Navigating relationships can sometimes feel like trying to read a map in the dark, but what if the key to clarity was waiting within us all along? This episode sheds light on the transformative power of shadow integration in relationships, revealing how the inner stories of unworthiness we tell ourselves are often magnified by societal expectations. As we traverse the landscape of self-acceptance, we discover the beauty of developing relationships based on an intrinsic sense of worth, rather than seeking validation from outside sources. Ryan and I delve into the subtle yet significant ways our own unresolved traumas can shape our interactions, inviting listeners to join us in the quest for healing and acceptance. As we acknowledge the gap between outward personas and inner realities, we emphasize the essential role of demonstrating healthy emotional processing.
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Checkout the Heart First Leadership Podcast with Ryan & Heidi Sawyer
Navigating relationships can sometimes feel like trying to read a map in the dark, but what if the key to clarity was waiting within us all along? This episode sheds light on the transformative power of shadow integration in relationships, revealing how the inner stories of unworthiness we tell ourselves are often magnified by societal expectations. As we traverse the landscape of self-acceptance, we discover the beauty of developing relationships based on an intrinsic sense of worth, rather than seeking validation from outside sources. Ryan and I delve into the subtle yet significant ways our own unresolved traumas can shape our interactions, inviting listeners to join us in the quest for healing and acceptance. As we acknowledge the gap between outward personas and inner realities, we emphasize the essential role of demonstrating healthy emotional processing.
Connect with Heidi
Work with Heidi
IG @realheidisawyer
If you enjoyed the show, please leave a review!
Checkout the Heart First Leadership Podcast with Ryan & Heidi Sawyer
Welcome back to the show. Today I'm a very special guest, my husband and fellow coach, ryan Sawyer, and today we're going to be talking all about the importance of shadow integration work. Welcome, ryan.
Speaker 2:Yeah, well, thank you for having me. It's good to be back doing this together. I miss it. We used to do this every week, and so it's good to have a reason. I'm like you want to do that one together.
Speaker 1:It sounds fun. Well, tell everybody a little bit about yourself, because some people may not know who you are.
Speaker 2:Well, a little bit about myself. Well, I am the not better half of your host here, heidi Sawyer, and you know, in relationship to what we're going to talk about today, I'm somebody who spent the majority of my life thinking that I knew and thinking that personal development was for uh, woossies and that, you know, the idea of looking at your weaknesses or looking at your faults or do any sort of introspection exploration at all was, quote unquote, a waste of time. And until life presented me mainly, but then which turned into we, you and I. You know plenty of reason and motivation to do that Like. Basically, it was left with no choice. It was either life crumbles around us and we don't know why and we wonder why, and go about our separate ways, or to take a real long hard look in the mirror and so that's what got us being an ultra competitive person coming from those environments, former athlete who's now turned into, obviously you know, mentor, coach, speaker, author that transformation was been over a decade, you know, in the making.
Speaker 2:But this conversation that we're having today of shadow integration was, was, I would believe to be, a turning point in my life of being able to legitimately heal parts of myself that believe things that we're not supporting me as as a individual, or us in relationship, or as a father or in business, and it shows up, wow, it shows up at every, and I can, I can go on story after story.
Speaker 2:But you know this work and when you're talked about wanting to do to kind of pull some of this work back into your coaching and really hone in on shadow integration and really have those conversations, I think it's a no brainer and mainly more for any other reason, because the value in it is just huge and our story is one where it's like how can we sit on this and not share it, knowing that the impact that I made Right? So I don't know if that's what you want as an internet user, I don't know if that's what you want as an introduction, but you know, if you want to know more about me, you can look me up. So I'm just the non-bent, I'm the, I'm the part of the relationship that is is better off because I'm in it with you.
Speaker 1:So Well, I felt the same way about you, so, okay, well, you mentioned getting back into doing more shadow integration work, and I want to tell everybody listening that one of the reasons that I was actually inspired to pull more of this work back into the coaching that I'm doing is because I have interviewed a lot of women now on this show, and one of the questions, if you're a listener of the show that you know I like to ask towards the end is what is one piece of advice you'd give to your younger self?
Speaker 1:And there's been such a through line with the answers to that question so far where I'm seeing messages that we would say to our younger self like you're enough, you can be yourself, it's safe to be you, it's safe to want what you want, follow your dreams, listen to your intuition, follow your heart.
Speaker 1:All of the answers are so similar and it does lead back to shadow work, because we know that these things are true, but somewhere along the line we stopped following our heart, we stopped showing up, we stopped believing it was safe to be who we are in the world.
Speaker 1:And that's really what shadow integration does is it brings to light those myths, messages and beliefs that we've taken on, sometimes in early childhood and sometimes all the way up through adulthood, through traumas and different things that we experienced, where we take on something that's actually limiting the way that we're able to show up in the world and we're not showing up fully expressed. And that's really my mission is to help women unhide and help women to start to show up and shine their light in the world, because I believe that what we have to offer right now is needed more than ever. So that's really what brought me to wanting to bring shadow integration work back into my coaching practice was recently starting this podcast and hearing those answers and just that reminder that it doesn't matter how successful you are now, it doesn't matter what you've achieved. We all have these shadows and they all need to be integrated. And once we do that work there's such detailing that happens we unlock new possibilities for ourselves.
Speaker 2:Now I want to highlight it in even a little bit different way, and the nuanced way you mentioned it, I think it's bringing it to light in a different way. So people, oh yeah, we all are limiting ourselves in some way and just so you know, you and I, let's just bring it to the two of us, right, you and I and anybody who's listening, we are hiding.
Speaker 1:Yeah, if you're human you're going to have a tendency to go towards safety.
Speaker 2:We have to acknowledge all in any growth, in any way, shape and form is a process of unhiding.
Speaker 2:When you unhide, you are able to shine, not only your potential and your gifts right, but you also experience new levels of peace, of joy, of connection, of love, of forgiveness, of whatever right. That are all beautiful things, and they're all beautiful things that have nothing to do with the external world. They're all beautiful things that you don't have to have anything in particular to experience. You don't even have to be anything in particular I mean, as a role or identity and that the achievement of external results actually become easier because you're not in your own way. Because if you're in your own way and you're hiding, you don't know how you're trying to shove a square peg into a round hole. That's what it's like.
Speaker 2:Shadow integration work is about building awareness of how you're currently hiding. And how you're currently hiding is what's keeping you from a deeper level of connection with your spouse, or being able to really truly build an incredible, uncommon connection with your children, or being able to build and delegate a company. I mean, what is it that you want more of in your life? The reason why you currently aren't experiencing it is something to do with how you're hiding. We have to know how we're hiding, bring awareness to that, take it from the unconscious into our conscious workshop so we can learn to integrate that heal, that surrender, that let it go, so we can begin to operate from a place of more, the truth of us, of more potential, yeah, more integrated, more whole, more complete, more pure and spontaneously, what ends up happening is the things that you desire more of right, more freedom, more peace, more joy, more love, more connection and potentially, even more abundance in whatever shape or form that you are exploring, wanting more of that in your life. So it is a process of unhiding.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I absolutely believe that shadow integration is the path towards greater abundance in your life. Abundance in lots of ways, not just monetary, but abundance of love and connection those things that you talked about because it is the doorway to greater worthiness within yourself. And that's really what's at that. Root cause of a lot of the things that create suffering in our lives is that we feel unworthy in some way, not good enough in some way, and we live in a world that's constantly sending us messages that if we could just be better, stronger, faster, more beautiful, you know, whatever it is that, then we will be good enough, and what you're saying is that, through shadow integration work, we're able to shine a light on the way that we've believed lies about ourselves that are not the truth of who we're here to be.
Speaker 1:And when we can see those things more clearly, then we can start to separate where we're going from where we've been and we can still take all parts of us with us in that journey, because we can accept those parts of ourselves that we have disconnected with, that we have suppressed, that we have hidden away because somehow they were deemed unworthy or not good enough.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and the way it shows up in this relationship and I can talk about how this has transformed that, but is in relationship is relationship with life or another person, or a relationship with everything that we have in our lives, right From the weather to our business, caregivers, yourself, your spouse, whatever. Everything's a relationship is that the shift goes from this person needs to be a certain way and then I'll be okay. The reason why I'm not okay is because if you would stop doing X, y or Z, then I'd be okay Like it's. You're the problem, right, Because you don't do this and you do this too much and I wish you would stop doing that. And why does she do this and that? I mean whatever examples, those things are right. You're not affectionate enough, you're not this enough, you're not that enough, you're too much of this, you're too much of that. All of that is projection and the reality is, when you do this internal healing work, the shift goes from. I don't need you to be a certain way for me to be okay.
Speaker 2:You can be, however you're being and I'm going to be okay. And then now that opens up the possibility, especially if we're both doing this work right, and then there's the relationship of the two people that then things can be how they're going to be and I am meeting my own sense of okayness, I'm okay regardless. I'm creating this internal domain that's independent of my external circumstances. Now I come to you whole. Now I come to the dinner table feeling okay, feeling worthy, feeling loved, not needing anything from outside sources, where then now we can make this conscious choice to experience each other from wholeness. Well then, that's a choice that is love, rather than I think a lot of people have experienced love in their life. As you don't hit my stuff, Right.
Speaker 1:You don't trigger me, so I'm okay with that.
Speaker 2:I'm okay with it.
Speaker 1:I like being around you because you make me feel good Rather than I feel good, and I love being around you and that's the biggest shift, right there's a difference there, and I think when you're doing this work, the way that you recognize what your shadows are and how they're showing up is that they show up in things that do trigger you, that do upset you, that you Are bothered by, in ways that you end up potentially judging other people. You know it's always a great indicator. What we judge other people for Is oftentimes something within ourselves that we have rejected, that we have hidden away, that we have decided is not going to be a part of us, and so there's some some imbalance there. When we're moving in that way where we're pointing our finger at everyone else and having everyone else be the matter with us, and a good example of that would be if you're bothered by someone being too loud, that might be an indication that you need to take up more space in the world that you're not.
Speaker 2:You're somehow not. You're not speaking. You're not speaking your truth, you're not speaking up, you're not. You're not showing up the way you know you truly want to. You're hiding, right. So then it annoys you that somebody else is being loud and taking up space. Well, I should be taking up that space. Why are they taking up that space? They shouldn't be taking up that space. I should be taking up this. I mean, they're not they. That may not be your actual internal dialogue, but you will judge them for taking up space.
Speaker 1:Yeah, many times it's unconscious, meaning we don't consciously know that this is going on. It's kind of going on underneath the radar and so we'll have a disturbance happen inside. Oh, that person really bothers me. I really dislike that about that person. I'm judging that about that person and that's always a clue that we can look inside and, through Using a specific shadow work process, you can start to bring to the surface things that you were not consciously aware of before, and Oftentimes these things stem from, like I said earlier, early childhood Things, traumas, things that have happened.
Speaker 1:And when I say trauma, I don't mean that something really catastrophic happened in your life. I mean a moment in time that your nervous system couldn't handle what was happening. Okay, so trauma is something that happens in the nervous system, not the event. So that means that if you were overwhelmed with emotion and it imprinted in your mind, hey, we've got to pay attention to this, a big change happened in the body. We've got to stamp this in and remember this for later, that really hurt my feelings. The subconscious mind doesn't really, isn't really able to decipher what's important to pay attention to in the way that we would like it to. It just knows that something happened and for our safety, we need to pay attention to this and avoid it at all costs.
Speaker 1:So if that's something that happened was some type of social rejection for example, maybe you were being your goofy self as a kid and then you were rejected and made fun of by a group of other kids. That can be a trauma, that can be an event where too much emotion going on for your nervous system to handle it, and so that could imprint on your subconscious in a way where you feel that it's not safe to show up. It's not safe to show that side of you, and so you become ultra serious and ultra focused and ultra focused and that's the way to win in life. And then later in life Maybe you find yourself triggered by someone who's doing goofy things and you think they should take themselves more seriously. But really what that situation may be showing you is that Maybe you shouldn't take yourself so seriously. Maybe it's okay to show up in that way.
Speaker 2:Something. I had a conversation with somebody this morning and they were in a spot where they were ready to go deeper and do some work and and and, to Try to figure out what's going on in there, to wake up to some unconscious patterns and beliefs and things of this nature. And I say we know the real motivating factor is not just so you can feel a little bit more liberated and free and Peaceful. That's great, that is. That is one of the outcomes, I said.
Speaker 2:But here's the thing, here's the real important piece as a parent, right like Now, knowing what we know about how all this works from a generational perspective, is, if we don't stare it down and Learn to integrate it and heal it, we will pass it on Right. So if I am dealing with something that is a limiting belief that I'm not good enough, I'm not worthy, I'm not adequate, I'm not lovable, and it shows up in some sort of way that I'm stupid, all right, and not this enough, or I'm not not enough, whatever. But you can create all kinds of narratives off of those big four I'm not good enough in one way, shape or form, I'm not worthy of it, I don't deserve it in one way, shape or form.
Speaker 1:I'm not adequate.
Speaker 2:Right. I'm not equipped to do that or I'm not lovable. I don't deserve that right and love. And one of those four. You can create Thousands of stories and narratives off of one of those four things. If you do not Address those things in your life, in your psyche, you will pass them on to your children.
Speaker 2:Yeah, what we resist for this and and, but it shows up. And here's a thing because we are, we think, as parents, we're doing a good job parenting, because we're consciously putting food on the table. We go to work, you know. We go to the sporting events, we do all these things right, we. We, we plan a vacation. We, you know, we make sure that we spend some fun, spend some family time on Sundays. We, we do all of these things and we're like I'm doing it right, like I'm consciously doing a good job. I'm, I'm present, I'm here, I'm, I'm doing. There's food on the table, is roof over their head, there's clean sheets on their bed, there's, you know, I get them to school on time and to the sporting events and back home again, and we do it all over again, dang it.
Speaker 2:And yes, you are doing a good job consciously, but what is happening unconsciously underneath the veil, right Behind, in the shadows? You're passing that on right. And so it's about being a parent, and this is what has motivated us to say we're not stopping just because there's been a relief of suffering from years ago. Right Now, it's about unhiding to the level that we are able to and shine our light to the level that we're able to, because we know that every single time that we eradicate something, every single time that we let go of something, every time that we integrate something, that we heal something, we become more whole and more complete, more pure, and we have that experience that that becomes what and naturally and spontaneously begins to show up in our environment. With each other right, and then with our children and anybody else who become in contact with influence of our environment, has become abundantly clear.
Speaker 2:I can go into study after study after study about what we have as an influence over our environment and when it comes to like what is the most important environment in our team that we're creating is our family, right. And so it's not just about all the little conscious things that you do to think that you're doing a good job at checking the box as a parent, that you're doing that is visible. It's about the unseen right. It's about the stuff that is unseen underneath the hood, because those pieces will be what is translated to them unconsciously through your tone of your voice, through the posture, through all kinds of different things that your subconscious mind is, that your children's subconscious mind, especially at a younger age, is absorbing, as this is how the world works. This is what I believe about myself and the world, and that's then shaping their personality, which is shaping their personal reality.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think of the example. I struggled quite a bit with body image issues and just poor self-esteem in general, right Low confidence in the past, and that's why I do the work I do now. But you can be looking in the mirror and not saying a word and your child can be there and they can pick up on the energy of what's going on. If you are having negative self-talk going on inside, feeling unworthy, feeling not good enough, being yourself up, in some way, they are picking up on it and that's the last thing in the world any of us wants to pass on to our kids.
Speaker 1:I know for me a big motivator was my daughter and wanting her to be proud of her body and feel good in her own skin and have confidence that comes from within, and realizing that no matter what she looks like, she's worthy and she's lovable and she's good enough. So that's been a lot of the reason, personally, why I was interested in doing this work for myself in the first place. It's, yes, so I can have a better experience of life, have less suffering, feel less judgmental of myself and others, have less arguments with my partner. But more than that, it's the generational effect of it. It's the generational effect of learning to love myself and let go of all of those stories that have never been the truth of who I am, so that my daughter can have a shot at making her own story.
Speaker 2:You brought up a great point. You brought up the mirror idea of looking in the mirror. And so, even if you're somebody who is maybe experiencing certain levels of above normal levels of anxiety or depression or swings or self judgment, but then you portray, you put on a mask of no, I got this, this is, life is good, I'm happy, I'm okay. I'm okay because you want your kids to be okay, so you portray okay, but their little systems, all of our systems, is picking up way more information than we are consciously aware of. Like, I'm talking about way more. Like billions of bits of information are being absorbed and you're only conscious and aware of 2,000 bits, right? So just do the math on it. How much is coming into your awareness you're not aware of? Right, that's imprinting into your nervous system and creating your kind of experience internally, right? So if you, as a parent, heidi, is showing up and saying, oh, I'm good, look at me. Like I'm putting on the makeup and everything's good and I'm portraying that I got this and life is rainbows and unicorns, but internally you're experiencing turmoil and you're experiencing disturbances and you're not portraying those, you're not working through those, you're not allowing those to be seen, you're not modeling what it looks like to work through that disturbance.
Speaker 2:There's this huge, enormous dissonance between what your internal vibration is and what you're actually portraying to the world, projecting to the world or trying to project to the world anyway, right, and your children pick up on them.
Speaker 2:They know that, right.
Speaker 2:So then they create this belief that it's not okay to show your emotions because they're feeling stuff internally but don't know how to express it right, which then that becomes bottled up like a pressure cooker, and then they don't know how to handle stress and then you know no higher levels of anxiety come in, bigger swings of depression over identification with sports, with roles, with outcomes, right, sense of worth wrapped up in the body image rather than in their intentions of who they are at their core, from the heart, right.
Speaker 2:And all of this just naturally becomes how we are being programmed, right or conditioned by our environment, whether we know it or not, especially in this day and age, when you're, when we're up against cell phones and TikTok and Instagram and TV and commercial and all the different stimulus and information coming in, like this work is more important today, right now, in 2024, than it ever has been before. Right, to help us as human beings to learn how to navigate through that sense of separation Right and then be able to model that for our environment. So our children are able to have at least an alignment of what they're sensing and what they're seeing and experiencing, so they can learn how to navigate through life, because it's not always going to be rainbows and unicorns.
Speaker 1:Yeah we don't want to teach our children to suppress and repress their emotions. We want to teach them how to have self-compassion and when we can have self-compassion at a greater level, we have greater compassion for everyone around us, which means that we have a higher level of acceptance of others and we're just kinder. We're just kinder in the world because we're kinder to ourselves and it's coming from a very real, authentic, deep place, instead of just kind of putting on a smiley face and acting the way you think you should in the world. And there's a big difference, because I've lived both of them and all along the spectrum and I'm still somewhere in that spectrum and hoping to continue to do that work and find new levels of love for myself in the places where I thought I was unlovable.
Speaker 2:Yeah and the reason to do that, to find those new levels, is not just for your own experience, but it has a spontaneous and permanent and eternal impact on our environment.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and it is a direct effect on our kids and those around us. It's a direct effect on our relationships, definitely affects your level of success and the amount of abundance you're willing to allow into your life, because you're only going to be as happy and as wealthy and as blessed as you believe you are worthy to be. So trying to attain things from the outside, from a place of unworthiness, never works. There is a limit to that, there's a cap to that. But when we can come from a whole place of worthiness, then, as you said, things begin to flow to us with ease and we continue to explore that deeper and deeper.
Speaker 1:So I'm really excited to be doing this work again.
Speaker 2:Yes, for a high performer. I know you want to probably wrap it up, but for a high performer, right, like I'm somebody who's been in high performance circles his whole entire life and have put myself in situations where you know you're being judged based upon, you know whether or not you won or lost the game and, and you know, then transfer that into business and whatever. Like, I'm just telling you there's another way, like you don't have to. Is there a time and a place to grind? Yes, there's a time and a place to pull up your bootstraps and get to work, right, you know I mean, but there is.
Speaker 2:It's exhausting. If that's your only way to approach life, right, that that can be one of the things. You know that you have this in your resource bag as a as if I have to, my backs against the wall, watch me right. And I know a lot of men out there like, oh, I can work anybody. Yeah, well, I don't know. We can't necessarily compare how hard we all work compared. Like it's not something we're going to objectively compare, right, and it's not a competition. My point is, if that's your only go-to, if that's your main go-to, it doesn't have to be what it can be it can take a backseat Right and you eventually you can even put it in the trunk. Be like if I have to pull over in life and I have to get out and go and uncover it like it's a spare tire and pull it out the hustle, grit, yeah, the hustle the grind, the I can do anything, no matter what.
Speaker 2:Watch me here, right mentality. Good, I know it's back there in the trunk underneath the floorboard right, and there's some tools to go with it. I can pull it out and throw it on if I need to, but it doesn't need to be sitting in the driver seat. It doesn't need to be sitting in the passenger seat and it doesn't even need to be in the back seat of the car, like staring you in the rear of a mirror going like are you need me? It can be in the trunk underneath the car Right, and you can still use it and pull it out if you need to. But that's If we're leading. With that. That means that we're operating from not enough. We're operating from not being good enough, not worthy enough, not level enough, lovable enough, not Adequate enough. We're operating from not enough. And then we have to grind and we have to force To create to have what we want. So we can be okay for a moment. News flash doesn't last.
Speaker 1:Yeah right.
Speaker 2:There's another way. This is a new opportunity. It's not better, it's not greater, it's not more than or less than. It's a new opportunity. It allows for you to come to life from enough Right and let life pass through you rather than happening to you, and it's a whole different orientation. So just super grateful grateful for us being led years and years ago to this work that helped to save the marriage and to create a life that we now get to explore and embrace, and and grateful for our now current Life to be in a spot where this is reentered into our awareness in a way where you're able to to bring it to the world, because we just Know how impactful can be to people. So, yeah, I just everybody should have it as a tool, as an awareness and as a tool and to know, like, where am I operating from and why Does that bother me? And rather than being the guy who's shaking his fists at people who drive too slow, right Like you, don't have to be that guy.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think it's. It's such a beautiful way to notice the ways that we're reacting to the world around us and being able to get to the root cause of why we are behaving that way, and it's never too late to change. And really, what this work does is helps to rewire those neural patterns, those those ways of thinking and being in the world, so that we can have a different experience, because there's such a greater experience of life available if you're just willing to look within and find it. It's not out there, it's inside, it's in the work that we do inside. So I am offering a amazing 21 day shadow work process and Right now I'm giving it for a ridiculous deal. You actually get a one-on-one call with me as well, so I'd encourage you to head over to the link in the show notes and check it out. If this speaks to you and you feel like you're ready to deep dive into some real healing work and You're ready to change your life, then reach out. Let's connect.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and you know it to yourself, you know it to your spouse, you it to your kids, you it to your environment. You, it's anybody and everybody who comes in contact with you.
Speaker 1:Thank you, ryan, for being on today. Can you tell everyone the name of your podcast if they want to come listen to you? Or more episodes With the two of us, because we've done? What if we do 60 or 70 episodes over there together?
Speaker 2:I think it was 60. Yeah, it's.
Speaker 2:Everyone is an podcast heart for heart. First, which is a. It's an invitation. It's an invitation to live from the inside out, which is basically what we're talking about here. Right, it's another orientation to live from the inside out, to leave with a heart, to seek and pursue meaning in life over material Possession, to put connection and people first Over success of of achievement and approval, and and just put relationship, love, god Meaning first and foremost in your heart every single day of leave from that place. And so I'm. I changed it to heart first, for multiple different reasons, but the main reason you know how everything I do is to hold myself accountable to that path, right, and to live, to live a life of meaning and and To live that highest path of Pursuing that in life. So, yeah, that's it.
Speaker 1:All right, we'll go check out the podcast. Thanks for being here. Love you and Love you. Thank you, we'll see you soon, you.