'm holding anorange I, if you're listening on
audio in my left hand I'mholding an orange I'm pretend
holding an orange and in myright hand I've got a knife.
(13:26):
And if you stick the knife inthe orange and maybe shake it
around a little bit and twist itback and forth and pull the
knife out, the orange juicecomes out of the hole right.
Well, the knife didn't createthe orange juice, the knife just
revealed the orange juice thatwas already in there.
And that's exactly like emotion.
It's the perfect visualizationfor emotion.
(13:48):
Visual for emotion.
I should say not visualization,but that's the perfect visual
for emotion is when you go intomeditation and you look at
yourself.
If you're scared of losing yourhouse and scared of losing your
family and scared of losing allthis stuff and scared of losing
your money and your wealth, ifyou picture yourself on the side
of the road with this sign andyou see this actively happening
(14:10):
and you're watching and you'rewitnessing, it'll start to draw
out all these emotions that arealready there.
And the visualization isn'tcreating the emotion.
The visualization is actuallyrevealing the emotion.
But let's be honest, theemotion was already there.
It was already there in theform of samskaras.
(14:31):
This visualization is notcreating the emotion, it's
revealing it.
And when you start to provokethis emotion in you, it starts
to let go.
To provoke this emotion in you,it starts to let go.
And that blocked those blockedsamskaras, that blocked energy,
that energy in motion that onetime was energy in motion, that
became blocked, that became athorn inside of you.
(14:57):
As you start to feel thatemotion, it starts to break free
and it starts to flow and itstarts to resolve and it starts
to dissolve.
And it starts to flow and itstarts to resolve and it starts
to dissolve.
No-transcript.
(15:25):
If you feel you can't be brokeand you can't be poor, if you go
into the shadow work and gointo the visualization and you
picture yourself broke, you'regoing to start to feel the
things that are keeping you in astate of chaos, trying not to
avoid or trying to avoid thosesituations, trying not to feel
those emotions.
And when you feel them inshadow work, then they start to
(15:48):
resolve and dissolve and theimpact and the influence and the
control that they have on you,over you, begins to diminish and
dissolve and and as this deepburied, painful energy that
(16:11):
creates massive suffering inyour life, as it starts to
resolve and dissolve, it startsto be replaced with a higher
level of energy, higher level ofemotion.
Because as one empties,something has to take its place
and nothing lower ever takes itsplace.
Only more love, only more peace, only more joy.
And as you do this exerciseover and over and over again and
(16:35):
you begin to really dive intoyour shadows and you really get
to lean into the parts ofyourself that you would rather
not feel.
When you get into the lowerlevel shit inside of you that
you've been looking to avoid,that you would rather not feel.
When you get into the lowerlevel shit inside of you that
you've been looking to avoid,that you've been looking to
ignore, that you've beensuppressing, that you've been
repressing, that you've beenescaping, maybe through drugs
and alcohol and eating and foodand sex.
(16:56):
And you know when you, when youlook at all these deep parts of
you that you've been looking toignore your entire life, and
you shine a light on them andthen you begin to see them as
true and feel them, they beginto heal.
And when you proactivelytrigger them because that's
exactly what this is when youproactively trigger them and you
(17:19):
learn to let them go and youallow them to let go, you learn
to let them go and you allowthem to let go, then you no
longer have to build a lifearound this pain, you no longer
have to build a life aroundthese samskaras and there's
nothing left to avoid.
Now you shift from survivalmode, which is all that, was,
into creation mode.
(17:40):
Now you can create toexperience instead of acting to
survive or acting to avoid, oracting to ignore or reacting.
You can begin to respond tolife instead of react from an
accretive place, from anexpansive place, from creation
mode, not from survival mode.
(18:03):
And shadow work is the most raw,the most courageous, the most
vulnerable work that you couldpossibly do in the energy
healing space, and that's all.
Emotion is energy in motion,and when it gets trapped in you
and you look to avoid certainemotions maybe shame, maybe
(18:24):
guilt, maybe anger, maybe grief,maybe fear when you look to
avoid certain emotions maybeshame, maybe guilt, maybe anger,
maybe grief, maybe fear whenyou look to avoid these emotions
, it's because they're buriedinside of you and you've been
building a life to avoid themand ignore them.
And when you, as you let themgo, your body empties of these
things and you no longer need tobuild a life around them.
(18:46):
You can build a life on purpose, for the experience of life
itself, not to avoid death.
I led a shadow work session inthe Outer Banks and one of my
favorite parts about leadingmeditation is I get to watch
(19:07):
people do the work and I can seewho's doing the work and I can
see who's not doing the work,because if you, once you get
into real deep, vulnerableshadow work, oftentimes the
color of your skin changes theemotion, your facial expressions
(19:29):
, your facial impressions, thetightness in your body.
I can, especially for peoplenew to shadow work, as they
start to really do the shadowwork and when they really get
into their shadows and theyreally get into the depths of
their soul, I can literally seethe physical transformation
that's happening in their bodyand it's a beautiful thing to
(19:50):
watch, especially for peoplethat have harbored and that have
stored up decades and decadesof raw, painful,
suffering-filled energy inmotion in their body.
As they get into it and as thatstarts to express and as that
(20:12):
starts to resolve and let go,they feel a new sense of
lightness and freedom andvibrancy and vitality and
everything in their life beginsto shift.
We did some shadow work.
Back in Gatlinburg in the fall.
(20:33):
The Interwealth Mastermind wentto Gatlinburg in the fall and I
watched someone who had storedup a defense mechanism.
They wouldn't let anyone in.
When I watched and I witnessed,we witnessed someone actually
let go of decades of a defensemechanism.
(20:54):
Then their heart started toopen and they started to let
people into their lives in adeeper and a healthier way and
their lives in a deeper and ahealthier way.
Listen, avoiding all of thosetrapped, painful samskaras,
(21:26):
avoiding the things that you'drather not lose, avoiding the
things that you'd rather notexperience, avoiding anything in
your life is a sign thatthere's a samskara inside of you
that's waiting to be let go,healed, resolved, dissolved, and
that gives you back control ofyour life and your purpose, your
freedom and your fulfillment.
But not everyone is courageousand willing to experience shadow
work and the pure freedom andliberation that's involved in
(21:49):
letting go of your shadows andletting go of that trapped
energy, that samskaras.
When I went around the room andI asked what was your favorite
part, what was your leastfavorite part, that one student
said my favorite part was theshadow work.
And my least favorite part wasthe shadow work Because when I
(22:10):
was watching her do the work.
I could literally see the tearsstreaming down her eyes.
I could literally see the yearsand decades of pain starting to
leave her body.
You could see it.
You could see the physicalrelease in the tensed up muscles
that when I invited aftergetting them into the shadow
(22:33):
work, then I get them into aplace of letting go of those
shadows and breathing throughthe shadows and becoming free of
those shadows.
You could literally see decadesof pain and suffering and
struggle and turmoil leave herbody.
And her body went from tenseand in a state of pain and
(22:54):
crying and grief to a wholenother level of freedom and
fulfillment, in the absence ofneeding to avoid any of this
stuff, because the samskarasthat were in her were not
keeping people safe, they werenot keeping her safe, they were
not keeping her protected, theywere literally just making her
(23:16):
life smaller and morecontrol-filled and more
survival-based.
And as she let them go, she letthese decades of pain go by
releasing, by breathing andletting go of this stored, toxic
, expired energy.
Then a whole nother level offreedom and fulfillment consumed
(23:37):
her and filled up the spacesfrom the pain.
Guys, shadow work will changeyour life and there's a great
book by a gal named Debbie Fordand it's called the Dark Side of
the Light Chasers.
If you want to explore shadowwork and the depths of freedom
that you can get from this,shadow work, or the Dark Side of
(24:00):
the Light Chasers is an awesome, awesome book and an awesome
reference.
In my meditation bundle I alsohave meditations that get you
into your shadow.
Especially it's calledMeditation no 1.
It takes you deep in yourshadow and then brings you to a
place of release all right,releasing your shadow and
(24:20):
stepping into a higher levelversion of yourself.
So there's all kind of tools,there's all kinds of techniques,
there's all kinds of wisdom inthe world about the power of
shadow work, but I just wantedto bring it to your attention
because it's another tool and atechnique for liberation.
If you're interested everinterested in, you know, tap
dancing with me and seeing howwe can work together to you know
(24:44):
, to get you know, get some ofthose shadows out of you, I'd
love to have a discussion withyou.
Just message me at mike atinterwealthglobalcom, come to
the website.
At every retreat and at everyintensive we do some shadow work
.
I'll introduce it to you, butI'll help you get become even
more emotionally courageous.
And emotional courage is beingwilling to feel any and all
(25:06):
emotions and still be okay.
It's not the absence of fear,it's feeling the fear and doing
it anyway.
It'll create shadow work, willcreate a whole, nother level of
emotional courage.
And when you are emotionallycourageous, you will not ever
need to avoid anything, ever forthe rest of your life.
As you increase in youremotional courage, you increase
(25:27):
in your freedom to be who youare and to do things you want to
do and to fully expressyourself in the world.
If that sounds good to you,connect.
But at a minimum, start tounderstand, investigate research
, shadow work a little bit.
It'll only set you free.
Start to understand,investigate research, shadow
work a little bit.
It'll only set you free.
(25:48):
If you enjoyed what you heardand you want to learn more, go
to wwwinnerwealthglobalcom formore tools and resources.
Do you ever wake up feeling like there's something
missing in your life?
Do you ever feel the need toescape your business?
Are you running your life or isyour life running you?
I'm Mike Kitko and I'll helpyou design and create a life so
authentic and aligned with whoyou really are that you'll get
excited just to wake up.
I'll help you create realwealth, success and freedom from
the inside out.
(00:23):
Welcome to the Inner WealthPodcast, where we learn and
choose to live inspired each andevery day.
If you listened to the episodethe Inner Wealth Podcast episode
last week with me and my wife,angie, you know that last week
(00:44):
we held our spring inner wealthmastermind retreat at the Outer
Banks in the Outer Banks, northCarolina, and it was a beautiful
place called Corolla, northCarolina Beautiful.
We absolutely fell in love withthat part of the country.
We had never been to the OuterBanks before and this is, like
Kerala is, I guess, more off thebeaten path.
(01:07):
There's not like one chainrestaurant in the whole area,
it's all mom and pops and therewasn't a lot of people there
because of the time of year it'snot quite high season yet but
what a wonderful, wonderful time, and the first two days of our
trip we had 80 to 85 degreeweather and then, as the week
went on, it really cooled off.
(01:28):
It's like a storm came in andit dropped 40 degrees.
But what a wonderful, wonderful, beautiful experience that was
at the Outer Banks and we'remaking plans, we're thinking
about Angie and I love that areaso much.
We'll probably go back andvisit again soon and just spend
some more time there, because itwas man.
What a great experience.
But we spent.
(01:49):
We saw some dolphins, we sawall kind of animals.
It was awesome.
But when we hold our retreatsand last week was about giving
you a little, you know, behindthe curtains peek at the Inner
Wealth, mastermind and the workthat we do together.
I lead a lot of meditation inour retreats, in our intensives.
(02:12):
I record meditations.
They're available oninnerwealthglobalcom and
meditation has changed my lifeand I run.
I guess I led over the courseof two days probably four
meditations, maybe five.
Some of them were.
One of them was three minutes,one was, you know, a half an
hour or so.
But I lead guided meditationdeep down inside of yourself to
(02:49):
understand what's there, in somecases to install some new
software and in some cases touninstall expired software and
to you could say, to reprogramsome corrupt programs.
So meditation, there's avariety, especially guided
meditation.
There's a variety of ways andmethods and reasons, but either
way it's powerful and it'llreshape.
It'll help you with the rightperson, with the right guide.
(03:10):
It'll help you reshape who youare.
And if you're interested inexperiencing some of my
meditations,innerwealthglobalcom, there's a
meditation bundle.
It's got I don't know eight ornine meditations in there and
both of them are from retreatsor intensives where it was a
good one and I produced it and Iput it in the bundle.
But at the end of the retreat Iwe went around the room and I
(03:36):
asked all of the students, allthe people that were there, not
just the students, but you knowCara Dossi, our operations
assistant, and Angie, and.
But you know, cara Dossi, ouroperations assistant, and Angie
and I shared mine no-transcript,and I love hearing you know
(04:09):
opportunities for improvement aswell.
So when I do this it's not justabout getting you know all
positive feedback.
But when we went around, one ofthe participants said you know,
what I love the most was theshadow work meditation that we
did, and what I loved least wasthe shadow work meditation that
(04:30):
we did and I thought that waspretty profound, because that's
exactly what you would expectout of leading that kind of
meditation.
Now let me tell you a littlebit about what shadow work is.
Deep inside of you are wounds.
(04:52):
Deep inside of you aresuppressed emotions from
experiences.
Inside of you there are beliefs, there are.
In Sanskrit it's called.
They're called samskaras, s-a-m, samskara, s-k-a-r-a, and what
(05:14):
these are these?
These samskaras are littletrauma-based, trauma-filled
emotional wounds that areembedded into your biology, your
physiology.
Sometimes, you know, in yourbrain or just in your body,
could be in your heart.
If you look at the traditionalIndian chakra system.
(05:39):
That's what blocks energy in anenergy center.
It blocks emotion in an energycenter.
It blocks emotion in an energycenter.
It is a samskara and allemotion is is energy in motion
and a traumatic experience willblock this emotion.
A traumatic event, a traumaticexperience, a painful experience
(06:02):
, a painful event, a painfulsentence from someone that can
get lodged inside of you as asamskara.
And we often, when we'reunconscious, we build a life
around these samskaras.
We build a life to avoidfeeling, because what happens is
(06:22):
energy travels in fourdirections.
Energy travels up, down, in andout from you.
You've been around someone andyou've shared space with someone
.
When you stood next to them,you felt really good.
That's because good energy wasleaving their body and entering
yours.
And you've also experiencedpeople that when you stood next
(06:45):
to them or you were in theiraura or when you were in their
energy, you didn't feel so good.
That's because they had somelower level energy in their body
and it was penetrating yours.
Now, please understand thatpeople are experiencing you the
same exact way.
People experience me the sameway.
People experience everyone thesame way, and we've all been
around people that we love beingaround, and we've all been
(07:07):
around people that we just don'tenjoy being around.
That's because of the exchangeof energy that's happening
between us and I.
These, these samskaras they areguiding and they are directing
and they are manipulating andthey are shaping and they are
(07:28):
reforming the aura and theenergy that you're you're
exuding on a on a regular basis.
These samskaras get trapped andwhat I'm talking about is the
lower level, conflict-based,trauma-based.
As these samskaras get blockedinside of us, our aura reshapes,
(07:48):
our energy reshapes and theemotional impact that we have on
people shifts.
When we're living unconsciousand we're just carrying around a
whole lot of these samskarasand a whole lot of this wounding
and a whole lot of this, thistraumatic, these traumatic
traumatic experiences in ourmind, in our body, in our, in
(08:11):
our aura, then then life isgoing to interact with us in
certain ways and the morepowerful your aura, the more
powerful you are, and the moredepleted your aura, the more
depleted you are.
When I started my journey and Ihad a coach, I had a mentor say
(08:36):
what are you scared to lose mostin this world?
And this was right after I hadgotten fired second time in 2016
.
And I hired my coach and mymentor.
He said what are you mostscared of?
And I said I'm most scared oflosing my house.
And I've told this story agazillion times on this podcast
in various episodes.
I was most scared of losing myhouse, and what that was was as
(08:59):
a result of some scars that wereburied inside of me.
Those fears came fromexperiences that I had during my
childhood, my upbringing, youknow area in Baltimore, and it
was a very lower middle classkind of upbringing.
(09:31):
We had just enough to get by.
We really didn't have a wholelot of excess.
We never needed for anything,but we didn't have any excess
and our house was cluttered andit was dusty and all this stuff.
And when, as Angie and I startedto really start to, I guess I,
(09:51):
when I ascended the ranks incorporate and we started
building this life, thiswealthier life and more
successful life, we've purchasedthree homes and our homes kept
getting bigger and my homebecame a piece of my identity
(10:11):
and I built, I forged and Ifounded my identity on my
material possessions, becausewhen you saw my house, you could
see that I wasn't broke and Iwasn't poor and that was what I
was.
You know, that was a badge ofhonor for me.
I think I might have even justtold this last week again on on
this episode, but the pointbeing is, when I left corporate
(10:32):
and I got, I got booted.
What?
What are you most scared of?
I'm scared of losing my house,because that meant that I was
going to lose my identity andthat meant that I was going to
lose my identity and that meantthat I was going to be perceived
as poor, and that's what I wasafraid of the most is being
perceived in a way that waslower middle class or where I
was living in a state ofscarcity.
I was always afraid of beingperceived, and I wanted to be
(10:55):
perceived through my money and Iwanted to be perceived through
my titles and through my success.
That's how I wanted to beperceived.
It wasn't about who I reallywas, it's about how other people
saw me.
So the danger of losing myhouse was the danger of losing
this false identity that I hadbuilt.
And when I told this to mymentor, he says good, well,
(11:18):
we're going to lose it, we'regoing to lose this identity and
we're going to disconnect, we'regoing to unattach your identity
from your house.
And how are we going to do this?
He said I want you to go intomeditation, and I had already
started doing some meditativework, so I was comfortable and
familiar with meditation.
So go into meditation.
And he said I want you topicture yourself on a side of
(11:40):
the road with a sign in yourhand that says help me, I have
nothing, anything will help intattered clothes that were dirty
.
And, by the way, in this, inthis graphic representation,
your family's left you and youhave no friends and you're
completely alone in the world.
And he said I want you to lookat yourself and watch yourself
in in that scenario and I wantyou to feel all the emotions
(12:03):
that you anticipate that youwould feel if you experienced
what you were experiencing.
And I thought it was freakingdelusional.
I thought this was the most.
But at that point I was in somuch pain I would have done
anything to relieve myself ofthis pain that I was feeling
inside.
I always say if my mentor wouldhave said, jump up and down on
(12:23):
one foot and spin in circles andpat my head and rub my belly, I
would have been singing happybirthday.
I would have done that becauseI was in so much pain, I was
willing to do anything to feelrelief from all this pain.
And when I went into meditationand I pictured myself on the
side of this road with this signin my hand and I started
(12:44):
feeling hopelessness and Istarted feeling shame and I
started feeling poor and Istarted feeling judged and
neglected and abandoned, allthese lower level, raw emotions.
It's like all these emotionsthat were inside of me started
(13:06):
to shake free and started to letgo and started to release.
And when you look at emotion,when you look at things like
this, what happens is, if you'rewatching this on video, you can
see this, but if you're not, ifyou're listening on audio.
In my left hand I'm holding anorange I, if you're listening on
audio in my left hand I'mholding an orange I'm pretend
holding an orange and in myright hand I've got a knife.
(13:26):
And if you stick the knife inthe orange and maybe shake it
around a little bit and twist itback and forth and pull the
knife out, the orange juicecomes out of the hole right.
Well, the knife didn't createthe orange juice, the knife just
revealed the orange juice thatwas already in there.
And that's exactly like emotion.
It's the perfect visualizationfor emotion.
(13:48):
Visual for emotion.
I should say not visualization,but that's the perfect visual
for emotion is when you go intomeditation and you look at
yourself.
If you're scared of losing yourhouse and scared of losing your
family and scared of losing allthis stuff and scared of losing
your money and your wealth, ifyou picture yourself on the side
of the road with this sign andyou see this actively happening
(14:10):
and you're watching and you'rewitnessing, it'll start to draw
out all these emotions that arealready there.
And the visualization isn'tcreating the emotion.
The visualization is actuallyrevealing the emotion.
But let's be honest, theemotion was already there.
It was already there in theform of samskaras.
(14:31):
This visualization is notcreating the emotion, it's
revealing it.
And when you start to provokethis emotion in you, it starts
to let go.
To provoke this emotion in you,it starts to let go.
And that blocked those blockedsamskaras, that blocked energy,
that energy in motion that onetime was energy in motion, that
became blocked, that became athorn inside of you.
(14:57):
As you start to feel thatemotion, it starts to break free
and it starts to flow and itstarts to resolve and it starts
to dissolve.
And it starts to flow and itstarts to resolve and it starts
to dissolve.
No-transcript.
(15:25):
If you feel you can't be brokeand you can't be poor, if you go
into the shadow work and gointo the visualization and you
picture yourself broke, you'regoing to start to feel the
things that are keeping you in astate of chaos, trying not to
avoid or trying to avoid thosesituations, trying not to feel
those emotions.
And when you feel them inshadow work, then they start to
(15:48):
resolve and dissolve and theimpact and the influence and the
control that they have on you,over you, begins to diminish and
dissolve and and as this deepburied, painful energy that
(16:11):
creates massive suffering inyour life, as it starts to
resolve and dissolve, it startsto be replaced with a higher
level of energy, higher level ofemotion.
Because as one empties,something has to take its place
and nothing lower ever takes itsplace.
Only more love, only more peace, only more joy.
And as you do this exerciseover and over and over again and
(16:35):
you begin to really dive intoyour shadows and you really get
to lean into the parts ofyourself that you would rather
not feel.
When you get into the lowerlevel shit inside of you that
you've been looking to avoid,that you would rather not feel.
When you get into the lowerlevel shit inside of you that
you've been looking to avoid,that you've been looking to
ignore, that you've beensuppressing, that you've been
repressing, that you've beenescaping, maybe through drugs
and alcohol and eating and foodand sex.
(16:56):
And you know when you, when youlook at all these deep parts of
you that you've been looking toignore your entire life, and
you shine a light on them andthen you begin to see them as
true and feel them, they beginto heal.
And when you proactivelytrigger them because that's
exactly what this is when youproactively trigger them and you
(17:19):
learn to let them go and youallow them to let go, you learn
to let them go and you allowthem to let go, then you no
longer have to build a lifearound this pain, you no longer
have to build a life aroundthese samskaras and there's
nothing left to avoid.
Now you shift from survivalmode, which is all that, was,
into creation mode.
(17:40):
Now you can create toexperience instead of acting to
survive or acting to avoid, oracting to ignore or reacting.
You can begin to respond tolife instead of react from an
accretive place, from anexpansive place, from creation
mode, not from survival mode.
(18:03):
And shadow work is the most raw,the most courageous, the most
vulnerable work that you couldpossibly do in the energy
healing space, and that's all.
Emotion is energy in motion,and when it gets trapped in you
and you look to avoid certainemotions maybe shame, maybe
(18:24):
guilt, maybe anger, maybe grief,maybe fear when you look to
avoid certain emotions maybeshame, maybe guilt, maybe anger,
maybe grief, maybe fear whenyou look to avoid these emotions
, it's because they're buriedinside of you and you've been
building a life to avoid themand ignore them.
And when you, as you let themgo, your body empties of these
things and you no longer need tobuild a life around them.
(18:46):
You can build a life on purpose, for the experience of life
itself, not to avoid death.
I led a shadow work session inthe Outer Banks and one of my
favorite parts about leadingmeditation is I get to watch
(19:07):
people do the work and I can seewho's doing the work and I can
see who's not doing the work,because if you, once you get
into real deep, vulnerableshadow work, oftentimes the
color of your skin changes theemotion, your facial expressions
(19:29):
, your facial impressions, thetightness in your body.
I can, especially for peoplenew to shadow work, as they
start to really do the shadowwork and when they really get
into their shadows and theyreally get into the depths of
their soul, I can literally seethe physical transformation
that's happening in their bodyand it's a beautiful thing to
(19:50):
watch, especially for peoplethat have harbored and that have
stored up decades and decadesof raw, painful,
suffering-filled energy inmotion in their body.
As they get into it and as thatstarts to express and as that
(20:12):
starts to resolve and let go,they feel a new sense of
lightness and freedom andvibrancy and vitality and
everything in their life beginsto shift.
We did some shadow work.
Back in Gatlinburg in the fall.
(20:33):
The Interwealth Mastermind wentto Gatlinburg in the fall and I
watched someone who had storedup a defense mechanism.
They wouldn't let anyone in.
When I watched and I witnessed,we witnessed someone actually
let go of decades of a defensemechanism.
(20:54):
Then their heart started toopen and they started to let
people into their lives in adeeper and a healthier way and
their lives in a deeper and ahealthier way.
Listen, avoiding all of thosetrapped, painful samskaras,
(21:26):
avoiding the things that you'drather not lose, avoiding the
things that you'd rather notexperience, avoiding anything in
your life is a sign thatthere's a samskara inside of you
that's waiting to be let go,healed, resolved, dissolved, and
that gives you back control ofyour life and your purpose, your
freedom and your fulfillment.
But not everyone is courageousand willing to experience shadow
work and the pure freedom andliberation that's involved in
(21:49):
letting go of your shadows andletting go of that trapped
energy, that samskaras.
When I went around the room andI asked what was your favorite
part, what was your leastfavorite part, that one student
said my favorite part was theshadow work.
And my least favorite part wasthe shadow work Because when I
(22:10):
was watching her do the work.
I could literally see the tearsstreaming down her eyes.
I could literally see the yearsand decades of pain starting to
leave her body.
You could see it.
You could see the physicalrelease in the tensed up muscles
that when I invited aftergetting them into the shadow
(22:33):
work, then I get them into aplace of letting go of those
shadows and breathing throughthe shadows and becoming free of
those shadows.
You could literally see decadesof pain and suffering and
struggle and turmoil leave herbody.
And her body went from tenseand in a state of pain and
(22:54):
crying and grief to a wholenother level of freedom and
fulfillment, in the absence ofneeding to avoid any of this
stuff, because the samskarasthat were in her were not
keeping people safe, they werenot keeping her safe, they were
not keeping her protected, theywere literally just making her
(23:16):
life smaller and morecontrol-filled and more
survival-based.
And as she let them go, she letthese decades of pain go by
releasing, by breathing andletting go of this stored, toxic
, expired energy.
Then a whole nother level offreedom and fulfillment consumed
(23:37):
her and filled up the spacesfrom the pain.
Guys, shadow work will changeyour life and there's a great
book by a gal named Debbie Fordand it's called the Dark Side of
the Light Chasers.
If you want to explore shadowwork and the depths of freedom
that you can get from this,shadow work, or the Dark Side of
(24:00):
the Light Chasers is an awesome, awesome book and an awesome
reference.
In my meditation bundle I alsohave meditations that get you
into your shadow.
Especially it's calledMeditation no 1.
It takes you deep in yourshadow and then brings you to a
place of release all right,releasing your shadow and
(24:20):
stepping into a higher levelversion of yourself.
So there's all kind of tools,there's all kinds of techniques,
there's all kinds of wisdom inthe world about the power of
shadow work, but I just wantedto bring it to your attention
because it's another tool and atechnique for liberation.
If you're interested everinterested in, you know, tap
dancing with me and seeing howwe can work together to you know
(24:44):
, to get you know, get some ofthose shadows out of you, I'd
love to have a discussion withyou.
Just message me at mike atinterwealthglobalcom, come to
the website.
At every retreat and at everyintensive we do some shadow work
.
I'll introduce it to you, butI'll help you get become even
more emotionally courageous.
And emotional courage is beingwilling to feel any and all
(25:06):
emotions and still be okay.
It's not the absence of fear,it's feeling the fear and doing
it anyway.
It'll create shadow work, willcreate a whole, nother level of
emotional courage.
And when you are emotionallycourageous, you will not ever
need to avoid anything, ever forthe rest of your life.
As you increase in youremotional courage, you increase
(25:27):
in your freedom to be who youare and to do things you want to
do and to fully expressyourself in the world.
If that sounds good to you,connect.
But at a minimum, start tounderstand, investigate research
, shadow work a little bit.
It'll only set you free.
Start to understand,investigate research, shadow
work a little bit.
It'll only set you free.
(25:48):
If you enjoyed what you heardand you want to learn more, go
to wwwinnerwealthglobalcom formore tools and resources.
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