In our return back to our initial format, we discussed the term ‘Shadow Work’ and how it relates to self development work within the J.U.S.T. Philosophy. We then shared some step by steps and tools & techniques for how to discover what your main shadow work is and how to begin working on bringing it to light and healing the triggers and traumas related to it.
[00:00:21] Aaron: Welcome to our sixth year of the Wise Wise Podcast. We are on episode 127. Here to join us is of course, Alexander.
[00:00:31] Alexander: Thank you everyone for your support over all these years. And thank you to Aaron for this connection and the ongoing interest in getting this information out there to everyone.
[00:00:41] Aaron: And we just got done doing a 13 episode season of our first season of our Inward Journey story series where we brought in a lot of creativity, we wrote stories to give examples in which we could relate the work to, to help give another perspective that one can relate to when introducing this work to people and seeing it in another light more in like maybe a feminine way, right?
[00:01:04] Alexander: Yeah. And it was a lot of fun doing that for the six months or so that we worked on that platform. And I felt like we accomplished what we were looking for, and I think we'll continue to pull from those episodes. But it was an attempt to help people to relate to characters in a story in every day type of situations. And then us discussing how we would see to bring the philosophy in or to assist the communication. And I'm very thankful for everything that we, we went through, during that experience. So now we're stepping into something even new again.
[00:01:42] Aaron: If you out there have not heard one of our episodes of Inward Journey, we may be utilizing, like Alexander said, some of our characters, because we did develop characters with certain Human Design birth charts that have different energetic makeups that you may identify with, yourself or somebody in your family, so that when we do use them as an example, you have more of a back history of who they are as a person and how that experience relates to them and their lives versus maybe Alexander and I sharing one of our experiences over time. So it does kind of allow us to expand more into other types of people versus just us.
[00:02:25] Alexander: Yes. And that was a part of the creative side, although I know that since you and I both are writing the stories, we've brought information from our own experiences. And it was really, really fun being able to develop the characters and do it authentic, even connecting them, like you said, to their card and their Human Design type.
[00:02:43] And, and we're gonna pick that back up. There's gonna be a second season that we're planning, but we're gonna take a break from that style and we're gonna get into some of the most basic and to the point applications of the J.U.S.T. Philosophy that I think that we've even done so far.
[00:03:00] Aaron: Yeah, and one subject that we're talking about today is shadow work, and it's something that I don't think we've ever really talked upon too much. I mean, I'm sure we've mentioned it from time to time, but it is a word that is utilized across many spiritual practices or perspectives out there. So it does have several different meanings depending on who you're talking to. And so I did reach out to social media to ask what other people, or how they would define shadow work and kind of got a main consensus, which is kind of in the realm of, of close to how we're probably gonna discuss it in a way. But things like addressing parts of ourselves that we'd rather ignore. Exemplifying our beliefs while we're here and doing work. Other people said, taking emotional accountability and accepting patterns of fear while bringing in love and bringing awareness to parts of ourselves while utilizing acceptance and then creating change and how the shadow part is a natural part of ourselves and not to judge it. So we did get a wide range of views, but most of it was compiled into those perspectives.
[00:04:15] So Alexander, how does the J.U.S.T. Philosophy or what is the perspective of the J.U.S.T. Philosophy when we are dealing with a term called shadow work? How would you define it in this way?
[00:04:26] Alexander: Yes. I'm so glad you set it up in that way because I'm not looking to define shadow work, but I'm looking to relate a common term that's going around out there and how the J.U.S.T. Philosophy relates to that term.
[00:04:40] And in this, what the J.U.S.T. Philosophy shares as shadow work is your two main emotions, or I like to even propose them to be your emotional parents. That, just as we discuss energy on just about every episode, we discuss how all five of our levels are connected, the Spiritual, the Mental, the Emotional, the Energetic, and the Physical. And on the emotional here, I like to look at it as everyone has two main emotions that they run from, that they are challenged, that show up the majority of the time in their life. In the Human Design, they have what's called a not self theme, and for each different type of the four different types, I like to look at 'em as five. But, uh, in some systems they look at 'em as fours, all generators together, generators and manifests and generators, but each type has a not self theme and typically that relates to being the majority of the time, the main emotion that those people go through. With manifestors, it's anger. With generators, it's frustration. With projectors, it's bitterness.
[00:05:53] And so with that understanding, this is an opportunity to, rather than fighting these emotions, to flip the perception, to learn to invite them in, to learn to make love with them, to be with them. To see them as maybe a stepchild that you, you married someone because you loved them so much, but maybe they had a child. And then you embrace that child just as much, through the good and the bad.
[00:06:20] And when you're able to see those two main emotions, the very first thing that happens is acceptance. And that term is used so much through me discussing this philosophy, but sometimes I truly question if people are really understanding the power of when you accept something that you resist, you change the information going to your body consistently through the day. So true acceptance, again, doesn't mean condoning or approving of, it simply means that you stop the resistance within yourself to that subject or that person, place, or thing. And that changes the vibrational frequency that you're feeding your field.
[00:07:04] So, I like to share very openly that my two main emotions are frustration and insecurity, and I really enjoy asking people what their two main emotions they feel like are. I find that most people haven't stopped to think about it, but it's a wonderful seed to plant. So I'm planting that with all the listeners right now.
[00:07:24] Just go ahead and start considering what two main emotions you operate around, and I'm going to give categories and then there's subcategories of these as well. But, we're gonna get into really describing them in the extended version, the complete conversation. And just the main categories are anger, grief, guilt, insecurity, and fear. I find that most all emotions fall under those five. And what would you say that your two are, Aaron?
[00:07:59] Aaron: Mine are very similar to yours. It would be frustration and insecurity as well.
[00:08:04] Alexander: Yes. And we're both generators in the Human Design, so that's not a huge surprise, but there's no two that are worse or any combination that are worse than anyone else's. And we share a lot of these similarities. But the main point of bringing this to the forefront and making a podcast about this is how to get into what to do about all of this. So, I'm really excited about getting into the step by step.
[00:08:30] Aaron: Yeah, I was gonna say the same thing. The way this conversation is going to be different from probably many other maybe podcast episodes out there is we are going to look at shadow work as a whole and give you like practical step-by-step ways and tools and techniques to utilize the information that you'd get from brainstorming what your two emotions are, and then even getting into the reasons or experiences and that would support those two that you would arrive at.
[00:08:57] But I did want to look at shadow work a little bit more and talk about some things maybe other people don't talk about a lot. Because shadow work, it kind of suggests a darkness. And we do talk about polarity and duality a lot. Because the opposite of dark is light and a common misconception can be that, oh, we just want to be all in light all the time. [Mm-hmm] but what would be the downside to being in just light? Because I feel like part of that is ignoring the dark, right?
[00:09:26] Alexander: Yes. And this is the difference between our second pillar, which is polarity versus duality. In the duality, those two light and dark are fighting and trying to beat each other. In the polarity view, they both have to coexist. So there's an immediate acceptance in the polarity view and an immediate resistance in the duality view, and that is a choice of perception. Duality is not being forced upon us, but polarity is. So I like to just look at it as, you can't stand in the light without casting a shadow. So stop trying to run from the shadow. Stop trying to hide from the shadow, embrace the shadow, and it can actually be a beautiful part of ourselves when we truly get into deep acceptance and forgiveness and seeing just how beautiful that not only we are, but others are as well.
[00:10:23] And we let these preferences and these teachings that we learned through growing up, through our society and our families, that brings in all the majority of the judgment. And the judgment is what keeps the friction alive. And I've said on many episodes that if you want something to stop, you stop feeding it. And the majority of things on this plane, on this earth plane, they grow through the act of friction. Things get stronger through the act of friction. So if you want to stop something from growing, or ruling, or directing you, then you stop feeding it the friction. And that begins with the very first spiritual step of the Five Levels in acceptance. And that changes the mental level is next, and that's where the judge resides. But it shifts, acceptance shifts the judge into the investigator, and the investigator approaches a subject very differently than the judge does. And of course, that's going to change the ripples as it goes through the emotional and then the energetic and then the physical.
[00:11:30] Aaron: I like the way you talked about where you can't stand in the light without casting a shadow, and if we're always trying to be in the light and we're ignoring the shadow side, we're not working on acceptance, like you said, but we are resisting it in a way, and it's only gonna pull us out of the light more often. Whereas when you make friends with it, you're kind of setting yourself up to be more in the light consistently as you work through what you would call the shadow work, right?
[00:11:57] Alexander: Yes. Yes. And when you give anything awareness, it doesn't have to overtake the energy or the, or the focus. Most of the time what happens when negativity takes over someone is they have tried to resist it. They've tried to run from it, and, you know, every level gets tired to a certain extent. So when all Five Levels are tired, that's a person that's in anxiety, or sadness, or worry, and doesn't seem like they can get out, like a depression type of feeling.
[00:12:29] I feel like it's very helpful to realize that we do have these Five Levels and they do feed off of each other, and the order that I like to suggest of the acronym of SMEEP is that Spiritual, Mental, Emotional, Energetic, and Physical. And the very beginning of that is the most powerful one is acceptance.
[00:12:55] Aaron: You talked about how practicing acceptance will alter how you perceive things and the kind of that energy that you're taking in, or altering your perspective as you're taking in events throughout the day, whereas if you're practicing acceptance on all Five Levels, then you're totally changing your experience and how you relate to different events. But if you are in resistance, then you're constantly being bombarded by a lower energy vibe because of the way you're perceiving things.
[00:13:25] And I saw a meme a couple weeks ago that said, all I want for Christmas is to stop being poisoned. And I thought that was funny because, you know, when you look at the health aspect of this world, it seems like our air, our water, our food is kind of all being polluted. But this is the one thing we can control because we're polluting our own thoughts by the way we perceive events and we have a chance to clean this up so that we're constantly taking in events through our mind and the way we perceive things, in more of a helpful way versus a destructive way.
[00:13:59] Alexander: Yes, and a big part of this is accepting that these negative traits have been trained. And that's not to project any blame, it's to accept and actually be able to start working on forgiveness. Because see, you can't get strong at anything until somebody else shows you the opposite. So when I work with people with forgiveness work, I don't happen to feel that anyone gets away with anything. Whatever people's religious or spiritual beliefs is, many people have different ways of viewing that people pay for what they do. In karma, and that whether it's in this lifetime or the next, that payment will be made and Jesus shared with us, you know, not to judge. To judge, not unless you be judged. And so that's a vicious cycle to be in, is that judgment. And that is, one of the four main characteristics of the spiritual level of the J.U.S.T. Philosophy is working on non-judgment. And see that takes us away from right and wrong, good and bad. It takes away that friction for things to grow. But see, that doesn't mean that there shouldn't be a payment. I want everybody to understand that there should be a payment. In any kind of community, there needs to be rules, laws, or structure, whatever you say, but the person that does something so-called that gets convicted of something bad, they should pay for what they did, but they don't have to be judged for it. It doesn't have to define them for the rest of their lives. And this is where, you know, whether it's bitterness, resentfulness, those types of things just breed when we feel like we need to see the payment made. And again, I can't stress to people how much that weighs on a person, and slowly just really drains an energy field through the emotions, through the mental perception of how you're looking at it. And eventually it makes the body more susceptible to disease or energy in the area that the energy feels being weakened.
[00:16:02] Aaron: I wanted to bring in an example here and then we can talk about how can we even identify what is our shadow work. And just an example of from my past, when I had the apparel company, I remember talking to you about feeling or experiencing jealousy to other people that had maybe apparel companies or they were selling things that they were making and they were getting a lot more attention than I was. [Mm-hmm] And I remember feeling jealousy for that. Because I wanted the attention for my own company or they developed something that I wanted to have. So I wanted to bring that in as sort of an example, because if I'm just going through my life subconsciously, I would experience this jealousy and then not even question why I was having it, and it would always be looked at as I'm a victim and this person is doing something to me. And again, like that's just a story that I would make up. And then I would just go along my business. If somebody asked me what was wrong, I would tell my friend, "Hey, this person is doing this", and talk about it through a story and not even understand that I'm even experiencing jealousy, because I would have a way of justifying it that that person was bad, [Right] and that I was the good person in that story.
[00:17:18] Alexander: That's the key word, is justifying. And if you're busy justifying, you certainly aren't being that investigator trying to see it clearly.
[00:17:26] Aaron: Yeah, so how would I go about even stopping myself to recognize that I am feeling an emotion here, and not to judge that emotion, but there's something to look at internally as to why this emotion is coming up?
[00:17:43] Alexander: Well, one thing is most people really don't like the way that so-called negative emotions make them feel. Hopefully the listeners can resonate with the understanding that almost all negative emotions are taught to us through our childhood experience and our environments. And many times negative emotions are taught to us through good intentions of the parents or the environment wanting to help us. Like some parents use fear to keep the child from doing something, but when they exercise that discipline through fear, they can create traumas that does just the opposite of, of protecting their kid.
[00:18:26] So in this situation, you know, many times just that very first recognition is that you catch yourself justifying something or feeling a need to prove something to somebody. I like to say that that's like a little yellow flag that's going off of, "Hey, why are you seeking recognition, or acceptance, or appreciation?" That normally means that there's something here to learn. And if you can just pause for that moment and then say, " Okay. If I weren't a victim in this case, and if I wasn't giving my power away and saying that this person is making me feel this way and I don't deserve this", that's a judgment right away.
[00:19:08] So everything comes back to that very first step of the, that spiritual level that the majority of our issues begins in judgment and that something shouldn't be the way that it is. Now, then we can go into, well, why is this? Because the deeper information is that every emotional experience has very little to do with the current situation at hand, but it's connected to all the similar moments throughout your whole life.
[00:19:35] So if you find where the very first time you felt this jealousy, this sensation of this emotion, it can be helpful to start to be able to see the patterns of just how many times, if you go through all through your life, you might see just time after time after time where you've experienced this vibration. And if you look at this from the mindset of frequencies, see whatever vibration we do consistently builds our aura or builds our energy field. So that's the power of acceptance, is when we can get past accepting that this is happening, that this isn't happening to us, we're actually directing this. That our emotions, we actually choose them, and then we make a connection of maybe where it began in our childhood.
[00:20:26] Then the next most important thing I feel like is the step of okay, now what do you do? What is the action? Because the whole point is, I need to change this frequency or this vibration. See, you don't need to stop feeling or having the experience of the emotion of jealousy. It's a messenger. It's coming to teach you something, invite it in. It's just that we need to shift that perception that it's something negative that somebody else is doing that they don't deserve to there's something that somebody else is doing that here, I feel like I could do that. And now I'm going to use it to be inspired by either setting up some structure that I'm gonna do every day to get better at that or I'm gonna say, you know what? I'm not willing to put the time and the energy into being as good or better than that. So I'm just going to give them some respect for the time and investment that they've put into that art. And I'm gonna go direct my energy into something useful that I want to develop. See, that's just utilizing the energy of jealousy rather than running from it.
[00:21:31] Aaron: And then by just taking that moment to pause and we become aware of our own behavior consciously, then we can see how this is affecting our lives in a negative way, so we can talk about it as being, shadow work, and that's really what we're talking about. And we can even go and connect it to one of those two major emotions that are a theme throughout our lives, and then thus, this is the work that we are here to do. And we're using the just philosophy to carry out. And like you talked about it, you said, the next step is to figure out what we're going to do, and that is exactly what we're going to be talking about in the complete conversation of this episode.
[00:22:08] Alexander: So join us. Look forward to it.
[00:22:10] Aaron: What a cliffhanger.
[00:22:11] Appreciate everybody joining us on the complete conversation of this episode on the shadow work. And as we mentioned before, we are now going to talk about what to do once you identified what is your shadow work, or what your two main emotions are that are a continuous theme throughout your life.
[00:22:31] Alexander: Welcome everybody. Really looking forward to getting even deeper than we did in the first part, to really give you guys some actions to take and some ways to navigate through these emotions.
[00:22:41] Aaron: So once we've identified, like the example we were talking about, where I had jealousy and I stopped, I identified that I was having this emotion, and then what are the steps after that?
[00:22:54] Alexander: Yes. Well, one step that you can take that, these are kind of interchangeable, but sometimes it helps to relate it to your past or when you very first remember having that experience. One thing that that can help with is if it goes back to like 14 years old or seven years old, sometimes it can help mentally to understand that you were at a completely different level of your development. And I think it's important here to put in, too, that this is why we can't trust our memories. Because our memory only remembers things to the level of our development. And we don't put into consideration how much we've developed since then. So it can help us to break the association and the power that we're giving to this negative emotion.
[00:23:42] But then the following thing, and possibly like I said, as important if not more, and these can interchange, is that you see what you need to do differently to create a different vibration. And this is from a frequency view that, whatever we're thinking, however we are reacting in this world, the repetition of that is what develops our energetic field or our aura. It affects our chakras, so to say. It kind of develops a big part of our personality. And if we want to change that reaction, all we have to do is shift it from a reaction through acceptance to a response and give basically our whole system the response that we want to give it, rather than the reaction that it's been getting for basically our whole lifetime for most people.
[00:24:34] This is also connected to what we've discussed in many podcasts in the past around what we call the three Rs. And that's being able to recognize a person's situation or energy, in this situation is an emotion. To be able to see it and respect it, which means that you drop the judgment of it.
[00:24:56] This is where you shift from the judgment, the judge to the investigator. And after we get to that level of respect, and that really means that we're not draining our energy anymore, then we redirect it into something beneficial, something that we really want to grow.
[00:25:15] So this brings it back to the example where you're not trying to beat or run from the emotion of jealousy, you're merely redirecting it. So it's almost like a tai chi-ing of the energy. You invite it in, but you change the vibration of when it shows up at your door- it's just kinda like how some restaurants make it somewhat formal where you have to have a jacket. So they have extra jackets. You show up, you don't have a jacket, they give you a jacket. And that's basically what we're doing here is we're giving it a jacket, we're dressing it up different, and then through repetition of, I like to suggest at least a hundred times, over time and consistency of effort over consolidated amount of time will change that vibration.
[00:25:59] This is a fact of physics. So this is how we take this out of just the metaphysical "woo-woo" energy world into this is actually how energy works from the standpoint of physics.
[00:26:12] Aaron: A lot of the way people out there are talking about shadow work is mainly on the recognization level where it's all about, oh, what is causing this? What happened to you in the past that you're now experiencing this emotion? And of course that is extremely important because with some people, they need to know why, because it takes the victimhood out of it where it's not just something that came out of nowhere, where it may be very easy to experience victimhood. Where maybe once they know that they're, parent had passed this down from their lineage and their parent had experienced this from their parent, then I think it allows some compassion to be brought in as well.
[00:26:51] But many people stop at that recognization phase. And so when we're talking about, you know, what do you do with shadow work or how do you work within your shadow? We're going the step past that and we're talking about the next level of working on that is to respect it after recognization. So the Three Rs, Recognize, Respect, Redirect. This is a tool that we've talked about many time and we have a whole episode dedicated to it, but we've talked about it on many episodes, so we're bringing it in here and adapting it to working on your shadow work.
[00:27:29] And I wanted to just get into the other steps, cause I think we've covered recognization a lot, but let's get into respect and dive deeper. You've talked about how acceptance is a big part of that and it falls in the respect phase.
[00:27:43] Alexander: Yes. This is the highlight of these Three Rs, and this is the one that I feel like most people skip, is that they may be able to recognize and then they even try all kinds of techniques to change it. But normally they come back to that same old pattern. And that's because, from my standpoint, there's still judgment there, that this is something wrong. This is something negative. So through the power of acceptance, and again, that not meaning condoning or proving of, you're just stopping the resistance to it.
[00:28:14] And here it's the, some people call it the ugly term of jealousy, but it's actually just a messenger and it's bringing you a message to either say, "Hey, do you want to try harder to impress the people, this person is impressing or this situation is impressing, or do you not and want to just give them credit for the amount of energy and time that they're expending to, to receive that?"
[00:28:39] And most people won't take the time to just question if they're willing to do what it takes to be that person that they're jealous of. And that's where acceptance comes in and this gets rid of self-judgment, it gets rid of comparing, because when you're able to see jealousy as just really two options of it's either gonna inspire me to work harder or it's going to help me to accept that this person has worked harder and therefore I'm going to give them respect.
[00:29:12] Aaron: And in the past you've said that acceptance, in us talking about shadow work, is you're changing your relationship to how you react or slash respond to a specific trigger.
[00:29:26] Alexander: Yes, this is the importance of this middle step of respect is because when you go into redirect, you want to be carrying a different vibration. See some people will recognize the jealousy, and then they'll go through guilt. Oh, I shouldn't feel that way, so I should just go be nice to this person. But see, they're almost trying to fool themselves. They're not carrying the true vibration of respect of either, hey, you're willing to work harder, or, you know what, you've inspired me to work harder. See, that's gonna bring a different vibration once you start that redirection. And I feel like this is why many people get frustrated and fail, is that they attempt to redirect without truly shifting their vibration. They're only shifting the mental level. And again, here we're always gonna bring up that all Five Levels have to be shifted. And in that recognition, and that choosing of to try to do something different, that's all in the mental and maybe the physical level, but it's leaving out that crucial emotional, spiritual, and the true level of acceptance and the energetic, of the way that, that is falling out, like ripples going out.
[00:30:39] Aaron: I can see how many out there may want like that instantaneous change of perspective, to step into growth and be able to change right away because many of us want to be the best person that we can be and maybe even do it faster than another person I know. Like I've fallen into that as well.
[00:30:59] Alexander: Yes. And the unfortunate thing, or what I really wanted to wake people up to, is in the holistic world it's very common to see that you may have to work on something half as long to make it better or to be where you want to be as it took to create it. So just hypothetically, somebody's 40 years old and they've been operating in this way for 40 years and they have this recognition and they start working with the respect, which is going to take time and the redirection, I like to say, hey, give it 20 years before you consider being where you really want to be. And I know that some of you listeners are not gonna want to think that, you're not gonna want this work to take that long, but the thing is, is that you have the rest of your life anyway. And as long as it's getting better consistently, you won't miss that you're not at that goal. But the secret is, gradual changes over long periods of time equals lasting results. And the fact is, is if you shift it today and you change that vibration, it's going to be benefiting you and taking you toward Wellness. And so, I feel like we really need to get out of this concept of time and in a certain amount of time we should be at a certain amount of completion of either our healing or in our self-development. Because that time factor really creates a lot of frustration for people.
[00:32:19] Aaron: If you're able to set realistic expectations for your growth, you have a better chance of staying out of self-judgment because when you are trying to expediate your growth and then two years down the road you're still reacting to the same trigger over and over again, you're going to judge yourself and say you're not working hard enough.
[00:32:37] Alexander: Yes, because a lot of people are trying to avoid. So what they do is they take themselves away from their family. They end certain relationships. And then they change the roleplayer, so to say, or they get rid of somebody that they think that is activating that emotion, like jealousy, but all that's happened is yes, that person's not around, so it's not being activated, but guess what, life is going to provide a person or a situation for that emotion to come back up. So this is why it doesn't work to run from these emotions or to necessarily change your job or your relationships, because it will show back up to you.
[00:33:15] Aaron: And time plays a huge role in this as well because there have been concepts that mentally I've heard you talk about throughout, you know, recording this podcast- we're just entering our sixth year doing this- [Mm-hmm] and it then took maybe a couple years for me to go back to certain podcasts, re-listen again, and then it just snapped into place because maybe there were certain experiences that I had to have that grew a certain perspective. And then when I heard these words again for the third, fourth, fifth, sixth time, [Right] it then helped snap puzzle pieces together. But it wasn't there the first time that I heard it.
[00:33:54] Alexander: Yes. And here's where I'd like to suggest that time is our adversary, but timing is our ally. So see, time that we create in our own minds is what creates shackles, what creates the resistance, what creates friction, creates expectations, creates disappointment. But when you learn to live life in, these are the spiritual characteristics of the J.U.S.T. Philosophy, in trust and faith and non-judgement, then you start to see these natural timing connections happen. And when you feel a natural organic timing come in, like, yes, you might have heard me say something 10 times in the past, but you know a difference of when you really get it. And that's timing. Like, I can't, I can't create that timing. I don't know that it might not take 20 times of you hearing it. That's something that where I like to say that that's the Divine's special sauce, is that when I stopped focusing on my desires and my willpower and I learned to ride the wave of life, and to look for these timings and to know how to regulate my energy in between these serendipitous timings and stay outside of time, it can save and preserve so much energy for me to be able to develop things.
[00:35:15] Aaron: I think these are all ways that people prevent themselves from reaching that second level of acceptance, and there was a quote that I heard maybe seven, eight years back, which is everything is as it should be. And that's like the optimal acceptance line.
[00:35:31] Alexander: Yes. I love it.
[00:35:32] Aaron: And I remember the first time I heard it, I was in total resistance. I was like, no, there's no way that's true. I don't understand that. And now I'm in total resonation with it, but I don't know if we can use that or use something else to check in with ourselves to see where we currently are or is there a way that we can tell if we're fooling ourselves in a process like this, where we are going through the Three Rs and we're checking in with a certain trigger that we're working on, and you know, mentally we get it. Mentally we know that what we're doing is part of a past emotional trigger and we know what to do to fix it, but we're missing that respect or acceptance. We think we accept it, [Mm-hmm] but we're judging ourselves for doing it. Like, is there a way that you know, that we can utilize to check in with ourselves to see where we're fooling ourselves? Because I feel like this is one of my things that I struggle with the most.
[00:36:32] Alexander: Yes. And I think it's a great question. And my answer to that is saturation. Like, if you think you've moved beyond anything, then go saturate yourself in that. And like anybody that has a resistance to Christianity, or Christians to a certain extent, can go spend an ample amount of time in church, seeing truly if your vibration can stay pure and neutral through a whole service and meeting with people and that type of thing. Because if you put yourself in the environment to where the resistance is- and this is why I say family is the gold mine to be able to use this cause they're normally going to reveal things that reflect things that you're working on to get away from.
[00:37:13] And so to know if you're truly in acceptance, you won't judge that person that is exemplifying something that you've worked to get away. You will have compassion for them in that. You won't have a need to teach them, to fix them, to help them. Acceptance is just that, that you accept them. You recognize that, oh, yes, I'm working to get away from that vibration, but there's no judgment of good, bad, or indifferent towards that person. And without that immersion, we fool ourselves very easily. But again, all we've done normally is changed the aspects of our environment and took ourselves out of that challenge so much, therefore, patting ourselves on the back thinking that we have mastered it.
[00:37:59] But I like to say that life never lets us get away with that. It'll always bring things up periodically to test that to see if you're on point, so to say. And the other way to look at that is it should be very challenging or hard for you to make that shift. That it's not as easy as I'm making it sound to shift from jealousy to either respect or inspiration. That should be challenging and that should be challenging for weeks, months, years before it turns into an ease of a process.
[00:38:33] Aaron: All right. Let's move on to the third step, which is redirect. Is there a formula or some way that we can easily come up with what we need to do to redirect in a certain instance?
[00:38:46] Alexander: Well, just the basic premise is to start with the opposite. Of whatever that emotion is, all those emotions have an opposite. And this isn't just about thinking it, it's about bringing it into the physical and practicing it. Which means that it will create a feeling, it will create a vibration.
[00:39:06] So someone that deals with like say hatred even, that can be a very challenging one to accept, but that's the opposite of love. So that doesn't mean that if you're experiencing hatred towards somebody that I'm suggesting you go show them love. That's been said. Certain people's tried it. And I'm not saying that it, it won't have a certain level of usefulness, but what I'm interested in more is not putting yourself in a situation that's hard to succeed, but finding another way that is easier to succeed.
[00:39:44] So that might be showing your child, showing your animal, showing your loved one love. Because again, I'm talking about shifting the vibration. So when you feel the negative vibration of an emotion, just look for how quickly you can shift that into experiencing the opposite of that emotion, whether it's with that person, place, or situation, will come in time. The main thing is how quickly can you shift, actually shift your feeling, your sensation, not just your thought.
[00:40:16] Aaron: Would you say that has to do with meeting a vibration where it's at, so then you can bring it up because you've talked about, you know, if you want to help someone, you have to meet them where they're at and then suddenly bring them up.
[00:40:28] So in this instance, you're kind of saying that it may not be helpful or consistent to just bring love to the person that you hate, because it may not be authentic.
[00:40:36] Alexander: Authentic. Right, right. Yes. And that's the most important part is it has to be authentic, because it has to be a vibration.
[00:40:42] It can't be just a thought. I mean, thought is the beginning of a vibration, but the act and the repetition is what builds the vibration. If you're not able to get to acceptance, which means that you're judgeless, that whether you are doing it or somebody else is doing it, that elicits no response, so to say. And normally that takes a long period of time of practicing something that was an emotional trigger, that has been established from many traumas through somebody's life. That's why I give that timeframe of just let go of how long it's going to take to get better and just chop your wood, carry your water, and do your practice, and it will get better over time and over enough time it will become the new automatic. But it takes effort, practice, consistency, structure, and discipline, in the beginning. And I broke it down to a teaching of if it's challenging for you, it's probably good for you.
[00:41:40] Aaron: Yeah, and exactly. That was the next thing I was gonna say is after you have identified how to Recognize, Respect, Redirect, we're kind of adding a fourth one here for this episode, which is Repeat. And that is how you would work on your shadow work and eventually improve over time, like we say at the end of every episode, or Alexander says at our outro, gradual changes over long periods of time equals lasting results. And I think we're all here for lasting results because who wants to continue to suffer in the same way over and over again.
[00:42:11] Alexander: Yes. Yes. And the Buddha had a wonderful saying that said, life is suffering. And the choice here is that yes, there's gonna be suffering in life and you either just suffer, which never ends, or you use that suffering to grow, to learn, to better yourself. And therefore the suffering does end. It turns into that polarity or that full 360 degrees into something very, very useful. But again, I can't stress the amount of, the more that you practice this consistently, the more that it becomes an automatic process. So somebody working with jealousy, I mean, be that investigator and find out every time that you're experiencing just the least small bit of jealousy.
[00:42:55] Even if you're sitting beside somebody in your car at a stoplight and you look at the car and you admire it and you think for a moment you would like to have that. To be willing to be honest with yourself, to go, hey, that was a little bit of jealousy there. Rather than going, man, I bet they work hard and they probably deserve that. And no, I'm not going to pay the insurance for that and go through all the energy expenditure cost. So that's why keeping the cost of your wants as close as you do your wants is a big part of this process. And normally it's our wants that lead us down the road to run into these emotional obstacles.
[00:43:36] Aaron: So let's bring in a few examples here. One, I want to go back to the inward Journey series and we can bring an example from there. And then I believe you have an example that you want to share, which would be more in depth because we have your personal experience with that.
[00:43:51] But since it's fresh on our mind, episode 13 of the Inward Journey story series, we had Haven out in Asheville, and she recognized Stan, who was meeting with Rita. And later on she came home, she brought food for their partner, Rio, and Stevie happened to be there and just happened to ask Haven if they saw Stan there. And they said they did, and Haven also shared some information about who Stan was there with, which happened to be his boss on this new job. And Stevie experienced some jealousy not knowing all the information.
[00:44:29] Alexander: Right.
[00:44:29] Aaron: So if anybody wants to check out that story that is from our last episode, which would be episode 126. But I did want to bring in her in this instance and go through, if she was consciously wanting to work on this, this feeling of jealousy would be most likely part of her shadow work if it's coming up, especially not knowing all the information.
[00:44:54] And so how could she take a pause, recognize that she's having this emotion, and then further go through the Three Rs?
[00:45:01] Alexander: I think first of all, you know, recognizing that she did have an emotional reaction around jealousy, and she questioned whether Rita was hitting on Stan? And so right then the recognition that she's not seeing it clearly.
[00:45:15] And then, secondly, she had tried to message him or call him a few times, a couple of hours earlier, and to recognize that she doesn't have the information that she needs here and that maybe she could recognize that that jealousy might show a spark between how she feels about Stan, that maybe she's allowed to kind of go away a little bit or, or to take for granted.
[00:45:41] And then of course, with the support of Rio and Haven, she could have the opportunity to say, well, before I overreact, I do want to talk to Stan. Because that's what Haven winds up telling her is, hey, I think you're taking this a little bit out of hand here. And why don't you wait till you talk to Stan? I'm sure he can explain.
[00:46:00] So we don't know a lot of the background. We don't know if this is one of her two main emotions. We don't really know at this point where that weighs with her, but it is certainly something that brought up a reaction and it even ended her good time with them. And then fortunately, Haven and Rio were strong enough or had the ability to shift the energy back so they could have a wonderful evening after Stevie left.
[00:46:24] Aaron: I think that's a good point. Even recognizing how destructive this emotional trigger is to your life and almost utilizing that for motivation to continue to practice and repeat, over and over again, so that you're no longer giving up your power to this emotional reaction. I think that's a good point here because Stevie could, like you said, see how it took away from her time with Rio, which is always uplifting and it's a vibration that she says she wants to be in more. And she's working toward that and realizing and reflecting on how it just totally changed her mood. And then she eventually left when she could have maybe stayed and enjoyed more of their company. I think that's a, a good point to bring up.
[00:47:08] Alexander: Yes. And I think it's important to get across the importance of standing in your power. And this is mentioned again a lot in a lot of spiritual circles or metaphysical circles, but that, you know, to me through this philosophy means that. That the winds are going to blow, the storms are going to come, but similar to a tree. They're flexible to a certain point, but they're very rooted in the ground.
[00:47:31] And a big part of standing in your power is, I happen to choose that no one can make me mad, no one can make me sad. No situation can make me mad or make me sad. That if I'm experiencing sadness, then I accept that I'm the one allowing that. And there's nothing wrong with that. We were designed to be emotional beings, but we were designed to process these emotions.
[00:47:55] So again, this is where the non-judgment part comes in. To accept that, okay, I'm experiencing sadness here, but this isn't the end result. There's going to be lessons, there's going to be things learned, and I'm gonna be able to utilize this loss or whatever's creating the sadness to make myself stronger.
[00:48:13] So see that isn't just a mental construct that I'm trying to fool myself to believe, that's something that I've practiced a million times over, and over, and over. That I accept that in a certain period of time I'm not gonna be able to see this clearly. And that's okay I'm not going to judge it because that is my interest, always to see things as clearly as possible. So there will come a shift in the timing to where that will be more supported. And depending on the issue, this might last seconds, it might last minutes, or hours, or days, or weeks, or months, or sometimes even years. For major traumas, I start off with my private clientele to suggest a seven year period before you really think that you've overcome something.
[00:48:56] And so with smaller things, like I said, it might take weeks, months, or years of practice before you truly are able to see the results in a more of a passive way or not even realizing that you're doing it.
[00:49:12] Aaron: And finally, how could Stevie redirect that emotion once she has given it respect?
[00:49:19] Alexander: Well, right away, to maybe make her engagement with Stan, when she does make the connection, to begin it with appreciation. To begin it with the feelings of what she was afraid that she would might lose in that jealous moment.
[00:49:36] So see, to take time to contemplate, once again, the opposite of that emotion of jealousy is appreciation. And so to be sure that she engages and makes that the most important part of their interaction when they do reengage, of showing him appreciation. Because if this lady was hypothetically flirting, you know, it's still up to Stan of how he handles it. Whether he is looking for that, because maybe he's not getting enough appreciation at home. Or if he is getting appreciation, then people can learn to deflect or redirect that flirting. I mean, people deal with that day in and day out, but the key isn't whether, from my perception, whether they're getting hit on or not, the key to me is how they're handling it. And many times how they handle it is connected to the role you're playing in their life. So again, that's where I see the optimal use is, is to reflect on how can I show him that I'm optimally appreciative? And if that happens, that's going to have a direct effect on how their conversation goes and how Stan explains himself.
[00:50:40] Aaron: I think in that aspect that you're bringing up of what Stevie could do, it's going to require her a lot of vulnerability.
[00:50:48] Alexander: Yes. Yes. And that's what all of this work requires. And that's why, people that deal with shame, with insecurity, with self-judgment, this is a big step because when you get to that level of acceptance and non-judgment, that's the power of it. Is that we have to stop being on our own case, so to say, to be able to do some of this redirecting. And unfortunately, people have just been pounded with that negative emotions are bad and that people shouldn't experience them. And when you do, you're a bad person and if you react out of them, you're even worse of a person. And that's a lot to overcome to get to that simple point of learning to make love with the friction in life, rather than resist it. To see that jealousy, that fear, that insecurity, whatever it is, and invite it in rather than projecting outwardly to try to justify it.
[00:51:42] And that's what I, and we, are calling upon people and providing support to be that so-called love warrior. That one that is willing to see that that is uncomfortable, that isn't fun, but to utilize it into development and deepening their intimacy not only with themselves but everyone around them. And that does take vulnerability.
[00:52:06] Aaron: Alexander, if you wanna bring in your experience now that you wanted to share and go through your progression of how you handled something, throughout the Three Rs, and then maybe even touch upon how resolved it is today.
[00:52:18] Alexander: Sure. And over 125 episodes, both Aaron and I both have shared a lot of personal experiences and I want to make sure that mine never comes across as look at what I've done. It comes from a level of humility and appreciation to the Divine, that Divine energy, for providing me with the understanding, for providing me with all of the challenging situations to practice all these techniques on, to get to the point of reciprocating and experiencing the healing side, the Wellness side, the completion on all five of those levels.
[00:52:56] And so one that I'm going to share happened this past year, and it began with a wart on top of my head in my crown area. And, you know, I happen to feel that the body is a messenger and it's constantly telling us what we may or may not be aware of. So all illnesses, or defects, or anything like that is a direct message to an emotional imbalance that's going on, which is connected to an energetic imbalance, which is normally connected to a mental imbalance, that began in a spiritual imbalance of feeling like something is not the way it should be. And that's why this philosophy has five main pillars, and the very first one is everything's in Divine Order whether I understand it or not. And that is that acceptance of I don't need things to be different than they are. And so when we have that judgment that we don't approve of something that begins this resistance or this drain of energy.
[00:53:53] So wart is directly connected to the disgusting image or the, the ugliest view of something. And then the area of the body was my crown. And the crown chakra is connected to that Divine energy in how we perceive our connection to that. And so I happen to be very comfortable in my connection with the Divine and I love the way that I practice my connection with the Divine, but I don't always talk about my connection and how I do that a lot because I want everyone to understand the freedom they have in this work is to believe whatever path you wanna believe, this isn't going to interfere with that belief system.
[00:54:34] So for a long period of time, it was important for me to learn to talk to people of any faith, of any belief system, and to be able to connect with them, and them to be able to utilize this information. But what has happened over a long period of time is maybe I'm not expressing myself enough, maybe I'm not standing enough in my power of how important that Divine connection was to me.
[00:54:58] So, to expediate the story a little bit, I had a situation to where I had dumped some ashes from a fire the night previously before, and I was having an event on a Saturday evening here on my property, and I dumped some ashes out earlier that morning and felt no heat from them. And then I was inside and I got an urge to go back outside. I was actually gonna take a nap inside. I'd been cleaning up outside all day. And so I took note of that urgency. And so I went outside and I saw smoke and I looked around and I saw that my field was on fire where I dumped those ashes.
[00:55:32] In haste, I grabbed a blanket, and I ran out there and I tried to put the fire out. Not even getting a quarter of it put out, I was completely exhausted. I put my head down and I tried to pat some more out, and I got about half of it out and I couldn't hardly move. I literally started crying in fear that I didn't even know if I had the energy that it would take to get back to the house to call the fire department. So I was starting to make peace with, with whatever was going to happen, and I happened to open my eyes and all of it was out except for maybe a three foot little area. Three foot by three foot. And I remember just diving on that fire with that blanket and landing on it, putting it out, and then rolling over and being completely spent. And I was crying out of humility, out of appreciation, that I felt like my guides, my angels had come down and helped me put that fire out because I physically, legitimately, couldn't put it out by myself.
[00:56:28] So after that, about four hours later, I'm having the event. And so I was drawn to share this story and I shared it in a very humble way, and I was crying, connecting to the feeling of feeling supported and that I'm never alone and just re-emphasizing that in my faith and in my trust that I'm always being protected.
[00:56:50] I've always prayed over my food as well before a meal, but I've always done it silently. So I started like saying the prayer out loud. I started saying a prayer out loud before each podcast, which is different. I started speaking more from an appreciation standpoint. And then over a six month span, the wart went away.
[00:57:11] And so this is a connection of how even something that has formed into the physical gets resolved, because I didn't use any kind of medicine on that wart to try to get rid of it. I feel that it got taken care of by me working on the other four levels and truly changing my everyday path. And this is just an example of something that was created from some type of emotion of not being expressive enough, not being expressive about my connection to that Divine energy. And so that could come from self-worth issues. It could come from, you know, a fear of rejection, which more than likely it come from.
[00:57:52] So, like I said, by me practicing doing that in front of people and not being concerned with the rejection, and it even happened that night, there happened to be an atheist that was at my event unknowingly, and through the grapevine I got the message that he really enjoyed the performance, the sound journey that I did, but he didn't care for the speech at the beginning. And I remember when I was told that, that I had a millisecond of, oh, I hope that he wasn't offended. But then I immediately corrected that, from my standpoint, into just acceptance of that's okay, that they felt that way because I felt so good about the way that I expressed my say, my way and my, my appreciation to that Divine energy, with the intent of not making anybody uncomfortable. So that's kinda like an example or a little story of working on it on all those levels and actually having a physical change.
[00:58:49] So those of you that are dealing with any health ailments out there, you know there's really hope in this work. That's the deepest level of this work is the Wellness side of it, not just the mental, and emotional, the energetic, the spiritual, and the physical, all together.
[00:59:04] Aaron: And the ironic part that you did not share about that was that the event was called a Magic Carpet Ride of Sound, and you basically used a carpet to put the fire out.
[00:59:16] Alexander: Yes.
[00:59:16] Aaron: And there were no marks on the carpet when you shared it later.
[00:59:19] Alexander: Yeah, it was, it was amazing that, you know, I probably spent 15 to 20 minutes just smothering a fire with it. And yes, it didn't have one mark on it, which was amazing.
[00:59:28] Aaron: Now, do you want to quickly go through the Three Rs and how they related to that story that you just shared. What you kind of did in relation?
[00:59:38] Alexander: Yeah, sure. Well, the first step in recognizing is I recognize that there was an imperfection on my body. I've gone through this in many, many different things and I love telling the stories. But I recognize this imperfection, and then I wanted to respect it by being interested in what it had to teach me. So in of course, in mapping the body and where it was at with my crown, I felt like it was connected to something between me and the Divine. I wanted to justify it by saying, no, that's good. I'm really comfortable where that's at. See, that's the shift of being the investigator. You stay looking at it until you find how it fits.
[01:00:15] And in this particular situation, that was connected to my expression of my appreciation, basically, of that Divine energy. And then I didn't judge myself, I didn't beat myself up that I'd done anything wrong. Again, that's the practicing the non-judgment in the respect part. The redirection was that each day I was gonna make it a point to make sure that I am expressing that appreciation, in some manner or another. And that I'm still gonna use the intention to not offend anyone, but if anyone does get offended, then I'm going to be accepting of that too. And that's how to discharge that fear of rejection, that it's going to happen more than likely.
[01:00:57] See these negative emotions, they're going to be experienced. It's just that we're not ruled by them. And then by practicing that consistently over a six month span, it, I feel like, cleaned out every level, even to the physical to where it removed the physical wart that was on top of my skull, which was a very interesting place. I'd never had one there before.
[01:01:19] Aaron: And so to wrap up this episode, I think we were talking about wanting to give like action items in case people wanted to follow along and work on these sort of topics that we were discussing in each episode. What can we do, over the next two weeks between this episode and the next one, to put this information in practice?
[01:01:40] Alexander: Okay. One of the main points is to really work to figure out what you feel like your two main emotions are. And then truly work for every day, some way to work on those two emotions, a little bit every day. And the work is that most of you listening are already in some type of recognition of recognizing shortcomings, but the real work is in how are you going to learn to not judge it? How are you going to learn to accept it? To come to a point of neutrality where you can actually learn from it? And that is shifting from that judge to that investigator. And the investigator doesn't judge because judgment gets in the way of seeing the clues, so to say.
[01:02:24] So that's where I really want people to focus over these next couple of weeks. And please give us feedback. If you're looking for a deeper connection, reach out for a private session. I help people with these things every week. And then it's the repetition of, of going through that non-judgment. Of being able to accept that part of you that is going to aid you in the redirection. But really be willing to stay at that stage of the second R of respecting it or learning to respect it, for a long period of time. These are like, again, weeks, months, years at each stage. And a lot of you have been at the stage of recognition for many years.
[01:03:08] So be willing to spend a lot of time in just learning to accept these emotions, to not judge them. To be willing to see what the opposite of that is and how you can practice it. And then we will get into. Redirecting it and it's practicing it with that vibration on all those levels rather than just the mental shift.
[01:03:29] Aaron: And you had talked about maybe going over a list that you have of the five main emotions and then all the sub emotions under it. Do you wanna share that?
[01:03:39] Alexander: Yeah. We'll go through these fairly quickly. The top categories, or the main categories are anger, grief, guilt, insecurity, and fear.
[01:03:53] Then under anger, there's frustration, rage, spite, bitterness, resentment, and see, I find it simpler to just find out what that subcategory that this is around anger.
[01:04:07] And then grief, the subcategories are sadness, depression.
[01:04:14] Guilt, and shame, the subcategories are judgment, jealousy.
[01:04:20] For insecurity, the subcategories are self worth, disappointment, rejection.
[01:04:28] And then under fear, the subcategories are abandonment, anxiety, worry, restlessness.
[01:04:39] So, there's a lot of different emotions there, but if you're able to trim it down to just your main two, then I feel like it's a much easier process to manage, especially in the beginning.
[01:04:50] But then learning that each one of these do have a say, and each one of them does have an opposite. And that's what we're gonna work with to change your vibration people, not just your thoughts.
[01:05:02] Aaron: Because if one of my main ones is frustration, I'm actually having the frequency of anger and that can manifest, maybe not as frustration, but maybe as anger or one of those others that are under it.
[01:05:15] Alexander: Yes, as anger, or rage, or spite, or bitterness. And that's the thing is that, that I don't think people realize that you're keeping a consistent vibration when you're experiencing these five different emotions. But what it's doing is it's keeping the vibration of anger alive and instilling it in you over, and over, and over, through these different avenues.
[01:05:34] And that's why the consolidation is so important because some people may say, well, I really don't experience, you know, spite or rage that much. But then I say, but do you experience frustration? Oh yeah, I get frustrated all the time. Okay, well that's directly connected to anger. So you know, the opposite of anger is love.
[01:05:53] So there's many different ways to experience love, and there's many different ways to experience anger. And we want to bring them together rather than looking at them from the opposing view. To bring them together and see that they're both important, they're all important.
[01:06:06] Aaron: And you and I are coming upon our seven year anniversary of knowing each other in one of my earliest memories of you is something you said the first time I met you, which was that you can't experience anger unless you have anger inside of you.
[01:06:20] And I remember thinking how profound that was because I, I never thought of myself as an angry person, because 99.9% of the time I'm not.
[01:06:28] Alexander: Right.
[01:06:28] Aaron: But I do experience some anger, but I never thought, I would never think that I have anger inside of me.
[01:06:33] Alexander: Yes. And that's the thing is that most people have some of all of these emotions at some point in their life.
[01:06:39] So anytime somebody says they don't carry a certain emotion, That's when I say, well, there you're being the judge and not the investigator. And I find that it's more useful to stay in communication with the investigator rather than the judge. To say something like, I'm sure I have anger in me or rage in me, but I'm not in touch with that right now. But you know what? I want to get in touch with that to make sure that I am processing that as well.
[01:07:04] Aaron: Well, I appreciate this conversation. Hopefully everybody enjoyed us returning to this format and I think shadow work was a, a great, great subject to get back into this.
[01:07:14] So I appreciate you, Alexander, and Joco here sitting beside me. You may have heard him purring throughout this. So thank you all for joining us on this complete conversation.
[01:07:22] Alexander: Much love.