The Kingdom: The Power Of Shadow

I'm Justin Michael Williams,

And welcome to the kingdom.

This is Spiritual Church for everybody.

We begin each session with a prayer.

God,

Spirit,

Universe,

All that is,

All that ever has been,

All that ever will be,

We thank you.

May it be for bringing this community together.

May any harm or trauma or upheavals that are felt in our emotional system be used in service of great transformation.

May it be for the benefit of all.

And may each of us remember,

Because I know we feel inspired to do it here,

But may we remember when we get off of this session,

That liberation really truly means both becoming free and setting free.

And so when we leave the kingdom,

May each of us remember,

Just place the idea back into our minds to spread one thing that we learned from this session today with somebody else in the world so that we can multiply the impact all throughout the planet.

Because we here are truly a web that can ripple waves of change out into the world everywhere that it needs to go,

In the corners of the world that only we can reach.

So may we take responsibility for liberation 360.

So it is,

Ashe,

Aho,

Salam,

Shalom,

Amen,

Sat Nam,

Awen,

Om.

Thank you.

Here we are.

Here we are.

Here we are.

Hi,

Casey.

Hi,

Kelly.

Hi,

Everybody.

What a gift to be here with you all.

It really is one of my favorite things of the week.

And let's dig into our teaching today.

So today's teaching is one that I almost can't believe that I haven't done here at the kingdom.

We've done a version of this,

But we haven't done it from this angle.

And today,

What I want to talk to you about is the power of shadow.

The power of shadow.

Now we've talked,

We've had a session,

For those of you who've been here,

We've talked a lot about shadow work.

Shadow work and what it means to do work on your shadow.

And the reason why I thought of this as being so important with James here is because we talked about working on your shadow,

But I don't think I've done a really deep dive with you all on understanding what the shadow is in the first place.

We've talked about it on the periphery.

We've referenced it in a lot of ways.

I mention it all the time.

And the reason why this felt super important is because we talk about shadow.

It's getting talked about in the collective a lot more frequently.

We see people talking about shadow work on Instagram.

We see posts talking about shadow work.

We see memes talking about shadow work.

We see people saying they're doing shadow work.

We see people talking about it.

And I so often,

When I ask people,

I say,

Do you know what the shadow is?

And people go,

Is it just my trauma?

Is it this,

This?

Is it this?

And I'm like,

Oh my gosh,

We don't know what shadow is.

We don't know what shadow is.

So how can we be doing shadow work if we don't know what our shadow is?

We think we're doing shadow work,

But potentially we're not.

And so I'm looking here at all the ways that we can really deepen our understanding of the concepts that we've covered here at the kingdom.

And I want to just read to you something very quickly.

When I first started the kingdom,

Let me just open this up.

So when I first started the kingdom,

I had this poem that I wrote.

I had a couple poems that I wrote with the kingdom that came literally at the same time as the kingdom.

And today I'm going to do this instead of using a song.

And this was one that I haven't read in a long time.

So I want you to listen with your heart and you'll see how this ties into our session today.

So it says,

Welcome to a time where you can come as you may with your pain and your shadow and the mistakes that you've made.

Welcome to a time where you can bring all your troubles and transform them into power beyond your struggles.

Welcome to the kingdom,

The kingdom that shines,

A kingdom for us all,

A kingdom to cry,

A kingdom to sing,

A kingdom for joy,

A kingdom for everyone to praise and enjoy,

A kingdom for magic and transformation too.

I think this is kind of starting to sound like Dr.

Seuss.

This kingdom was built for you and me.

And remember when you're here,

You are royalty.

And so the elements that are here that I feel inside of this poem that I want to really bring your awareness to,

I haven't read this since last year,

July,

I almost forgot about this poem because it's not the one on the website.

The reason that this is super important is because when I talk about cry and bringing your shadow and pain,

Like there's a lot of,

It sounds inspirational the way that I read it,

But there's a lot of darkness in here.

I will not demonize darkness.

I see you.

And the reason why this is so important and the reason why I talked about bringing your shadow and the pain and the crying and the this is we often think of coming to these spaces to these inspirational or these motivational sessions,

Wanting to build up our light and build up our power and think positively and make sure that we can do everything that we can to think right and meditate and get our minds together and focus positively and do affirmations.

But you all know here in the kingdom that that is only half of the work.

And this is a big piece of what's missing in the spiritual and personal growth community.

There's all the empowerment,

False empowerment.

There's all of the sense of affirming ourselves.

There's all the sending love and light and compassion.

But what happens so often is we pathologize darkness.

We say,

Ooh,

Stay away from the dark.

Are you afraid of the dark?

I'm in darkness.

Even the way we use the word darkness or blackness often,

And you can see how this plays out racially,

Right?

Is looked at as this bad thing.

The night,

This darkness is this scary place.

But if we are only doing our light work,

We're missing half of the equation.

Doing light work without doing shadow work is like driving with your foot on the gas and having your foot fully pressed on the brake at the same time and then wondering,

Why is it that I'm not in my life at the place that I want to be?

Why is it that I feel I'm not moving forward in the way that I want to move forward?

So yes,

You are light.

But one of the biggest quotes that I got,

Wanda,

That really sent me into this deep work of working on my shadow,

Because I spent years on building my light and building your light is important,

Is because of a saying that Sianna Sherman,

Who I've brought here as a guest on the kingdom said to me.

She said,

Justin,

The bigger the light,

The bigger the shadow,

The bigger the light,

The bigger the shadow.

And if you're doing all this light work,

If you're doing all this personal growth work,

If you're doing all this space without tending to your shadow,

It's like watering a garden full of weeds and expecting roses to bloom.

And the truth is,

What you really have to understand is that seeds grow in the dark.

So do you.

Seeds grow in the dark.

So do you.

And so what is shadow?

What is shadow?

Right?

And so shadow is this space that I want you to,

I want you all to really,

If you focus,

I need you to like hocus pocus focus right now,

Big time here,

Because what I'm getting ready to tell you is the key to everything that we're going to talk about in the session today.

So if you're,

If you're multitasking,

If you're whatever for 45 seconds,

Focus.

Most people think of shadow as trauma.

Shadow is not just trauma.

Okay?

Your shadow is something that we all have.

All of us have a shadow.

Your shadow includes your trauma,

But most specifically,

It's your conditioning.

Hear me?

It's your conditioning.

So oftentimes people are confusing shadow with trauma.

Your trauma can be inside of your shadow,

But your shadow is the conditioning that is making the choices for you in your life without you recognizing it.

And sometimes the conditioning comes from trauma,

But sometimes the conditioning doesn't come from trauma at all.

Listen,

This is where it gets a little,

Where people miss,

That people miss this piece.

Sometimes people will come to me and I've heard this multiple times when I do my private sessions and do my private readings is this.

People will say,

I don't have any big trauma.

I don't,

I don't have some big trauma.

I didn't grow up.

I didn't have any violence.

I didn't have domestic abuse.

I didn't have sexual violence.

My family was good.

We grew up pretty privileged.

We were middle class.

We were upper class.

I grew up in a good school.

My parents loved me.

I don't have any trauma.

And some,

This is a,

This is a thing I know for me,

I don't relate to this at all,

But a lot of people have this.

And so then they ask you,

Why do I need to do therapy?

Why do I need to do shadow work?

I don't have anything.

Right?

So if,

If shadow was just trauma,

Then it would mean some people have a shadow and some people don't,

But that's not true because every single light casts a shadow.

And so shadow is your conditioning.

And so in this way you could have massive trauma,

But still have a healthy relationship to your shadow,

Or you could have no trauma at all and still be completely lost in your shadow because of conditioning.

So what do I mean by conditioning?

Great.

Seza has it perfectly.

Conditioning is your operating system.

Tyree,

I see you guys type,

And this is great.

You're all typing in notes.

Type in the notes.

You can type in the quotes,

Keep typing in the notes.

You know how we roll here.

Right?

Let me give you some examples of conditioning that you may not think about.

Okay?

So let's say you grew up in a perfect family.

Okay?

But your parents,

You know,

They were,

They were always nice to each other.

You never saw them get in a huge fight.

They always handled it away from you.

They never talked about things that were inappropriate in front of you.

You always saw them kind of loving and caring,

But you always saw your mom go to bed at night in the room by herself,

And your dad slept on the couch.

And you saw this.

This is just a part of how you grew up.

And so as you get into a relationship with somebody,

And in the beginning the passion is all really strong,

And then you start to feel the separation and the lowering of your intimacy levels with that person,

You think,

Well,

That's just normal.

That's just the way it is.

People are together for a certain amount of time,

And the connection just drops.

And then you go living on in this comfortably numb relationship that lacks physical intimacy,

Even though you desire it because your conditioning tells you that's the way things are.

Instead of looking at the shadow,

Which is the question of why is it that the intimacy is broken in the first place?

Why are we okay being comfortably numb?

That's conditioning.

Another piece of conditioning—I'm just giving you some examples and tell me if this is helpful for you all—another piece of conditioning is let's say you grew up in a family with three siblings,

And you're the oldest sibling,

Okay?

And you're the oldest sibling,

And everybody looks at you like you're the best one,

Like you're the golden child,

Like you're the special sibling,

Like you're the one who's everybody's favorite.

And so what you do,

Because your younger siblings are always saying that everything's all about you,

That you're the one who's always getting the attention,

So what you do is you shrink yourself,

Just subtly.

You may have a big success.

You may get the best grades in the whole school.

You may have a dance performance or a routine that you want to show and share with your family,

But you just lower the temperature a little bit because you don't want to outshine your siblings and make them feel bad.

And so you celebrate yourself a little bit less.

And so your conditioning says,

I'm not able to shine as brightly as I really want because if I do,

It makes other people feel bad,

So I make myself smaller.

Conditioning.

So are you all seeing this,

Right?

So this is how our conditioning,

And there's a million,

This list can go on for the next five days.

I can go on listing ways of conditioning.

So I want you all,

And oh,

Jerome asked a really good question.

Is conditioning always negative?

No,

No,

It's not.

Some conditioning is very positive,

But the conditioning is negative if,

This is where shadow happens,

If it's making your choices for you without you recognizing it.

That's it.

It's when we think we're the ones choosing,

But our conditioning is actually choosing for us.

This is what it has to do with liberation.

It's when we think we're free,

But we're not actually free.

I'm going to give you all,

Actually,

Here's what I want to do.

I want you to place your hands over your heart,

Okay?

Close your eyes.

And I know based on what I'm saying,

There's something present for you right now.

So just be with what's present,

And I want you to ask yourself,

What kind of conditioning might I have with great compassion for yourself?

You don't have to judge it right now.

You don't have to fix it.

You don't have to work on it.

You don't have to make it bad.

You don't have to feel bad for yourself.

Just let that comes up,

Let it be there.

But just ask yourself,

What kind of conditioning do I have?

Awareness is the first step.

And now type into the chat box,

If you're willing to share with us,

What kind of conditioning you might have.

Okay?

And so I want to bring up a couple of things.

So Ana said an amazing thing.

She said so many.

.

.

She is often thinking of societal level conditioning.

This is true as well,

Right?

The way we've been trained to look at bodies and what we think is a beautiful body and not a beautiful body that creates body dysmorphia.

It's our conditioning,

Right?

We're trying to go to the gym to look a certain way,

But that way that we're thinking that we need to look isn't actually what we value and care about.

It's what society has told us.

So I'll give you two personal examples to make this very,

Very clear for you all.

Okay?

And I don't think I've shared either of these examples on the kingdom before,

But I've talked around these topics with you many times.

Okay?

So for years,

If many of you look back in my Instagram from 2018 backwards,

Right?

Really before I started writing my book and I see so many of your conditionings coming in.

And so when I started writing Stay Woke,

But I really started to be a little bit more sedentary than I was before.

Before that,

I was going to the gym,

Beating myself up at the gym with this trainer.

Really I was starting to have pain in my back and in my body and I ignored the pain because I wanted to have this chiseled six pack of abs.

It was so important to me to have this chiseled six pack of abs and my worthiness was super tied to the chiseledness of my body and my abs,

Right?

And then as I started looking at and exploring partners and what I wanted in a partner,

I was looking at guys and I was dismissing guys who I may have had an emotional connection with,

But dismissing them all throughout my past because they didn't have a body that I felt I was attracted to.

Notice,

Okay?

So yes,

Is it real that I feel a physical charge and an attraction in my actual somatic experience of my body when I see a guy who has chiseled abs and a six pack and all these kind of things?

Yes,

That is true.

But who is doing the choosing for me?

Who turned that switch on in my body in the first place?

Because as I did my shadow work,

I got really clear with myself and Robert,

Who's my teacher,

Asked me,

Justin,

What do you really value?

What do you really value in yourself and in a person and in a world and in the partner?

And he said,

And I started saying,

I value being able to live free and live your life.

I want them to be healthy.

I enjoy somebody who's active and healthy.

And he asked me,

Do you really want somebody who's limiting everything that they're eating at that level so that they don't go and enjoy food with you?

You love food.

Food is a huge value of mine.

Do you really want to be with somebody whose body is like that because they've limited themselves?

Do you really want to be with somebody whose body is like that because they're spending this much time obsessing over themselves in the gym?

Is that really what you value?

And then I said,

Oh my gosh,

These things that I'm attracted to are not actually in alignment with my values.

So who's choosing?

And it's completely rearranged how,

Of course I'm still attracted to these things,

But those attractions I'm in charge of the charge.

I see it and I say,

Oh,

That's what society wants me to date.

That's what society wants me to be with.

But here's what I really want to be with.

Here's what I really find value with in my soul.

So do you guys understand?

So it's like you can't even,

The conditioning is so strong that in a certain way you can't say,

Oh,

I just feel super turned on by this person because the reason you're turned on is because of your shadow.

It's not you.

And when you do the shadow work,

You can differentiate and see who you are inside of the conditioning.

Okay?

Do you see this?

Okay.

So I'm going to give you another one.

Okay.

I'll give you another one that's super relevant and prevalent for me.

So there's so many that we all have conditioning.

There's so many that I can give you.

Let me think which one I want to give.

Okay.

So here's the conditioning.

All right.

That is also a trauma.

So I'll give you one that shows how trauma creates conditioning.

So I grew up in a home with domestic violence.

That's no secret,

Right?

Where the men in my family were incredibly,

Incredibly,

Incredibly physically violent and emotionally violent,

Right?

With women,

They didn't know how to hold their anger.

They expressed their anger completely unskillfully and it was scary and it shut me completely down.

Right?

So what my conditioning then told me is that I was conditioned,

And this is only something that I found through shadow work,

Right,

Years ago,

Is my conditioning told me that strong men who are confident,

Who really fully express themselves are not safe.

Strong,

Powerful men are not safe.

And so if you look through my dating history in my 20s and before that,

It might surprise you all,

I always picked men who were much more timid and smaller than me because if I was alone in a house with a man who was stronger than me and bigger than me and he got angry,

I would be too afraid.

This is what was in my shadow.

My conditioning,

My trauma taught me and was.

.

.

So I was dating these guys and what was happening every single time is I would date these guys.

We get in this deep emotional connection because I felt so safe.

I felt so held by them.

I felt like I was kind of in control and I felt this super big charge to them.

I'm like,

This is the love of my life because I feel safe.

I feel seen.

I feel held.

And then every relationship would end the same way because I didn't feel challenged by them and I didn't feel juiced up or turned on by them because what I really was wanting was also the softness and the safety and the connection but somebody who could meet me in space where I am and somebody who was a little stronger,

To be honest with you,

Right,

Than me is what I actually am more attracted to just on an energetic level.

And so here I was not able to actually be in a relationship with somebody who was more aligned with what was really true for me but thinking that this other relationship was right when it was my conditioning choosing and I was wondering why I was constantly dissatisfied in my relationships.

Okay?

So this is,

I'm giving you,

The list can go on and on and on and on.

And so I see a lot of you really resonating with this piece that I want to just dig into a little bit more and I want you to type in these words and these words are from Robert Masters,

Okay?

Taking charge of your charge.

Taking charge of your charge.

Type that in.

Okay?

And so the reason why I'm saying taking charge of your charge is because when we feel that oh,

Oh,

Like I'm going towards that person,

Not even just a person,

I'm going towards that thing,

Towards that relationship,

Towards that business idea,

Towards that creative project,

You feel that energy come up.

Oftentimes the charge has you,

You're not having the charge.

This is why I went celibate for almost three years,

To really take charge of my charge,

To have my charge on the leash where I was holding it versus it having me around my neck.

Oftentimes and then we trust it and this is what happens to us,

Right?

Oh,

I chose not to go there because everything in my body said that I shouldn't.

I chose to date that person even though I can feel something inside,

They're not healthy for me because I just can't stop thinking about them and I love them so much.

I'm so turned on by this person,

I'm so attracted to them even though they're not texting me back or making any effort to engage with me.

I want this person's validation,

I want this person's approval,

I want this in my family.

Do you all see this?

And so this is your charge taking control of you and this is your conditioning making you think that this is what you want when what you really want is over here.

And what you really want isn't going to feel like that because that is your trauma response.

What it's going to feel like when it's right is,

Ah,

This is great.

What it's going to feel like when it's right is,

Ah,

Alignment.

So this is why,

This is what's in the shadow.

I'll give you one more reference,

Right?

And I'm not really going,

I have a whole episode on shadow work,

Right?

But what I'm talking about here is getting you clear on what is shadow,

Okay?

This is the point.

So I want you to think of it like,

You know those puppets,

I think they're called marionettes,

Right?

Where like the person is in the back and they have the strings hanging and the strings are moving the person around,

Right?

So it's like,

We're the person and we're the puppet and we think we're free.

We think we're making choices.

We're moving through life.

We're playing the show.

We're doing the thing.

We may have the best outfit that any puppet ever has.

We're engaging.

We're doing the show.

We're doing the thing.

But the conditioning are the strings and what liberating ourselves actually is,

Is getting close enough to those strings to see what they are,

To then cut them or taking the reins back all together to have our full agency,

Okay,

Of who it is that we really are.

Okay.

And Christine,

I want to say one really important thing.

Christine says,

You have to be healed of your own trauma before the ah.

No,

No,

No,

No,

No,

No.

Okay.

So I want to be,

And I see,

I love that you asked that with the question mark because this is something that we often get into.

We think I have to work on this and I have to be totally healed and totally fixed before I can get a relationship,

Before I can go to the business,

Before I can do the thing.

Right?

So this is,

This is what I need you all to know.

You are not broken.

You will always have a shadow.

It is always there.

It's not about,

Really hear me here.

It's not about fixing your shadow so you don't have one.

It's about getting intimate with your shadow so you know how it works.

It's about moving closer to your shadow,

Moving closer to your shadow,

Not trying to fix it.

Okay.

I'm never going to fix.

I'm never going to fix what society has placed on me in terms of being attracted to people who look a certain way,

But I can get intimate enough with that conditioning to know how it works inside my mind,

Inside my body,

Inside my emotional system to know what triggers it,

What turns it on so that when it turns on,

I can go,

I see you conditioning.

I see you little Justin.

I see you.

I know where you come from.

I got you.

This isn't what we really want.

Let's move this way.

It's about getting to know thy shadow,

Getting to know thy shadow.

Okay.

We're conditioned through patriarchal white supremacist,

Sometimes perfectionist culture to think that we have to fix something about ourselves to be worthy.

Okay.

This is oftentimes what we're taught through society.

This is conditioning.

That's also conditioning and the conditioning has seeped into our personal growth world.

We think we have to fix all these things about ourselves.

Yes,

There's some healing that has to be done in certain domains,

But your shadow is not to be fixed.

Your shadow is to be known and related to so that you can live through your life with your light and your shadow,

Not ignoring it.

All right.

I just see this image of like you're walking through the world and you imagine that you're a light and you see a shadow being cast.

You don't try to run away from the shadow or get rid of it.

It's just part of you.

It is a part of you,

Like the ying and the yang.

It's about getting to know the depths of our true selves because your shadow is a part of you.

This is beautiful,

Mary Theresa.

It reminds you of Peter Pan actually searching for his shadow and wanting to reattach it.

He was incomplete without his shadow.

You are.

If we don't know our shadow and we don't relate to it,

It controls us in the background without us knowing it.

This is why shadow work is important.

I'm going to lean into,

Before we close,

How do we then start to lean into shadow work?

What is that that we start to lean into?

I have a lot of metaphors for this.

This is turning into one of my favorite topics.

There's going to be a big piece of this in my next book that I'm working on right now.

The piece of it that is really important is understanding the metaphor,

This metaphor of the dragon.

We have often heard these mythological stories about the dragon,

The big fierce dragon that is guarding the jewels and the gems inside of the cave or the cavern.

What happens is most people think that in order to get to the jewels and the gems that you have to slay the dragon.

If you go back through all the mythology,

Ignore Sleeping Beauty because this is not Sleeping Beauty and Maleficent and the dragon is not jewels and gems.

It's not this story.

That's a whole different thing.

But if you go to all the mythology of the dragon in the cave and how you actually get to the jewels is never,

Ever,

Ever by slaying the dragon.

The person who tries to slay the dragon is always the one who gets killed,

Is always the one who's trying and trying and never gets the treasure.

The one who gets to the treasure is the one who what?

Who befriends the dragon.

The one who gets close to the dragon and looks in their eyes and befriends the dragon.

I'm thinking about Moana,

The movie,

When she has the heart of what is her name?

Tefiti or Nefiti.

She's trying to defeat Nefiti.

How does Moana restore the justice?

I have chills.

Restore the justice and all the land and heal the shadow that is taking over the trauma that is taking over all the islands by getting intimate and close and seeing the shadow and going right into the heart.

For those of you who've seen Moana,

This is every mythological movie all throughout time.

Every movie that you can think of has this thing.

It's about getting closer to it.

What you need to know,

And this is super important,

Is what a lot of us think about shadow.

This is another misconception about shadow.

The first thing is that shadow is about trauma.

The second thing is that shadow work is only about uncovering these deep,

Dark,

Terrible things about ourselves that are really hard and really difficult to face.

Sometimes that's true.

Oftentimes that's true,

Actually.

What people miss is they think that going into their shadow is just about healing trauma.

Yes,

But no.

That's not the reason I even do shadow work.

What's inside of your shadow work,

What's hidden in your shadow,

Are your greatest gifts.

What's hidden in your shadow are your greatest gifts,

Are the jewels,

Is the treasure,

Are the gemstones,

Is the unique expression of who you are meant to be and shine into the world.

Inside the cavern of your shadow are all the things that you're trying to get from the outside.

Having the shadow has very little to do with just going into the trauma.

That's why people think,

I don't want to do shadow work because I just don't want to keep going into all this trauma.

I'm over this.

I don't want to go into my past.

It's not about going into your past.

It's about going in and getting the treasure that has been waiting inside of you,

That's hidden behind the walls of shame and guilt and the things and conditioning that we've had to push ourselves down.

Why do shadow work?

Because you're inside the cave.

The greatest you is there,

Hidden behind all of your conditioning.

Seeds grow in the dark.

The treasure is in the cave.

It's time to go find it.

Let's do a little practice together,

Shall we,

As we close.

What I want to do right now is just a short practice.

It's a very simple,

Simple,

Simple question that I want to just offer you guys space to just be with and be compassionate because we can start to guilt and shame and be blame and be mad at ourselves that we've had these shadow qualities.

It's really hard sometimes because when you wake up to your conditioning,

This is what the challenge is with shadow work.

Once you see it,

You can't unsee it.

There's a deep mourning.

Let me just say this first.

There's a deep mourning that sometimes happens when you realize that the relationship you're in,

The job that you have,

The marriage you've chosen,

The city that you've lived in for your whole life,

The reason you had kids,

All the things.

When you realize that these things that have been such a part of your life were not chosen by you but were chosen by your conditioning,

It is a big grief and a big waking up that comes.

I've cried and cried and cried when I recognized,

For example,

That the whole marketing company that I built was completely my conditioning.

When I realized that my major that I chose in college that I studied for four years and the whole thing was completely my conditioning,

I didn't choose that.

My conditioning chose it.

It's a mourning.

When you're inside of the marriage and you're looking at yourself and you're thinking and you wake up to your conditioning,

You go,

I didn't choose this.

There's a deep grief.

You hear the sirens going.

I think they're all perfectly timed with what's happening.

You want to be with that grief.

But the thing that you have to remember and that I always remember is that you're not too late.

You're not stuck.

The grief comes from waking up and all of a sudden we can see more clearly.

How do you think I felt when I realized every person that I had ever dated,

Pretty much,

Had ever been in a relationship with was completely chosen based off my conditioning?

My God.

So there's compassion.

And we remember we all have a shadow and it doesn't go away and we wake up more and more to the ways this conditioning shows up in our lives and then it's a practice and then again and again we set ourselves free.

So as I go into this practice,

I'm just naming that because you might have some things come up that you're having trouble even naming because you feel,

Oh my God,

This is going to upheaval my whole life.

And when that happens,

I say,

You made it.

Congratulations.

Now the work begins.

So let us do a short practice together.

Put your hands over your heart.

Close your eyes if you're comfortable doing so.

And just take a deep full breath in and a breath out.

And rest your awareness in the flow of your breath,

In your natural breathing pattern.

You don't have to breathe any differently than you are now.

And I want you to just start to count your breaths.

And so at the end of each exhale,

So you'll inhale and then the end of each exhale,

You'll just in your mind say one and then the next one you'll say two and the next one you'll say three in your mind and you'll go up to five and then start at one again.

And if you lose count at any point,

Just start at one again.

Super simple.

So counting your breaths at the end of each exhale,

All the way up to five,

Starting at one again.

If you lose count,

Don't stress,

Just start at one again.

And we'll do this for about a minute.

And now just let the counting go and breathe normally.

I'm going to ask you a question.

You can keep your eyes closed and your hands over your heart.

Here's your question and just trust what bubbles up.

What am I avoiding?

What is the thing that I know that I need to do but that I'm avoiding doing?

Here's another question.

What is my conditioning choosing in my life right now?

Where is my conditioning choosing in my life right now?

Next question.

What do I really want?

What do I really want?

The me that's inside that is not here to prove,

That has nothing to prove.

What do I really want?

And then your final question.

What is my next move?

Trust what comes up.

Don't overthink it.

What is my next move?

Take a deep breath in and a deep breath out.

When you're ready,

Open your eyes and look at me.

You're here.

You're doing the deep work.

You're ready.

You're worthy.

You have nothing to prove.

I love you.

You are enough.

I hope you see yourself in your eyes.

You are enough.

You are worthy.

I love you.

Take a deep breath in and out.

This is what shadow work is.

This is what the shadow is.

This is what the feeling of tenderness and compassion and opening feels like when we hold that space and we meet the dragon and we say,

I see you.

I know you're hurting and we're going to choose differently.

It feels like a hug.

That's it.

And that part of you that is conditioned and not doing the choosing,

That is the part of you that is needing you to come closer and is needing that hug,

Not for you to push it away or say it's wrong or you need to fix it or it needs to be different,

But it needs to be known so it can be integrated and you can live a life where you are free.

So let's take a moment now and just do our golden nugget.

But before we do that,

Actually,

I think you all probably had some awakenings here in this session.

And so I want you to take a second right now.

I normally do the golden nugget practice.

I want you to just take a second and whether it's in the notes in your phone or on a piece of paper,

I want you to write down whatever it is that arose for you that you want to remember.

And write for yourself what you need to take away for you for this session.

Here we are.

There's so much we can do in the screen.

There's so much we can do here together through this medium when we really show up fully.

All right,

Kingdom.

So now that you've typed and wrote down what you needed from this practice,

I want you to just know that here we are with the power of shadow and the power to step into our lives in a much more full and dynamic way where we can set ourselves free.

We can set one another free and together we can truly be free.

I would love for you to type in the chat box just one main takeaway that you want to take away from today's session.

And as you do that,

Your commitment,

Our commitment here at The Kingdom is that we don't just keep these takeaways for ourselves.

But remember in the beginning,

We share something that we knew today.

We don't have to teach anybody anything,

But we share something that resonated with us today or that we learned about ourselves with someone that we know.

And in that way,

Each of us works together to wake up the world.

I love you all so much,

Kingdom family.

This is Justin Michael Williams signing out.

Let us close with our prayer.

God,

Spirit universe,

All that is,

All that ever has been and all that ever will be,

Thank you for guiding us so tenderly into this space.

Thank you for guiding us home to ourselves.

Thank you for helping us set ourselves free so that we can set our children free,

Our families free and one another free.

May we each stand in the light of our being and get to know intimately our shadow.

May we be given the courage and strength to do it,

To really do it and step forward fully into the gift,

The jewels,

The treasure that is our lives,

That is this life,

This one big life.

So it is.

Ase,

Aho,

Salam,

Shalom,

Amen,

Satnam,

Awen,

Om.

Thank you.

I hope you enjoyed this session of the kingdom.

One of the best things that you can do right now is share this session with somebody that you love.

It is only by each of us sharing inspiration in the corners of the world that only we can reach,

That we will rise together.

Thank you so much for joining me for this session of the kingdom.

I'll see you in the next one.

This is your moment,

Baby.

We are enough.

Let it shine.

We are enough.