Worthiness is something that you remember, it’s not something that you create. You get to choose again, to feel worthy of your own love first. And, when you feel worthy of your own love first, at all the different levels, then the world begins to reflect that (back) to you.

– Xavier Dagba

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ABOUT THIS EPISODE

What is shadow work? I didn’t know until I met Xavier Dagba, a transformational life coach, speaker, blogger, and uplifter who is passionate about helping others consciously navigate their triggers and claim their own self-mastery. We dove right into our work together, touching tender places and excavating buried corners. The work was intense, but it created a sense of freedom and expansion for me that was dramatic and noticeable. Shadow work, in part, is understanding the core of your emotional blocks, suppressed emotions, and trauma so that you can release them, transmute those experiences, claim your freedom, show up more purposely in your life and thrive. In this thought leader talk, Xavier will share more on what shadow work is and isn’t, touching on healing and manifestation techniques to help you shed your limitations, optimize your potential, and live a life of purpose.

SHOW NOTES

Xavier’s Website | @xavier.dagba Instagram | Inner Alchemy Circle

 

 

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Episode Transcription

Vanessa: Welcome, Xavier, Thank you for being here.

Xavier: Thank you again, it’s an absolute pleasure.

Vanessa: Thank you. I wanted to open with a little story about when we had our introductory call, and what happened to me right afterwards. So I had my introductory call into VA, I didn’t know much about Shadow Work, I really think I was led to him. It was so purely instinctual, gut based, it wasn’t very rational. I just sort of knew, we had our introductory call. And I said, Yes, I’m ready. I’m ready to do this. And, and then right afterwards, I had this moment of panic. It was this moment of sort of sheer terror, you know, it felt in my body. And I’ve learned over time to listen to those messages. And I stopped, and I thought, this is one of two things. This is my intuition telling me No, I don’t trust this guy. There’s something wrong here because it was strong. Or it’s something inside of me that knows I’m about to touch a really tender place. And I’m afraid. But that fear means I’m on the edge of something. And I should lean into it. And I sat with it for a while to try and figure out which one it was. And I concluded, I trust him. And it is fear. But it’s fear that I need to walk towards rather than walk away from maybe that was my first introduction to what this Shadow Work is moving towards something, rather than what we’ve always sort of been taught or think we should do, which was move away from it. So I wonder if you could just start by just introducing the work, because I’m sure there are some people who are listening who are familiar with it, but maybe others who aren’t who heard of it, but don’t really know what it’s about, tell us a little bit about what it is and how you can start to understand what the work is?

Xavier: Shadow Work happened to me, I always say it happens to me, as a survival thing, I needed to do Shadow Work, I needed to face my own demons, because I was already at a place where I had no other choice. And I tried the other way of just like denying, and focusing on the best that I could potentially focus on. And ignore this charge here for a long time. And it didn’t work for me. So I had to be okay, what is this? What is going on within me, I was the archetype like the perfect example of the guy who was disconnected from his emotions. And I had to just like, go within, and to welcome them again. And this is how my own journey started, I want to say, around five years ago, or even six years ago, and I didn’t get it yet, I didn’t even though I was doing Shadow Work, I was just there processing whatever I could process. And then I, of course, dove into the literature of about Shadow Work. And there was something that happened when we grow up, you know, and I invite you to picture yourself in your household and your family, when you grow up. You do something, mom or dad says, Yes. And you do some other things. And they say, none of that here. And that natural expression of you whatever it was, you make the decision that is pretty unconscious at that time to dis own. And then you begin to create a shadow. This is something that we do unconsciously when we are young. This is what is accepted in my community, in my circle by my family, this is what is expected of me. And I’m going to do my best to give that to them. Because I am still a young child, I cannot provide for myself, I cannot create safety for myself, I rely on them. So everything else that they say no to, or that I’m punished for, I am going to just own. So we begin unconsciously to create a shadow. Now, Shadow Work is all about claiming again, this parts of us that we had this own for a longest time, and creating wholeness within ourselves again, and this is all what Shadow Work is to make it simple to make it very basic. And we can explore even more, give even more context give even more definition. But Shadow Work is just beginning the journey of diving into the place within your own psyche within your own consciousness that you had this own and you’re really feeling even more whole again.

Vanessa: Talk about that process. And what you see is happening in that process when you’re trying to access things. How do you go about that? assessing those things that the rational mind might not be able to find so easily.

Xavier: The first thing that I want to say is, almost all of us will leave in displays of consciousness maintenance, we try to maintain some sort of, I want to say consciousness integrity, and the ego creates stories, to maintain that anger is bad, don’t go there. Right? If you go there, this is what is going to happen. So you better stay here, you better stay here don’t even under that, you better stay here. So we have a whole bunch of stories that are always active, I can’t allow myself to feel this because it would be destructive to think about even that because and because it’s one of the ugliest stories that your ego can find. So that you actually surrender to Okay, I hear you, I’m gonna stay here. I don’t want to dive in there. I don’t want to feel anger, I don’t want to resent I don’t want to feel the shame. And when you say the I don’t to any emotion, you keep that inside. So it doesn’t leave your body. So this is how consciousness maintenance works. We create stories, sometimes most of those stories are borrowed from people from society, from parents, you know, from people that we cherish, and we borrow the stories to stay in that space of consciousness maintenance. Now, the ego has no clue about what is really happening in the shadow, because it’s unconscious. And it takes a willingness to change that the way you dive in the shallow end by challenging the story and surrendering to the story. What if you actually felt the anger? What if you surrendered to it? What would that mean? What if you allowed yourself to feel the resentment for your husband? for your kids? What would that mean? The mind sometimes cannot even provide the answer to that, and let your body come with the most primal response that you can possibly have access to in that moment. And this is how you begin to uncover How did you uncover those stories? They are always enmeshed with emotions. Like, oh, if I let myself go there, this is what is gonna happen. And then what? Huh, and just pondering the question opens the door to like, Okay, then what would that mean about me? What would that mean about how I’m seeing, you know, it’s just how you begin to challenge the story. And this is how you begin to follow the thread, and to dive into the shadow. And no one can tell you, no coach, no facilitator can tell you what is stored in your shadow. Your body will give to you what you need to work through, so that you can feel even more.

Vanessa: And I have to acknowledge your capacity to hold people, me, and my experience in a place of deep resistance, even for those who want to go bravely to that place. Because there’s just so much built-in resistance. And it does take a feeling of real safety and love and compassion, to allow yourself to go there. I mean, there are some questions you’ve asked me where I’ve thought maybe we could do a different question time. That’s not my favorite question. You know, can I take a pass, and then we go there. And then we go farther, and we go farther, and we go farther. So I want to acknowledge your capacity to hold that. And one thing that you said to me at one point was, we cannot lead others where we have not been ourselves. Because this is my chance, right? In our sessions, we’re always talking about me. Here’s my chance to ask you about you. And in your process, where you were, and what you pass through where you are now. And if you would like to share what your sort of ongoing work is, personally,

Xavier: absolutely. I used to be a PhD student, not in psychology, but in economix. I’ve been living in Canada for so many years for seven years now. But the University of Montreal is the one that offered me a full page scholarship to come to the University to do research to me was full. Yes, that’s what I wanted to do at the time. You know, my family was so excited. They didn’t even have to pay a penny for all of that. So it was just that golden opportunity. School was my goal to just need to go to school, get the best degree that I can possibly get. To me getting that best degree you want just a PhD, I’m going to get a PhD and be the the good boy. The story of being the good boy to my parents was really active within me because I come from a family of six. We grew up in a place where money wasn’t always abundant the way we wanted to, it was really important. to just do something with your life. So I bought into that story we all did my six siblings, we are really into that. And at that time, two years into the PhD, it was in 2013, I had that dark night of the ego again, you know, and I had that feeling. And this is not it. This is not eight and seeing myself projecting myself into a life of research for something that is not even going to be used to change lives. And that was my perspective, at the moment, something else was calling me. So I dropped out. I don’t even tell my parents at the time that I dropped out, they only found out the year after, and from somebody who, you know, grew up in Africa had that golden opportunity to have a Ph. D program being paid in full by the university, and even living expenses to be paid by the University. He was like, how crazy Can that be, to just let it all go? Not because he was hard, not because of grades. But just because my soul was just like, calling me in a way that felt so hard. After my parents found out, we went through two years and a half of not talking to each other, not even my brothers and everybody felt betrayed. Because I was also that example, people were, they were looking up to me, at that time began a big time of searching, diving into any personal development book that I could find my initial teachers, Wayne Dyer, with hay and all that beautiful teaching, it was it became my spiritual Foundation, there was all of that grief, all of that pain. After receiving this opening messages from my parents, like, you know, you are not a son anymore for children to do this thing or leaving this thing. So there was just a huge grief, anger, rage even, that was just there, unexpressed, and I was in this town, where I was alone. And he didn’t feel like I could go back home because I felt this own. That time was just a time of trying to feel at home within myself again, and deep searching. And at some point, I was very close to giving up completely on life, you know, to just, okay, let’s just end this thing right there. What’s the point? That moment was a lot of people call it a dark night of the soul. But I would call it the dark night of the ego, because that consciousness maintenance place just crumbled. I couldn’t stay there anymore, I had to do something. I tried to run away from it, I went to a place where in my life where I was even homeless, and I just sat down and I looked up in the sky, I’ll just like, Alright, whoever is up there, or whoever’s in here, just let me get out of here. And I will dedicate my voice to this work, whatever it is, I don’t even have any clue what it is. But she’s just let me get out of there. And in that moment, a resounding surrender to the darkness is what I felt. And to many people, it can feel like, Oh, this is ugly. There was an incredible amount of piece that happened when I just surrendered. When I just said, Yes. And you let go of all of that. Yes. And your parents disowned you for all of this. Yes. And you’re beating yourself up for all of that. Yes. And you feel in shame right now. Yes. And you’re feeling all of this right now? Yes. All of that. Yes. That was my moment. It was a turning point for me. And there was some sort of like, I want to call it a rebirth that happened in that moment, where I was able to just welcome all the stories that I was running away from, and the spaciousness just within my body, I could feel a spaciousness. It was like,I think I can make it for another day. And for a long time, that was it. I can make it for another day. And then I got a job and I was like, Okay, I can make for another week to another month. And I just began to journey of becoming aware of the story. If that was my own practice, whenever I was feeling paralyzed, like, what am I feeling? What is present right now instead of running, running didn’t work for me. That’s really how it began for me.

Vanessa: Thank you for sharing that with all of us. I want to reflect on how it started, which is that there was something inside you that was screaming to claim who you are versus who others wanted you to be. Because I see so much suffering. I had that moment where it was an inkling. Then it was like a feeling in my Got. And then it got louder and louder and louder and louder until I couldn’t ignore it. So the whole period of struggle and pain and darkness was precipitated by something inside you that said, I have to be who I am, whatever I have to face to be there, I see so much suffering and people whose voices there, but they’re pushing it down, pushing it down, pushing it down, and there’s an inner conflict. But it’s just a steady state of inner conflict. And so it comes out as I’m just sort of unsatisfied or not really sure I’m doing what I’m supposed to be doing. Talk to me about how to cultivate that voice,

Xavier: there is something that is just really powerful there is we all have that voice. And for some people, it’s just louder than others. Some people are so much more practice that listening. And some others are a little, a tiny bit more trained at ignoring. And we feel like this is the way it is triggers, the way that voice is calling you back home. And usually, when we get triggered, we think, Okay, this person is attacking me, this person is saying something that doesn’t sit well with me. We see it has an external time again, we don’t see the reflection that is actually happening there. There is just something that is important. When you begin to junior frohman, find your triggers questioning them, what am I feeling? What am I experiencing? What is this person bringing up within me that I’m invited to reconcile with. And this is how you begin to romance that force. This is how you begin to create even more spaciousness within yourself. Triggers are how your shadows call. Sometimes, when we create a shadow, we also throw away the goal of purpose. And we just own that, we just own the most natural expression of who we are because it doesn’t feel safe. Because maybe in childhood, we got in trouble because of it. And whenever the triggers here, whether it’s happening through somebody that is just throwing you off, or a loved one, most times alone, join right now, my biggest three words, my son, because he is just raw, like just for fun, just like and I’m like, what is going on in here. But those triggers, he called me home, and he helped me already so far, reconciled even more with my emotional body, triggers how you listen more to that voice.

Vanessa: You mentioned, a reflection or a mirror. I know you talk about mirrors a lot as a parent, also, our children are such powerful mirrors for us. I mean, I have learned more through my children than probably in any other way. And we’re highly motivated to learn so as to not pass on our patterns or fears to them.

Xavier: This is incredibly true. And having that willingness to question having the willingness to be present. And this is the key with Shadow Work. Are you willing to be unconditional with yourself? Because we are trained to be conditional lovers to our sorrows? I invite you to ponder the question. I only love myself when or I don’t like myself when you know what comes up for you. To meet us to be just like you I hate myself when I’m angry. And you cannot expect the world to give you that unconditional love if you’re not willing to be unconditional self meaning Can you let your joy your cloud leanness be has valid has your pain, the anger of shame? Can you let both be valid? Meaning Can you be present with yourself? In both? Or are you trying to shut down the anger? Sit down pain, shut down the resentment and being willing to be present. like okay, this is what I’m experiencing and using your breath to bring you back to that place? Can it be okay that I feel this way? Can it be okay that this is my experience at the moment without identifying to it without creating an I am but rather tapping into a nice feel. Or I experience this in this moment. I am this space where this is happening in this moment. And for now it is okay. We get to actually reconcile with that voice and feel all the emotions that were surrounding that part of us that was screaming through the trigger that the other person exposed and when you’re willing to do that you feel even more hope.

Vanessa: What I feel is interesting and I would love for you to tell me if You felt this resistance. Sometimes with people who have done a lot of work, people who are very interested in self development, self mastery, personal growth, moving toward the light, improving themselves becoming more equanimous achieving that sort of sense of perfection where nothing bothers you, they’re evolved refined, exceptional, that desire to better yourself, sometimes I think become in direct resistance with this work, the Shadow Work has started to people have started to sort of think about it hear about it, it’s coming a little bit more into but the majority, I think of the spiritual personal growth work is moving towards the light moving towards the light moving.within her, was asking the question, who is thinking, I am not worthy of love? And just become aware of that? How do you learn to love yourself? Can you be present with all of it? Can you even be present with the part of you that is thinking that you’re not worthy of love? And can you question that even more printers come in from? What does it even mean? That I’m not worthy of love? In Shadow Work is just a question, a process of questioning? What if I end just ended up not feeling worthy of love? It’s a really tender place, when you’re willing to go there. And to really question that voice, what you’re going to find out if you limit and cover even more of the stories that amplify that feeling. I’m not worthy of love. Because it just question that even more. Is that even true? Let all of that come online. And Shadow Work is really a process of acceptance. And acceptance doesn’t mean the story that true. It’s just a process of like, Okay, this is what is present in my fields right now. And I allow myself to feel the emotion that I have stored in my body about the story and what else is in there, and to follow the thread. And when you are willing to empty all of these shadows, all of the stories that are built up around this notion, I am not worthy of love. What happens is you get into this space of stillness There were just stories that I was telling myself. And it takes to be willing to just question them. Why? Why am I not worthy of love, my mom wasn’t present in my life, and to feel it. And to question it even more, to empty all of it. And then you can step into that place of stillness. Because worthiness is something that you remember, it’s not something that you create, and you get to choose again, to feel worthy of your own love first. And when you feel worthy of your own love first at all the different levels, then you are the world begin to reflect that to you. All these questions, I’m going to answer them in the framework of Shadow Work, meaning I’m not going to try to bring you in a place of consciousness maintenance, which is no you are worthy you are born or the, you know, there is that beautiful soul within yourself. But it’s like your body doesn’t know it. And there is that dissonance when you bring all the positive reinforcement and your body doesn’t know it, when you are willing to open the box. Okay, what is behind this feeling of disbelief of me not feeling worthy? And getting in there creating acceptance? Can this be okay? And this is usually a question that I bring people in with. Can it be okay that in this moment, that this is just what you feel? And this is just your experience? This is not who you are? This is your experience? Can it be okay? If you can just surrender to that and let that be okay, just for now you see a release of resistance, just for now, just in this moment, I don’t need to battle it. So that’s what I would encourage you to do to just like, get into a place of radical honesty, the love that you’ve been looking for is your own? And how do you demonstrate love to yourself, in my opinion, is being willing to be present with the bat as much as you’re willing to be present with a pretty beautiful, and then even more spaciousness? Can it be okay.

Xavier: And I have to say something, Shadow Work is also moving towards the light, but it’s bringing the light, it’s taking that light of consciousness of awareness into the deepest level of your being. And usually people think it’s just ruminating darkness, there is a perception to the ego. And it’s just like we are ruminating darkness and just navigating messy feelings. Of course, that is what is happening in the action. But what you do when you are willing to be present at that depth of your being is you pray in the light of radical acceptance, compassion, and also just radical honesty, sometimes that radical honesty with self brings the light within and creates the spaciousness, but just like you said, There is such an amount of resistance, and ask for ritual community, at least when they come my way to do Shadow Work. And I’ve worked with a lot of big spiritual teachers out there, there is that huge amount of dissonance with the work, they are thinking, if I allow myself to be present with this, I am gonna attract that. And I don’t want to attract that. And I hear that, and I get where it comes from. And in my opinion, what I know, if you allow yourself to accept this, you are actually releasing the resistance and the energy that you had invested in pushing away this part of yourself, and you are actually even more equipped, you actually even have more space within yourself to create from allness. And not from you know, division, there is a part of the work that is usually to get them to understand the concept itself. No, we are not ruminating darkness, meaning we are not intentionally inviting, in your life, worst-case scenarios, we are actually opening the way for whatever is already in here to just be processed and released, so that you can be even more in alignment with who you truly are.

Vanessa: Yeah, I have experienced that release, and recognize that the resistance, while it’s not conscious, has a lot of energy behind it. Oh, yes. And that resistance actually invites it in, rather than bringing it all out. Seeing it for what it is, and allowing it to be. I’ve definitely experienced that very powerfully. We have a couple of beautiful questions from Nami. How do you learn to love yourself again, when you feel like you’re not worthy of love?

Xavier: within her, was asking the question, who is thinking, I am not worthy of love? And just become aware of that? How do you learn to love yourself? Can you be present with all of it? Can you even be present with the part of you that is thinking that you’re not worthy of love? And can you question that even more printers come in from? What does it even mean? That I’m not worthy of love? In Shadow Work is just a question, a process of questioning? What if I end just ended up not feeling worthy of love? It’s a really tender place, when you’re willing to go there. And to really question that voice, what you’re going to find out if you limit and cover even more of the stories that amplify that feeling. I’m not worthy of love. Because it just question that even more. Is that even true? Let all of that come online. And Shadow Work is really a process of acceptance. And acceptance doesn’t mean the story that true. It’s just a process of like, Okay, this is what is present in my fields right now. And I allow myself to feel the emotion that I have stored in my body about the story and what else is in there, and to follow the thread. And when you are willing to empty all of these shadows, all of the stories that are built up around this notion, I am not worthy of love. What happens is you get into this space of stillness There were just stories that I was telling myself. And it takes to be willing to just question them. Why? Why am I not worthy of love, my mom wasn’t present in my life, and to feel it. And to question it even more, to empty all of it. And then you can step into that place of stillness. Because worthiness is something that you remember, it’s not something that you create, and you get to choose again, to feel worthy of your own love first. And when you feel worthy of your own love first at all the different levels, then you are the world begin to reflect that to you. All these questions, I’m going to answer them in the framework of Shadow Work, meaning I’m not going to try to bring you in a place of consciousness maintenance, which is no you are worthy you are born or the, you know, there is that beautiful soul within yourself. But it’s like your body doesn’t know it. And there is that dissonance when you bring all the positive reinforcement and your body doesn’t know it, when you are willing to open the box. Okay, what is behind this feeling of disbelief of me not feeling worthy? And getting in there creating acceptance? Can this be okay? And this is usually a question that I bring people in with. Can it be okay that in this moment, that this is just what you feel? And this is just your experience? This is not who you are? This is your experience? Can it be okay? If you can just surrender to that and let that be okay, just for now you see a release of resistance, just for now, just in this moment, I don’t need to battle it. So that’s what I would encourage you to do to just like, get into a place of radical honesty, the love that you’ve been looking for is your own? And how do you demonstrate love to yourself, in my opinion, is being willing to be present with the bat as much as you’re willing to be present with a pretty beautiful, and then even more spaciousness? Can it be okay.

Vanessa: Well, thank you for taking us all through that. But I’m struck by is that often when we try to find something to fix, we’re trying to figure out how to move away from and what you’re saying and no, no move towards it. move more towards acceptance to a place where it doesn’t need to be fixed. Forget the idea of just acceptance, right? Yeah. Yeah, that is quite a reframe, and very powerful

Xavier: The invitation, if not to claim the I am unworthy, because usually this is what people fear. People fear. Oh, no, I’m gonna invite even more of that in my life, invitation and just radical honesty. This is what am I I am experiencing in this moment. And for now, it’s okay.

Vanessa: So I have another question, asking about Shadow Work and trauma work. I know you’ve worked with a lot of people who have experienced serious trauma. So if you could talk a little bit about that, and your process, whether it’s talking somatic because, I know you use a lot of different methods. But to understand a little more about the process, and the relationship between your work and trauma.

Xavier: There is a deep relationship between Shadow Work and trauma work, there’s a version of you that you are right now and you have to some degree in awareness of the trauma, it is still active within you. And then there is a version of you that experienced a trauma. Usually, in order to be able to move forward, in order to be able to navigate our lives again, we make a decision after the trauma. And usually the decision is a fracture, we use shame, we use guilt, whatever harsh emotion we create such a powerful story after a traumatic event that creates a fracture. And the fracture is a fracture in consciousness, there’s a part of you that stays stuck in a loop of like what you experienced. And that part of you doesn’t know how to get out of there because you had no concept, how to process what happened, how to process the traumatic event, your brain had no concept of how to make sense of it. So we shut it down. And we have this beautiful engine here that we call body that is willing to receive everything that you are not ready yet to process. And that part of you that experience a trauma, where does it get stored? It is in your shadow, because you deny it not because you didn’t want to deal with it but because you have no concept how to trauma in adult life or even late you know earlier in life. There is a process of denial of that part of us we just put in the shadow. We begin coping in a way that makes us forget Oh makes that part of you not come alive because you are not ready. You don’t know you have no concept how to deal with it. Doing Shadow Work actually allows To create what I call a reconciliation, because every time there is that fracture, what you choose in that moment, is also, I hate the word, but I’m gonna say it anyways. It’s self abandonment has a consequence of the trauma, you choose to leave a part of yourself behind, so that you can keep living your life and begin to cope. And it’s just about bringing those two together. And all what the trauma work that we do through Shadow Work does it is you being willing to become whole again, with that part of you that experience whatever traumatic thing that you experienced at that time. And this means the whole emotions, letting them move through your body again, so that some sort of completion can be found Shadow Work and trauma work, sometimes it’s very hard to even make the separation.

Vanessa: So I have so many questions, but I do want to address two which are similar. One from Jen talks about the need for control in this moment of uncertainty and anxiety. And then there’s another question that’s about how do you sit with your feelings and emotions without letting them overwhelm you? There’s sort of different questions. But yes, a little bit about how do we loosen the grip? Because we feel like if we loosen the grip, something terrible is gonna happen?

Xavier: Absolutely. Yeah. And I want to ask you, again, who is asking? Who is asking within you? What part of you is asking? What do you want to hold them? I’m gonna answer the question, of course, how do you do that? The first part is, usually when I bring people in the process, I just invite them to choose one thing. And usually the most easy thing is the breath. That is what you hold on to. And you just come back again to that breath, there is a necessity here to practice being the observer of the experience, rather than the experience to Cauvery the experiences happening within you. And when you are willing to become that part that referee, that observer, that is of being willing to just see and hear and witness and acknowledge and feel, and let it be okay and accept and just give you feedback. And you go back to that observer, the breath is the instrument of the observer, and just breathe even more deeply within yourself. When you welcome the emotions. When you question the stories, then it gives you some sort of flexibility. Okay, I can go back to my breath, I can go back to my breath. And sometimes we forget society condition was to just like, hold it, we hold on to it. This is the story that the ego tells us, if you go in there, too much you lose it, you’re going to go crazy. What if this happened? What if I lose myself? This is a story that one powerful survival archetype that we all have that is called in shadow work, the cyber tour, telling you all these stories, why it’s better to just stay safe girl, get away from all the feelings, we’ve made it till now just why would you even consider go there, from experience, what I can just tell you, if you are willing to be present, and use your breath and come back here, what you’re going to find out, if that’s your held, Shadow Work is really something that allows you to tap into the truth of what spirituality tells us. That’s your spirit, your soul is always here, holding you every single time. And when you are willing to empty all the storage, you get to that place where you begin to conceive of the perception of your soul, when this is just a blink of an experience. When you consider the vastness of who you are, and the infinity of who you are legit. I have people telling me what the point there is no point. Even if I screw this up, there is no point. So I may as well just go out there and use my voice and let it be loud. There is really no point. And this is what usually happens. When people go in there. When you empty the shadow you like you tap into the perspective of your soul. underneath all these stories, there is this place of stillness.

Vanessa: Thank you. I’ll never forget one session where we were talking about my deepest, darkest fears for my children. And we just took it one step after another. And if that happened, what would happen next? And if that happened, what would it mean? And we just kept going? And I started laughing hysterically. Right, spontaneously, hysterically. And I thought, what, what is going on? I’m laughing because we took it all the way to this point of conclusion where I realized I have no control. It’s totally out of my hands. It was quite a moment. And very, very powerful. Can you speak to the importance of a guide in doing this work?

Xavier: No, the process that I bring people through is just make it simple in five steps. And the first step is always when it comes to Shadow Work, creating awareness about the stories that are alive within you, just diving in there. And after you create awareness, it is necessary to create acceptance part of it is going to be just to engineer acceptance, you know, can you actually welcome the stories Welcome to trauma, welcome to shadows, welcome all of that. And can you let them be okay? So that you can create acceptance within yourself, and it releases the resistance, you know, that’s the second step. And then we go towards Completion, Completion slash integration. This is when you actually welcome the parts of you that you had this own in the shadows, you know, that went pretty. And now you’re welcome them back. And in a lot of that, you also end up claiming legit gold within yourself. Okay, now I created this blank slate within myself, what energy do I want to anchor in my field, allowing myself to be seen in my truth, allowing myself to let that be okay to set boundaries, and also taking imperfect action in the last step, like really putting that emotion. So we go through a process of just like, creating some sort of initial vision, and also diving into the shadow of that vision. Because usually, this is what, you know, law of attraction did tell us not to do. And I’m like, Okay, this is nice. And it is also necessary to release the resistance here. This is the highest application of the law of attraction kind of work, and releasing the resistance is, okay, what are the stories that are going to happen? If this doesn’t work, or if I do this or fail, you know, then you dive in there. I call that exercises, Shadow war, and really accepting all of that. And second step, okay, we work through the duality and seeing through the duality becoming, even more, one, you know, transcending that duality. And that duality looks like trauma, that duality looks like resistance, survival patterns, it looks like that energy of acceptance, that energy of radical honesty, that energy of presence, and now moving into the worrier, energy, which is another archetype that comes to alchemize, feeling like a victim, feeling like your power is outside of you is taken away from you, and upholding that truth, upholding the new standard of self-love, and then moving into the space of trust and surrender, where your intuition is welcomed even more, just like you made the leap of saying, choose to do this work with this guy. I don’t know what is coming, but I choose to lean in. And this is leaning into that place. So the whole integrate journey. And the way I see ascension is really integration and claiming at the same time, the whole of your divinity and also your humanity at the same time. The journey of integrate is really claiming that power again so that you can lean into your life and leading it from your heart and not from your wounds. Because the parts of you that you just own. They don’t go away. They just leave the show in the background. That’s what’s happening. So integrated, a process of Reclamation,

Vanessa: so beautiful. Thank you. Thank you for the work to do in the world. Thank you for the work you’ve done for me for being with us today for sharing so much of yourself and your story and your wisdom and insight.

Xavier: Thank you so much.