Healing Your Inner Child — Shadow Work
I love how using cards can be a springboard for self-exploration. You’re not alone trying to dig through your thoughts, you have a friend at your side guiding you.
Shadow work is a way of getting in touch with your unconscious, the parts of you that are more hidden and unknown. Often this can be darker aspects, but not always. However, I find it to be an important practice, as there can be answers there that you can’t easily find otherwise.
For this post, I thought we could take a step into another one of my spreads and do some shadow work together. Feel free to read through and save it for later, or take this time to breathe, make space, get out your journal, cards, and explore.
Regardless if you follow along with your cards, I do highly recommend using a journal, one that is for your eyes only. That way, you can feel free to be as open and honest as you need to be.
It’s not always immediately recognizable that what triggers or upsets us not only has a long history of hurting us, but goes all the way back to when we were children. Being so young and helpless, children rely entirely on their guardians for everything. And if we are not provided something, or maybe provided for too much, it can lead to issues years and years down the line — well into adulthood. Being able to find the source of that pain is how you can begin healing.
Let’s walk through an example reading with this spread. If these cards spur something in you, by all means pause reading and journal your thoughts.
What pain are you experiencing right now? — The Sun
This card is typically referred to as the ‘joy’ card, and here with this deck, it is quite literally bursting with happiness. As optimistic and positive as this card may initially feel, we are looking at a negative position in this spread. What are the darker sides of this card?
Perhaps you struggle with finding joy in things. You might grapple with finding the ‘half full’ perspective and lean pessimistic. There can be wonderful things happening in your life, but you always seem to look for the worst. “I got a job promotion, but the added work is frustrating and there are a lot more hours,” vs “I got a job promotion, and the pay raise allows me to travel abroad for the vacation of my dreams!”
It can be quite painful to feel like you don’t deserve happiness, or maybe you are frightened of what would happen if you just let yourself be happy. If you’re so used to feeling depressed all of the time, that’s the life you know. Happiness is foreign, and what could happen if you’re just happy, with no weight of depression on your shoulders at all? That’s the life you don’t know, and what you don’t know can be scary!
Where in your childhood does this pain stem from? — Ace of Cups
The suit of ‘Cups’ deals with emotions, and all aces are the beginnings of the suit. The very start of an emotional journey. This issue may go back to the very beginning! Even beyond your earliest memories.
If you had parents or guardians who were insufficient in acknowledging your joy, you may have felt pressured to suppress it. Children often have more extreme and dynamic emotions compared to adults, and during times of great joy, you might have been ignored or even punished. The pleasure you felt in reading a wonderfully adventurous book, earning a special reward at school, painting a beautiful artwork — all very exciting things, might’ve had underwhelming reactions.
Maybe you grew up in a home where your guardians were constantly stressed. They themselves struggled with finding joy, and just like the phrase ‘monkey see, monkey do’, children very often pick up the habits of those around them. You learned from your parents that happiness is short-lived, and instead of something to sit with and feel deeply, you became accustomed to jumping to the next thing, leaving it behind.
How can you heal from this pain? — Two of Cups
I do love how this particular spread worked out. With the ‘Two of Cups’ here, you can see this as the next step. There are no big actions you need to rush to take. The two quite literally comes right after the ace, you can view this as a healing process, one to take your time with.
The ‘Two of Cups’ is an emotionally pairing card, as in, a union or partnership. Not necessarily a relationship partner or marriage, but anyone you feel emotionally connected with. This could be a great time to lean on a friend, loved one, or relative. Maybe have a one-on-one chat with your parent/guardian about this issue. Gently and open-mindedly asking questions about your life growing up, how things were for them, and see their perspective. It could give you answers for what’s happening with you right now.
Finding a trusted person to confide in can help your inner child feel listened and acknowledged. A lot of pain can come from our inner child feeling unheard, and by just giving them an ear, you open the door towards healing and growth.
So go ahead, write in your journal. Take inspiration from this example reading, use your own cards, or free-write. But write!
Ask yourself: How can you support your inner child?
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Thank you for reading! I hope to continue to blog about tarot, mental health, and similar topics. Feel free to follow, or support me on Ko-Fi.
-LR🐇
