Alchemizing Coal to Gold: a Shadow Work Ritual for Self-Love

A step-by-step guide to Shadow Work that really works

1: Shadow (Yeesh, Geoff. Your Journal used to be Emo AF…)

There is a side of me that Carl Jung would call my Shadow. 

When given control of my meat vessel through my conscious brain checking out, getting drunk, becoming distracted, wandering or otherwise ending up inebriated, it propels me to behave in ways that I would characterize as unloveable. 

This disinhibited monster is elitist, entitled, narcissistic and inconsiderate. Before the filter of my conscious intention, there exists a screaming void that is racist, misogynistic and arrogant—a jackass programmed to feel superior, important, and obligated to comment in every online and offline conversation thread by being the societal default in his skin’s photon reflectivity, genital configuration, height, weight, and physical attractiveness.

But these are qualities. They’re characteristics. Through their nature as nouns and adjectives, they suggest something static, something immutable, something essential is piloting my bone mech when my soul is looking the other way. Consciously, I know these autonomic responses to stimuli are tendencies; patterns of verbs that describe the habits of the causal slash willful paradox that incarnates as Geoff.

But whether I am a man, a meat machine or even a “me” at all, the verbs that re-occur repeatedly and are accurately summed up as aspects of the self that I would rather pretend don’t exist… these patterns represent a repressed shadow that I instinctively know makes me unworthy of love.

2: Transmutation (It Works if You Work it)

I wrote that a couple months ago, before I crafted this ritual for myself. This has been my attempt to integrate those parts of myself that I didn’t want to acknowledge. To recognize that the shadow parts are the inevitable byproduct of other parts that could be described as “light.” 

I have traveled into my memory with a pick ax and mined the experiences that demonstrated shadow characteristics. From the walls of my subconscious, I pulled big chunks of Santa Claus coal that were cut through with veins of gold. Then, through the ritual below, I transmuted the encasing coal into pure gold and put them back, transforming my perception of myself from “mostly coal” to “mostly gold” in the process.

This is alchemy. 

Inspired by Paul Selig, Marshall Rosenburg, Damien Echols and Jason Louv, this ritual helped me get to a place of self-confidence and self-love and to a sense that I am enough. Which is impressive given I started here:

“To be worthy,” my apparently innate but probably experientially derived reasoning articulates, “is to be perfect.” To hold these blemishes of character in the same container as the eloquent, compassionate, introspecting, loving, attentive patterns of behavior of which I am proud—that taints the container beyond repair.

My shadow is the bad apple that poisons the bunch. It decays the good, it subverts the moral, it destroys any hope I’ve ever had of feeling like I’m enough. 

My shadow makes me inadequate.

It turns out it didn’t… it just needed reframing, integration and a healthy helping of alchemical magick!

Without Further Ado, the Ritual!

PREGAME

The first part is inspired by an exercise suggested by Marshall Rosenburg in his invaluable interpersonal manual, Nonviolent Communication: make a list of all of your shadow characteristics, the earliest memory you can recall that relates to that characteristic presenting itself, and the positive reframe for it. 

It can be difficult to find the light that casts your shadow characteristics, but stick with it. Bust out a thesaurus if you have to.

As Rosenburg says, instead of calling a person “gullible” you can think of them as “trusting,” and just think of the pragmatic difference that makes! A trusting person moves through life believing other people have their back and confirmation bias ensures that they will have memorable experiences reinforcing that belief. A person who thinks of themself as gullible will believe everyone is out to get them and will find the evidence they are looking for to back that up. 

One of these is clearly a happier way to live life. 

The characteristics and the situations don’t change, but what you embody and convey is going to change your outlook and the way you experience life.

Here’s a few selections of the twenty or so on my own list that you can use as an example:

PART 1 (Optional)

Here’s where the actual stack starts. 

You have an option to do a Lesser Invoking Ritual of the Pentagram to begin with. I usually vibrate the god-names associated with emotion or intellect to give the reframe a chance to really set in.

PART 2

Next, I employ a bit of telepathy that I learned from Paul Selig. Paul is a medium, and claims to have channeled these techniques from some beings without bodies. His “Guides” say that the following phrases will align your energy body with the intention to release maladaptive behavior.

While you read the following two paragraphs aloud, try to picture the memory you wrote down as clearly as possible. See what you saw. Feel what you felt. Smell what you smelled. Etc.

I am word through this memory and I am word through any manifestations and any belief systems that were created through this memory that are no longer in alignment with my highest good. I am now choosing to release any patterns of [Shadow column entry] that may have been created through this situation and through this time. I am word through this memory and all that it has begotten me. Word I am word through this intention. Word I am word.

I am now making the choice to have this cleared once and for all and I intend now to release any unconscious behavior that would have me reclaim this behavior that I have stated I am now free of. Word. I am word through this intention. Word I am word.

PART 3

Meditate for at least 15 minutes. I like to do Jason Louv-style Pranayama (technique here), to continue to charge up some energy, get myself into a state of extasis in which the next steps can really make an impression.

PART 4

When the bell goes off and you conclude your meditation, go straight to charging water. I use Damien Echols technique from High Magick, where you hold a glass of water and imagine the same chakras you’d visualize in the Middle Pillar (listed below), and see the universe’s energy flowing into you every time you breathe in. 

Chakras:

1. Head: White orb of light

2. Throat: Grey orb

3. Chest: Gold

4. Pelvis: Purple

5. Feet: Black

Watch beams of light shooting into you from the top point of the universe—through your head and throat chakras—and the earth’s core—through your foot and pelvis chakras—then meet in the middle at your golden heart chakra. 

There, it’s transformed into gold like that flows down your arms with each exhale into the glass you’re holding, making the water it contains glow in your visualization.

After three to ten breaths, when your water is looking good and bright, say something similar to this Selig-inspired phrase out loud:

I am word through my intention to embody and convey that I am [reframe column entry]. I know myself as [reframe]. Word I am word.

Then vibrate “YAY-ESH-OO-WA” and drink the water!

PART 5 (Optional)

You have the option to close with an LBRP if you like, but if you’re not used to doing them daily, be aware that they can have some interesting effects when you first start performing them.

3: Gold (The Glow of Success!)

That’s it!

Like I said earlier I have had tremendous success with this method. You read the journal entry at the beginning of this article? Could you believe that the same person—or at least someone who shares some percentage of their cells—has finally reincarnated better, shot-through with a brilliant plasma of worthiness?

Two different Tarot readers drew Death for me recently, one as a January 2022 theme and one as my “highest potential.” Both times, I smiled with so many teeth I’d have shocked Little Red Ridinghood into stuttering, “You’ve changed grandma…” I felt intuitively that this Chaos Shadow Work Ritual represented the end of a karmic cycle of shame. A rebirth into an ocean of emotion only describable as love. 

Through years of unwelcome recollection—of “collecting again” the gut-plummeting visceral sensations of shameful faux pas, I had built an armor of inadequacy. These memories, each accompanied by muttered “Fuck!”, have lost their venom though. 

This ritual shifts them into grayscale and shrinks them to the size of a postage stamp. This deliberate process of mining the silver from gloomy clouds has allowed me to love myself.

Even going forward, when I transgress in one of the sectors denoted by that shadow column, I am now quick to apologize and quick to accept it if I am forgiven. 

I’ve cured my perfectionism by going from feeling like I was never enough, to believing that I deserve love, just as I am.

What to do when something helps you? Share it!

Word, I am word.