This time in the Magick Kitchen, we are joined by Tenae Stewart. And we're going to be talking about lots of different things, but mainly reclaiming your shadow. I'm Leandra Witchwood and I'm Elyse Welles. And welcome to the Magick Kitchen Podcast where we talk about Magick Kitchen, witchcraft, herbs and everything in between. The Magick Kitchen podcast is funded and supported by the Witchwood Teahouse, offering a variety of hand-blended loose leaf teas as well as loose herbs for all of your ritual spellwork wellness and everyday enjoyment needs. If you would like to support this podcast while sipping a cup of tea, head over to the Witchhwood Teahouse .com and find the magic that's in store for you. Tenae Stewart is a practicing cottage witch, a certified astrologer and a spiritual coach, as well as the author of three books on magic, astrology, plants, and self-care. She is on a mission to empower modern witches to defy convention so they can live their most magical lives all day, every day. You can learn more about today at Witch of Lupine Hollow Com or at Lupine Hollow on all social media platforms. So thank you for being here. This is a really cozy episode too, because, like, you're somebody. Leandro has met in real life and through our shared connections. Um, like, I, I just feel like we're all pals. So this is. I'm excited to see where this episode goes because it's it's just real. You know what I mean? It's it's. Yeah, it's going to be flowing. Tenae's a great friend. Um, we did more than just, like, meet each other. We actually hung out in Salem for a whole weekend, so it'd be fun to to talk about shadow work. And we talked about it's going to be a good conversation. So I hope our listeners really enjoy this. Absolutely. Thanks for having me, you guys. Yeah. You're welcome. It's about time. Like I think it's been long overdue. Yeah, but it was fate because this episode is now releasing the day before your big summit that is coming up. Um, just tell everybody about what it is, because both of you, Andre and I are teaching in it, I think. Are you teaching? I'm not. No. I'm not. This time, I'm. I totally missed it. I yeah. My bad. I, I blipped on it for some reason. Well and I so I looked on your last summit so we'll circle back. Yeah I kind of. Yeah. Like it's fine. Like we'll, we'll, we'll we'll circle back and get in there. But yes, we've all been in each other's events. So my soul summit. So this is the this is the thirteenth summit I've hosted, but the sixth annual in September. Um, so I host a five day summit every year in September. Um, it's called The Witch Within. And the focus is all about shadow work. Um, and I started hosting summits. Really. I started hosting them in, like, the height of Covid, um, because my first book was coming out and, you know, we couldn't do any book launch events for it. And so I was like, well, you know, let's do like an online virtual event. And then it really has become like such a cornerstone of my work is hosting these summits, um, which I just love, like bringing people together, both the speakers and the attendees. Like, they're really such special weeks. Um, and the September one is always my biggest of the year. Um, and so it's definitely the, you know, like, kind of kick off to fall. It's always right around the Equinox. Um, and yeah, we're going to be going really deep into shadow work this year. So we've got, you know, definitely still introductory classes. So if you're new to shadow work, there's going to be lots of great, great classes for you. Um, but we are also going to be deep diving into some specific shadows. So we have classes about like pleasure and sexuality, classes about death and grief. So we're going to be exploring some like common topics that so many of us have, you know, a lot of shadow experiences around. And I love that too. It's starting with the beginner con. Like there's stuff for beginners to join because so many people like if you're listening and you're like, oh no, I'm too new to shadow work, it's too scary. That's exactly why you should join, because shadow work is hard. And to do it alone and unguided and without, you know, either a mentor or somebody who's gone through it before to help you through that. It can feel kind of scary and and it can it can actually sometimes be damaging, you know, to start looking at shadows with no one to then say, hey, I had this experience and I need to talk about it with somebody. So this summit is a great way to get that that shadow work ball rolling and then see where your journey can take you, you know. Absolutely. Yeah. Honestly, I think that a lot of the way we tend to talk about shadow work is this very like individual internal personal thing. And it is of course like it's such um, in some way because it is so it can be so personal and like the things that are deep and personal, right? We really don't want to navigate totally isolated and on our own. So yeah, I think like bringing we're going to have almost thirty classes. Um, I mean, when we're recording this, we already have about five hundred people signed up. So we usually end up with like at least a few thousand, which is all over the world for these events. And that's just that's a lot of support and energy raised together, you know, to really support each of us in processing whatever's coming up for us. I announced my retreats to Delphi and Sacred Greece for twenty twenty six. In early July, and my Delphi retreat sold out in just eight days. I have now added an additional retreat for May of twenty twenty six, with payment options including biweekly payments, monthly payments or paying in your custom installments. 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With shadow work, I think a lot of like we talked a little bit about it, that there's support that can come in from the earthly world, you know, mentors, community, sisterhood, um, summits like this. It's a collective container that is created in those five days, but then it transcends that. Um, I even have people from other summits that I've been a part of tell me that they go back to those recordings just to get some of that aggregate energy of, you know, how to how to engage with that practice, whatever the theme of that summit was. And another ally in our shadow work journey, of course, is the spirits that we can work with. Um, particularly, I think, in my practice specifically, it's the dark goddesses that guide us through that goddess is like Hecate. Um, but also for myself. I work mainly with Inanna and the different phases that she has. So people are surprised to learn that Aphrodite is a dark goddess as well. Um, the Morrigan and the and the Celtic traditions. Um, I guess I could form this into a question. Are there any dark goddesses that you work with, or you know that you could you could talk to speak to that about how shadow work can be aided in connecting to the goddess? Absolutely. I totally agree. It's definitely one of my favorite types of allies to call on for shadow work. Um. For so many different reasons, you know, not only do they have this like, really long history and lineage of being connected to the shadowy concepts and realms, um, but I think that they also really give us an opportunity to reclaim some of what has been really suppressed and taken from us, um, especially as women or people socialized as women, like we, you know, we experience shadowy things in a different way, right? Like, our society really gives us our shadows in a different way. And that's something that I am going to be talking about during the summit and with my clients in the couple of months after the summit, is we're going to be talking a lot about projection and like the way that people project things onto us. Um, and how sometimes a lot of our shadows aren't even ours. Right. Like they come from, you know, either like our ancestral line and we've inherited them, or they come from projections and they come from other people, and we've just internalized them. Um, and there are some shadows that are, you know, more from our own lived experience. Absolutely. But I think a lot of our shadows come from outside of us. And so I think that the Dark Goddesses can be a really profound ally in shifting that, because they they don't accept someone else's projections. Right? Like, they are really themselves, um, and really in their power in so many ways. And I love that you said that people are surprised that Aphrodite or Venus is a dark goddess, and I completely agree that she absolutely is. Um, because one right We tell like a very sanitized version of her in a lot of our storytelling, but also because I think that any goddess, deity, spirit, all of the above that is associated with any kind of pleasure is, you know, whether whether Dark goddess is the right phrase. Right. I think that we we could say that in our society that like they are dark goddesses or they are dark spirits because they're associated with something taboo in our society. Um, and so, yeah, I just, I, I'm so glad you said that. And here we go. Because before we start recording, I was like, I really want to touch on sensuality as shadow work because it is. And, you know, it is hard. It is so hard to feel sensuous and not have shame come in at the back of it, or guilt or even just like that. Um, uh, I don't even know what the word is, but when we feel like we, we are doing something for attention. Like as women, people who are socialized as women, we're raised to think that, you know, we shouldn't gather attention, you know, oh, don't, don't attract attention of negative things. But we also are taught to, you know, do our makeup in a certain way and all these different things, which it's, it's, you know, it's the same principle of like, you're never enough, but you're also too much, you know, it's always that. And sensuality is so tied into that. And so many of our shadows are in that vortex. And it's nice to have this discussion because we're talking about the collective shadows right now. We're talking about the shadows that come to us before we were even born. They're they're generational. They're collective. They're there's this idea, this taboo that so many people buy into or are taught to believe and carry on from parent to child, grandparent to child. And then we sit back and we're like, well, where did this come from? Why are we like this? And we have to really deconstruct from, you know, many generations back of where this came from. And a lot of it is Puritanism, Puritan idealism, and this idea that you have to be in, you have to fit in this little box. If you don't fit in this box, then you're not. You're not part of the society. You're not part of the culture. You're not part of you're not deserving in some way, deserving of the basic things that everyone should be deserving of. And it's not about entitlement. It's about belonging. And we have such a deeply rooted need to belong. And yeah, I find that it's so hard to deconstruct this when it's so deeply rooted. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I think that is definitely the thing with one of the things that is so core with shadow work is that our shadows are so incredibly deep, right? Like so often, many of our shadows were not even conscious of. Which is why I always say that, like the first step in shadow work is just even becoming aware that the shadow is there, right? Because and then we can even we can live a very long time or the rest of our lives being aware that the shadow is there without doing anything about it. Um, for sure. But, you know, there's this first step of like, even noticing that, hey, this thing is actually not mine, or this thing is holding me back, or this thing, um, you know, feels like it's not actually true. Um, and we can go a long time without having that awareness that that something is a shadow. Um, which is why, like, I've been really fascinated with this idea of projection lately because people project things onto us, and that's one experience. But we also absolutely we all project things out, and that's often how we first become aware of a shadow. Right? Is that we project something onto someone else. And then if we have enough self-awareness to notice, like a problem with that thing that person is doing, or the way they're being or the way they're reacting to me. But like, it's not about them, right? Right, right, right. And to address shadow work. And I love the the idea of your summit and bringing people together to talk about this, because the shadow lives in shame and shame, demands that we be silent about it. And we have to create these comfortable, safe, inclusive containers where we can address those shadows, where we can take that deep look without feeling like we're wrong for doing that. And that I think that's one of the most tricky parts of shadow work, is addressing the shame that comes along with it. And and this absolutely ties into sensuality because what is what is that core wound around sensuality? It's shame. right? Yeah, definitely. I mean, I think that we feel so much shame around so many of our shadows. You know, we feel shame, whether it's like you were saying about, like, not being enough or being too much. Right? And it's like, either way, we feel shame, right? We feel shame that we tried too hard. We feel shame that we didn't try hard enough. Like no matter what we do, somehow we end up feeling ashamed of something. Um, and I think there's nowhere that that's more true than with pleasure and sensuality, because there's so much, like you said, Puritan, you know, ideas kind of tied up in that, that it's, you know, something we're not supposed to want. Um, it's something that we're not supposed to express. Um, there's so many, so many layers of that. And I think it's also really horrible at fascinating, you know, the different ways that different people in different groups also experience that. Right? Like we tell women one thing, we tell men another thing we tell queer people something else entirely. Like, there's just this. Like, we all have our own little box of shame that we're supposed to be stuffed into. Um, and yeah, the more that we can be open and talk about whatever's coming up for us in community and with people that we either know are on the same page as us, or are going to be a safe place to process our own stuff, I think is so important. And there's so many different spaces we can do that in, right? We can do that in therapy and like we probably all should. Um, but we can do that with our friends and our communities or our own people, right? But we can also do it in these online spaces. Like that's that I think is one of the biggest pros of like the internet and the age that we live in. And social media is like being able to actually connect with people who very much are on the same page or going through something similar as us. Mhm. Yeah. For sure. If you've been feeling a quiet tug, a deep need to better understand the natural world around you, I'm here to invite you to my newest container, a six week guided experience where we will learn to connect with the wild spirits around us the plant spirits, animal messengers, and elemental forces that want to walk with us on our path. And right now, if you join this live container, you'll receive a free travel ritual kit crafted by my own hands to help you keep the magic alive no matter where you are. But supplies are limited and they are going fast. Click the link in the show notes to get more information or visit Leandra Witchwood comm. I'll see you in the grove. Something that. And as we're recording this, I'm wrapping up Sacred Wild Priestess, which is my more advanced container. Um, really, really teaching the Earth priestess arts. And something we touched on was sensuality and how that that is part of the flow of connecting to land. And so we've really gotten to the conversation of what is the difference between sensuality and sexuality. And I have I have a definition on this. But as we were talking about it in the class, like we all had different ones and they all were totally kind of valid ways of expressing that. So I would love to ask you what your definition is. Like how would you differentiate those two? Yeah. You know, it is really interesting topic and I feel like it's come up a lot recently because for a while there we were all using like sacred sensuality. Right. Um, because it was like a nice little you could kind of get around like the Instagram censors. Um, and I feel like it became a little interchangeable, Um, which they're not necessarily, although I think there is a big, you know, a big overlap for sure. Um, but for me, like, the sensuality piece is tied to the senses, right? Like, it is about, like being in your body and, you know, connecting to, like, things that feel good, right? Like smells that make you feel good and clothing that makes you feel good. And like all of those things that really do engage your senses, um, which is very like I'm a Taurus, like, that's very just natural for me. Like, I've always just been a very scary person. Um, but then I think, like, like, so here for it with we taureans like, we like our, we like our sensory things. Um, but then on the sexuality piece. Right. Like, I feel like, you know, maybe sexuality is almost like a piece of sensuality. Right? Um, which is where I think they can get slightly better, Changeable, but then it's like sensuality encompasses a lot of things that aren't inherently sexual. Right. And so I think that, like, sacred sexuality is, you know, the more like outright sexual expression, um, with a partner or not. Right. Like, it can absolutely be with yourself and really getting in touch with your own body in that way, which I think is often overlooked, too. Right. Yeah. I like that a lot because I've always seen sexuality as something more an outward. Like, it, it has to do with, you know, others, you know, not necessarily like, yes, you know, masturbation, all those wonderful things that we could do alone are things that aren't outward, but they're sexual because they have to do with it's almost like energy that you're you're pulling in like it's energy raising. You know, that's what sex magic is like. I think a lot of times people think you have to have a partner to do sex magic. And truthfully, you will do like the most powerful sex magic you could do. You can do alone because the. It's rare that you would have partners that are as aligned in the magic that you're doing. So, you know, unless it's like magic for the two of you, but or three or however many of you there are. But I feel like most of the time such magic is best done on its own. On your own. Um, so yeah, sexuality is a solo thing, but there's something to it that's that's expressive outwards, whereas sensuality is like bringing to me, it's like bringing the world to you. It's, it's it's experiencing the sights, the sounds, the smells, the tastes, the feelings that are around you and feeling how that affects you personally. I don't know if that makes any sense, but no, that makes perfect sense. And that's pretty much how I think of it too, is the sensuality is feeling. So you're feeling yourself. You're feeling the clothes on your skin. You're feeling the sensation of putting on a beautiful perfume you really like, and you're feeling the emotion that that draws up. So it's it's more of a personal thing rather than an outwardly expression. But it can can be outwardly expressed for sure. Yeah, absolutely. No. I think that's a great way to think of it. Right? That it's like even if you are, you know, expressing your sexuality on your own, there is almost this like energy exchange that happens, right? Even if it's like a even if it's internal. Right. Even if you're like exchanging that energy with your, your own spirit or your own body or, you know, however you're choosing to see it, um, I think there is some kind of exchange that happens versus with. Yeah, I think with sensuality, it's I mean, sensuality is inherently a very grounding experience. Right. Like that is one of the core ways that we ground ourselves, especially if you're, you know, having anxiety or a panic attack. Right? Like the way you ground yourself is through your senses. And so I think that sensuality does have that ability to, like, bring you back into center, where sexuality is much more of this, like outward expression and this exchange of like, I'm putting something, putting something of me out, right? Even if it's coming right back into me, if that makes sense. Yeah, yeah. Because, like, I'm thinking of orgasm and it's exclamation, you know, even if even if your shame is keeping you from exclaiming too loudly, it is something that's being released. So. Right. It's energy. Yeah. So I think it's like when I think of it in terms of land and, and our connection to Earth, because a lot of times, especially like Druidry, like I study Druidry, I'm a big fan of it. Um, but it can be very sanitary. And I think people get confused when I say that land is a sensual experience because they're like, what do you mean? It's grounding? It's this. And it's like, no, that's exactly why it's so sensual. But it is also it can land, can be part of our sexual experience. Like how many people in the very mundane world have a dream of like, you know, having sex by the beach or whatever, like, right? Like there is something inherently sexy about the raw, primal ability to commune with our bodies alone or with others in nature. And that's because nature. Nature is sexy. Like all these bees be pollinating, all these birds be mating those cicadas, they're wooing each other with those sounds in the summer, like it's it's all the lightning bugs. That's not just for aesthetics. Yeah, yeah. My mind, their booty call. Exactly. My mind and genetics are coming through here. My Dionysian, uh, uh, practice is coming up, but yeah, like it is all there. So. Yeah. And if and if we're losing anybody here, if they're like, oh, this is uncomfortable. I'm blushing in my car on my drive to work. This is beautiful shadow work. People should stick with us. Absolutely. Well, and that's the thing, right? Is, like, the more that we don't talk about it. Right? The the longer we go in our lives without reclaiming it. And I think that that is definitely one of the things that I find so powerful about this type of work. And approaching this type of work from a spiritual perspective is like, we actually have so much power to normalize things literally just by having conversation about it, right? Yes, yes. Yeah. Well, okay. And when I'm working with clients through shadow work, the first thing I have them do is an exercise where they take a week and they notice where they recoil on things. Where do you feel that that feeling of, oh, God, I can't talk about this. I can't listen to it. And this is a great example. So if you're listening to this and they're like, oh my God, they said masturbation. Oh my God. Like there where you feel that recoil, where you feel that that sucking in of your energy. There's a shadow there to to address. There's something to explore there. That doesn't mean you have to, like, bust out all the shadow work journals and start in on it right away. But just notice it. And this is how we start reclaiming our space. And addressing those shadows is by recognizing where they show up for us, even in the most subtle ways. Absolutely. I love that exercise. Mhm. And I think I do it for myself all the time. Oh yeah. Well and triggers like yeah we kind of got off topic in the, in the early two thousand and two. Well really it was like the twenty tens where we started to see and I've read a lot of sociology books. So like that's where a lot of this is coming from actually, it's not really from spiritual texts, but honestly, like side note, but a lot of people ask me sometimes they're like, where are the advanced books on magic and spirituality? And I'm like, well, you actually have to just read Books on like niche subjects with a spiritual lens like that's advanced spirituality is when you see the spiritual in everything. So that's why I read a lot of sociology books, is because they help me understand the zeitgeist, um, meaning the the spirit of the times that we are in. And it also helps me understand the egregores as I come across them. And one of the things that I have learned in my in my sociology research top recommendation is Jonathan Haidt. Um, he studies Americans particularly, but childhood development since the nineties and how those generations have evolved into adults. And in the twenty tens, we started to see a shift away from people feeling anxiety and fear only based on physical pain. And we started seeing the same rates of anxiety and fear present in people who were afraid of emotional pain. So a lot of kids, a lot of people now who are adults. When we were kids, we didn't actually have a difference in our brains and and bodies. The key thing is our bodies. We're reacting to emotional triggers the same way as physical triggers. So like in the eighties, you know, it was like fear of bullies beating you. But by the twenty tens, it was a fear of somebody criticizing you verbally. And that extrapolated into colleges not allowing people on campus who were giving adverse opinions on topics. So like a conservative college wouldn't allow a speaker from a liberal camp and vice versa. Um, and, and I think that we've seen that extrapolate over the past fifteen years to where we are now, where a lot of people avoid their triggers in an unhealthy way. Like triggers are are painful. And there's definitely, you know, if you're working with a therapist and you have, you know, PTSD or PTSD, you know what's best for you. And that's that's not what I'm speaking to. I promise I'm speaking to when we scroll on Instagram and we start to feel bad, you know, we start to see, oh, that person, you know, she I've I've gained weight and she's lost weight. Oh and this person, she's engaged. I just broke up with my boyfriend. Like we start to do the comparison thing and it triggers us. We sometimes in a in a sociologically like I think I don't think it's conscious at all, but we think that we should avoid triggers because of this, this complex that society has kind of put on us that triggers cause harm and they can cause harm in extreme situations. But for most of us, the trigger of comparison is something we should note. You know, we shouldn't just say, oh, I shouldn't be triggered and try to push it away. We should look at that trigger and say, whoa, okay. Yeah, she just got engaged, but I just broke up with a guy. But that dude was not for me. I don't want to be engaged to that guy. So why am I triggered that? She's engaged. You know what I mean? Like taking time to really look at what our triggers have to say to us and the type of people that trigger us. You know, I used to get very triggered by women who were sexually expressive because when I was sexually expressive in my youth, bad things happened. And so I blamed myself for that. So I had to deconstruct that and recognize those bad things would have happened anyway. It had nothing to do with who I was, or if they wouldn't have happened, it still had nothing to do with me. Like, it just was never personal. And those triggers led me to that shadow work. Yeah. Oh, that's so fascinating. The way that that's, like, apparently evolved, right? And, like, we don't know, you know, without, you know, people doing that kind of research, like, we don't know that like, our brains are working differently than, you know, an earlier generation, right? We assume people are exactly the same as they've always been. And in some ways we are, and in some ways we're not. Right. Um, and yeah, I think that's so true that like, I think part so much of like, you know, being a witch or being a priestess or whatever words we claim for ourselves, right? Whatever our paths are, is about like being willing to go into those dark, shadowy corners of ourselves. Right? Is about, you know, taking care of ourselves and not pushing ourselves, but also being willing to notice that we're being triggered. Notice that a shadow is coming up and to explore why, um, or even, like you said, Leandro. Right. Like you don't have to explore it right this second, but like taking notice of it, making a note that like, hey, that is a thing that I felt right. There's that brought up something in my body or like, you know, had a train of thought that I really didn't want to be having. And like, I can explore that when I'm ready to and when it feels safer to um. And yeah, I think that that is part of, you know, being a witch or being on any kind of shadowy path is like being willing to do that. Right? Because I think the vast majority of people are not willing to do that. Um, and that's okay. They can be on their path, but they're also not going to experience the same level of transformation. Right. And I and the key there was knowing when you're ready and and not. I think one of the one of the pitfalls of doing shadow work. And this is typically happens when you're deep into it. You start seeing the shadows of others. And you can recognize them pretty quickly. And it becomes this struggle where you you can't push, you can't push others to be ready. They have to address the shadow when they're ready. Or maybe they are addressing the shadow and you just don't see it because it's not happening the way you did it type thing. It's a very individualistic path. It is. It's some people it takes they have to go low and slow. You know, some people are quick. Oh, I saw that. I'm going to fix it today. But not everybody is able to do that. Not everybody is in a position to do that. And I think that becomes one of those things in shadow work. We have to recognize our own personal journey and navigate it from our own personal lens, not our lens being projected. Again, going back to that idea of projection, projecting that onto other people and not projecting other people onto our path. So if we see somebody that's doing it quick and they're like, oh, well, they got over that in a month, like, why can't I get over it? You know, why can't I just get over? Why can't I just do it? And I think that becomes this, this shaming narrative on top of shame, so we can really spiral ourselves into a hole if we don't have a support system, if we don't have others out there who are walking the path, kind of, you know, lighting lanterns along the way for us, not necessarily for us to run the path and, and sprint, but to like, oh, I see this. Okay, I see the help there. Let me go. Let me go and engage with that when I'm ready. What are your thoughts on that? Yeah, I love that. I think that it's so true that the we get into comparison even in shadow work, right? Like we're like, oh well, this person is doing it this way, and that person is doing it that way, and I'm doing it this way. And we do we create like that's like I was saying, like we can create shame around literally anything. Like I think it's one of the most like unhelpful, I mean, one of the most unhelpful things in like our patriarchal society, there's a lot of unhelpful things. But I think that is the most like number one issue is that we can create shame out of anything. Right? That like, we're never we're always moving the guidepost. Um, and yeah, I think that that is a really good point that like when we openly can share our own journeys and we can approach it from this place, that's not about comparison, but it's just like, oh, like if someone has done shadow work on this same topic, someone else has struggled with this, then you know, I'm not actually alone. I'm not actually isolated in whatever my journey is. And yeah, I think it goes back to the, you know, the topic of like community being so important to help us normalize the shadows themselves, normalize the journey to normalize, like all those parts and pieces for sure. Yeah. And it's a sister wound. Like I think people need to remember. Like it's not always it's almost honestly, it's almost never our choice to compare ourselves to others. It's something ingrained in us. It's something that not just in this life, but in past lives. In our genetics, your ancestors also were pitted against each other to compare. And, um, on that note, too, it makes me think about how I'll use an analogy, like when like let's say like you want to start going to the gym again and you're like, okay, I want to go to the gym, but you don't want to do it alone. So you find a friend who also expressed that they would like to start going to the gym again if you both start off on that journey together. And one of you is like, oh, I don't want to go to the gym today. You have the choice to then say, like, if your friend's like, oh, I can't go today. You have the choice to either say, okay, great, I'm not going to go either. Or you can go on your own as well. And I think that's that's a key thing with shadow work. And this is actually maybe a little bold I don't know. I'd love to hear how you guys feel about this, but I feel like we shouldn't go through shadow work with someone else. Going through shadow work at the same time as our only support. Like, I think you need a third party of somebody who's actually already done that. Maybe not exactly the shadows you've had. That's okay. It doesn't have. They don't have to have exactly had your shadows, but no one will but that. They have come out the other side of it, and they can guide you through that tunnel. It makes me think of Hecate. Hecate? Uh, she has two epithets that come to mind here. There's the the torchbearer And there's phosphorus, the light bringer in our shadow work journey. We need to be both, and we need to look for people who can be both for us as well. Sometimes we're we're the one carrying the torch and leading. Other times we're phosphorus. We need the light to be brought to us. So recognizing the balance of that, you know, having somebody who can guide you to the other side because they've been there, but also having people who are going through it as well. And I think that's why I'm such a big proponent of containers, because you have a mentor at the head who can guide it, but you have sisterhood to support it. Yeah, totally. I would agree with that. No, I think that's a I think that's a really interesting point that you made there. And I think it's really true. Right. That like when you're going through something like you're walking side by side with someone, um, that's a very different experience, right? Like I've, I've definitely experienced both sides of that were like, um. So one of my best friends, we both went through a really challenging, like, oddly similar situation with our partners at the same time. And it was like pure coincidence. And just like we both happened to be going through the same thing. And it was really powerful to, like, be in it together, you know, and to know that, like, there was someone else who literally understood, like, like to the letter understood what was happening and what we were each feeling and like we could really mirror it to each other. Um, but we also both really needed to seek out, like, a simultaneously. Right? Like we both ended up starting therapy and I ended up, um, about like, I don't know, I guess about a year later, um, I ended up connecting with someone who was like further along on his, like, changing relationship journey. That was really supportive. And yeah, I think that, like, we have these different we have these different supports in our lives, whether it's, you know, someone going through the exact same thing, and that's one type of support, but it's not a complete support, right? Um, and it's like we need either mentors or like people that we're walking alongside, but who kind of know where we've been, you know, um, and I think that all those different kinds of support is so important. And yeah, I totally agree that, like, there's so much of the idea of shame that is a sister wound and a community wound, right? That like, we're just so afraid of being, you know, being not enough, being pitted against someone, being compared to someone and like, you know, found wanting, right? Yeah. And then there's the witch wound of, I can't say this, I can't share this. I will be seen as crazy or other if I do. And I think that's where all the kinds of support are needed. Even if you have somebody in your life who is, you know that they have your best interest at heart, even if they don't know exactly what you're going through. Those are sometimes the right person to talk to while you're going through your shadow work journey. Like like my aunt comes to mind for me. Like she's she's just like who I want to be when I grow up. Like she's a super successful business woman. She has an incredible relationship with my uncle. She has the best son in the world. She's got a beautiful home. She knows all the flowers in her garden. Like she's just great. But she totally doesn't get any of my spiritual stuff. Like if I tried to talk to her with shadow. Work is like, that's not no, no, but that's okay. Like having lunch with her or calling her on the phone and just feeling fully seen by her gives me support on my journey, even though she doesn't really even know that. You know, it's just that big blanket support that she can offer. And those people are important on your shadow work journey too. And that's a great example of how we don't always know how we impact others. You know, I think you and Elyse, you and I always have these conversations like we're speaking out into the void constantly, so we don't know how we impact others. We don't know how other people benefit from what we offer, but we do it anyway because we're hoping that somebody out there can listen to our experiences, our trials and tribulations and gain something from it. And I think that's another key component of shadow work, is finding the people who inspire you, who can support you from afar or incognito even. Which is why I like these summits that Tenae is putting on, because we can connect ourselves with so many different people that will support us. But they they don't necessarily realize they're supporting us, but they're offering their wisdom anyway. Yeah, absolutely. I love doing the summits not only to bring together all the attendees, but especially to bring together all the speakers, because you get I think it's really important to learn from lots of different people and lots of different perspectives. Um, and I love doing these summits where we're going really deep on a specific topic. Right? Like, we literally have almost thirty classes on shadow work in one form or another. And so you're getting a lot of different perspectives on this topic. And you can really find like your way of doing it right instead of just like learning from one teacher and like, yes, find your mentors and find your teachers that you really deeply resonate with. Um, but that's not going to be the first person you found on Instagram, right? Like, it's really you need to learn from different perspectives and hear like how other people think about shadow work. Um, you know, I just was at earlier this month, I was at an astrology conference in the UK that I go to every year. And, you know, it's I mean, they've been doing this conference for decades and there's dozens of classes every single year, and you could go to every single one of them and, you know, get some walk away with some nugget from every class that you'd never thought about before. And I think that's really key that you keep thinking about things in a new way. Right. And the only way you're going to do that is by connecting with new people and not just new people. Right. But connecting with other people who just have other ways of approaching whatever the topic is, in this case, shadow work. And I think there's endless ways that you can approach shadow work. So you definitely have to do that in order to find what's really going to work for you personally. Oh, and that just brought that brought something up in my mind. Like so we talked about sensuality and we were talking about spirits and the shadow around working with spirits. I have so many people coming to me and, um, and I'm addressing this in my upcoming container. The witch's grove is the spiritual taint of working with spirits, and I'm using taint purposefully because people are terrified to call on spirits because of the messages that our culture has given us about working with spirits like, oh, you're going to call in something that's demonic or that's unhealthy, that's going to damage you in some way. It's going to haunt you type thing. And when I was doing my research on this specific topic that I'm I'm offering in this container is I was looking at how the mindset of those who have grown up in that play into that collective consciousness, the collective shadow of don't call on spirits because you're going to call in something negative. Right. So there's automatically that that idea there. Um, and I so, so I started doing an experiment with myself. So um, I started paying attention because I, I go to properties and I help heal the plant spirits there that have been damaged. Um, one property I've been working on is in the Adirondacks. And if you if you've been listening for a while, you've heard the story. It's been decimated by a money grab, basically a land grab. And they took they they demolished it and and took all the healthy trees. So what's left are like the sick and dying trees. And in a conversation I was having when I was sharing this with my community, um, we encountered some unsettled spirits. They weren't bad, they weren't demonic, they were just unsettled. And they were they were little. They unsettled the energy around us. And when I started looking at this deeply, I realized there's a shadow wrapped up in there. There's a shadow that automatically, because a spirit is unknown, that it's evil or demonic. And I think that's such a key conversation with the collective shadow in witchcraft, in working with spiritual in spirits and spiritual work, is that we're we're calling in the dark Goddesses. We're calling in the, the quote unquote, dark energies, the left hand path type energy. And I'm finding that your that lens gets colored so much by, you know, ghost hunter shows or horror movies or like experiences that maybe family members have had that they didn't understand the spirit, so they automatically feared it. And it's such a deep topic when we start looking at it, when we want to connect with spirits, when we want to connect with spirits, that'll help us on our shadow work journey. We have to address the shadow around connecting with that spirit. Does that make sense? Yeah, it makes total sense. And I definitely I mean, I've had so many clients come to me over the years too, with shadows around trusting their intuition and, you know, connecting with their psychic gifts and connecting with spirit and all of that. Um, and I think it's a really common one where especially people, I've had many, many clients and I have this experience to an extent myself where, you know, they were really, really tuned in as a child. And then something happened and they, you know, were often told that like they needed to turn their gifts off basically, right? Generally. And not in so many words, but that's what it led to. And so people like really shutting off their connection. And then, you know, being thirty, forty, fifty, sixty years old and being like, I know I have gifts and I don't trust myself at all. Um, and I think that's a really common experience. And I think it's particularly common when it comes to spirits, not just, you know, intuition in general. Um, because although I think we, we often shut off completely. Right. But I think that so many people have had experiences with spirits that they either interpreted themselves as being really negative, um, whether they genuinely were or not or, you know, they told a family member about it and their family member was like, you cannot talk about that, right? And so that I think, is such a common experience and something that really is so damaging, because then we end up with generations of people who don't trust their instincts. Right? For sure. Yeah. And then we don't trust the spirits around us who are trying to reach out and help us. Totally. I think that just is the perfect, uh, explanation for why all those ghost hunter shows only meet demons. Yeah. Right. Because they've never done any shadow work. They're bringing the demons in there. When you think about it, they have to have drama. They have to have something. They go, oh, my God, they found something evil when they really didn't, you know, they just. It's just grandma who's like, dude, clean the cupboard. I'm annoyed that this cupboard is dirty, you know? Gosh, it's so true. It's finally time. My book, Sacred Wild An Invitation to Connect with spirits of the land, is now available for pre-order. Pre-orders are the number one key to a book's success. They help Sacred Wild reach more readers and even bestsellers lists. If you love The Magick Kitchen podcast, this is a great way to support my work. Pre-order now at pre-order. Thank you! This has been such a good conversation on Shadow Work. I'm so excited to continue it all week in the summit. Um, tell everybody where they can sign up for the summit and also find all of your upcoming offers if they're listening to this later. Yeah, absolutely. So the summit is the Witch within summit. You can find it on my website. It's Witch of Loopholes. Com summit. Um, and it's happening September fifteenth to nineteenth, twenty twenty five. When you're listening to this, um, and you'll be able to get the recordings, it's completely free to sign up so you can get access to all thirty classes. You'll get the recordings for a couple of days totally free. Or you can upgrade. Um, we have a wonderful pass that you get access to the recordings, um, lifetime access, plus a ton of incredible bonuses from all the speakers. Um, so you can find everything on the website and then in general. Yeah, my, my website which of Lupin Hollow. Com and on Instagram at Lupin Hollow is where I share all the things I'm going to be doing a shadow work program, um, a little bit later in the fall. So if you want to do some of this work in community, we'll be doing that. Um, and then, yeah, I do programs throughout the year on trusting your intuition and cultivating pleasure and all the things we talked about today. Beautiful. Awesome. Thank you for being here. Yes. Thank you. Thanks for having me. This was so fun. Good. I am going to stop the recording.