We attract into our life what we have denied in ourselves

In The Ascension Community the guys are currently exploring Shadow Work, which to this day has been the most powerful form of inner work I've ever done, and we had a workshop this week called ‘Spotting the Shadow’.

Shadow work in a nutshell is the process of becoming aware of what we have previously denied, disowned, suppressed, repressed and hidden from ourselves and the world, and then integrating these unconscious parts of our psyche back into our conscious life.

The biggest ‘mic drop’ moment of the workshop was when we talked about this very idea:

Everything in our world mirrors back to us our hidden emotions and beliefs. We attract experiences and people that mirror what we have denied in ourselves.

It was a lightbulb moment for the guys, and I suddenly noticed they were able to immediately name types of people in their lives they kept attracting e.g. The angry boss, dating the same type of woman, the arrogant and overachieving colleague

This is an important lesson. We will keep attracting the same type of person or situation until we deal with a denied part of ourselves, no matter how unpleasant the experience is.

Everyone around us is a mirror.

I’ll illustrate this point further through a personal example.

In my previous romantic relationship, my ex-partner was very much in her masculine energy.

Because I had denied my own masculinity and energy, I was instantly attracted to her unconsciously. The problem was as the relationship developed, the more she was in her masculine energy the more conflict we had.

The more time she had to step up and play the masculine role and lead in our relationship the more frustrated she became, the less respect she had for me, the more we fought and the more I felt emasculated.

It was deeply embarrassing that I couldn’t step up and lead, I was too ‘nice’, avoided conflict and taking responsibility. This was my shadow and the denied part in myself that my ex was mirroring.

I could have easily let the relationship go then and there, but I would have just attracted the same type of woman again, because I had not dealt with and integrated the disowned parts of me, my masculine essence.

This is when I started shadow work, what the guys in The Ascension are doing now. This is what changed my life.

Long story short – In the process of facing my repressed masculinity, I started to step up and lead, finding incredible strength and power within.

As this continually grew, I noticed a power struggle in the relationship of both of us trying to be the masculine leader, and my attraction for her started to dissipate, because I owned what I was previously denying, and no longer looking for it in another person.

The relationship soon ended, and a year later I met the woman of my dreams, where she is completely in her feminine energy and me in my masculine energy, experiencing a beautiful polarity in our relationship, with clear roles.

If you are reading this and you can now think of certain types of people or situations you keep attracting into your life, I invite you to ask yourself – What are they mirroring back to me that I have denied in myself?

e.g. If you have a fear of anger, you might be attracting people in your life who openly express their anger. This becomes an invitation to you to integrate your suppressed anger.

I believe our purpose in life is to return to wholeness, to who we authentically are, and in order to do that we need to face our shadow or the denied parts of ourselves.

Who’s your mirror?