Healing Racism Through Shadow Work and Sacred Activism

There is an unflinching light that is being focused on the massive inequality and injustice in our world. It is illuminating the deep shadow work we are all doing as a collective. The shadow of racism is very old and runs through all our ancestral lineages.  We are steeped in it, have been steeped in it for centuries. But this light holds us all in in its embrace and is making us accountable to end the culture of killing, fear, hate and irreverence.

We stand in the light of our soul. But we look at the shadow.

We look at those times in our lives where we witnessed racism and intolerance and kept quiet. It is so prevalent in our society; chances are good we have also participated in racism and prejudice. We also see and accept that we may have unconscious bias.

Our most sacred work is to recognize the shadow within ourselves and own all parts of it. To become whole. To continue our journey into consciousness. We must also look for the gifts in owning our racism. That may make us feel uneasy. How can there be any gifts in it?

There is a gift in seeing that we cannot arbitrarily judge people as good or bad because its not so cut and dried. Not so black and white. And by recognizing that a generally kind person can get caught up in the collective social ills. And as we see just how pervasive it is as a collective shadow, our eyes open and we become conscious of any privilege we have due to the color of our skin. And due to our economic level. And where we live.

This shadow work activates compassion. We can’t help feeling compassion when we see suffering. Compassion for families and communities who fear they may never recover from the grief and PTSD because the murders keep happening again and again. And compassion for the murderers who were programmed by centuries of prejudice and the repression of the reverence for all life.

We become ever more conscious of racism around us. And we get to decide how we participate in the healing of it. If we feel called to take action to bring about the healing, then it is a spiritual act and we don’t need to worry about whether we are perpetuating duality or failing a Divine neutrality ascension test. We open our hearts to sacred activism.

Inner actions we could take:

Clearing ancestral wounds that may reside in us that were hundreds of years in the making.  Using shamanic journey, meditation, or journaling, we ask to be shown the seeds of racism in our lineage.  They may show as contracts, vows, imprinted belief systems, past life karma, or other issues. We then call on our team of helping spirits and healed ancestors to energetically tend to the issue. They will help us clear the contracts or unravel the imprints of old belief systems. This healing will travel throughout our lineage and will affect our ancestors as well as our descendants.

For most of us, our soul has had many other incarnations, being both the oppressed and the oppressor. A deep healing shamanic journey is to ask our team of guides to show us if there are any parts of our soul essence that got split off and lost from any past life trauma that needs to be returned to us now. If there are, they may facilitate their return right then or guide us to seek out a practitioner for help.

Another powerful journey is to ask our guides if we have inadvertently taken any soul essences from another. If they show us that we still have custody of any soul essences that are not ours, we ask our guides to return them to where they came from. Then we can seal the work with a ceremony symbolizing the returning.

We do forgiveness work for those we may have hurt, knowingly or unknowingly, with our words and actions. We can include forgiving ourselves as well. We can do this by using recapitulation, prayer, ceremony, or other methods our team of helping spirits may suggest.

Outer actions we could take:

If the color of our skin gives us privilege, we use it to be an ally.

We take to the street and stand in solidarity in vigils and protests for every person who is not in a place of safety because of their color, creed, or economic level.

We support businesses owned by blacks, indigenous, and people of color; and donate to social justice causes.

We call out intolerance and injustice when we see it.

We have courageous conversations explaining why we are focused on Black Lives Matter with people who contend that All Lives Matter.

We are decent and kind to one another no matter what the circumstances.

We have reverence for all life.

Social reform is part of the human consciousness crisis. It will not happen by itself. We need to do the work to make it happen.  These are just a few ideas of what we can do for ourselves, each other, and humankind. Even if we only do one small thing it effects the entire collective. Never doubt our power to make a positive shift in the world.