"Imagination plays a major role in shadow work, as it is a source of our awakening and our power, our healing and our magic to weave new threads of our human experience into being."

Nicola Lucie

We all have an imagination, it is a crucial place of dreaming and envisioning, of creativity, innovation and problem solving, enabling us to explore new ideas and possibilities. It allows us to visualise, conceptualise and manipulate ideas, objects and situations that are not physically present or have not yet occurred.

Deeply related to the invisible world of the feminine, it is a sacred space within that holds no reason or rationale. It is the great void, the darkness from which the slightest essence, like a drop of water in the ocean, can become a stream of delightful consciousness, colour and story, of glorious reality, pleasure and joy.

Without the vivid imagery of our imagination our lives are dull and mundane, walking through life on rinse and repeat to simply survive each day. Without our imagination, we miss the vibrant heartbeat of our human nature.

Imagination also plays a major role in shadow work, as it is a source of our awakening and our power, our healing and our magic to weave new threads of our human experience into being.

Yet the imagination can also be very limiting, as we are not able to visualise beyond the wounding, trauma and conditioning, the unconscious patterns, beliefs and behaviours that have created our sense of identity.

We have become so addicted and enmeshed in who we think we are that there is no room to imagine life other than what we have and continue to experience.

Yes, we can dream with our wants and needs, forever chasing the next thing that will fill the hole of lack, scarcity and fear, but those dreams and acquisitions never really fulfil us, because in truth we don’t really know what we want or what we need as we live and relate from the deep unconscious, reacting rather than responding.

To expand the imagination, we need to give ourselves permission to play, to open the heart and imagine without expectation or trying to control the outcome.

With this imaginative play, we are able to experience the limitations within our psyche as we sense our way to what feels safe and what doesn’t.

In this feeling and sensing state, we open ourselves to curiosity, enquiring as to why this limitation is present and we give ourselves permission to ask one of the most profound questions in Shadow Work - ‘Who I am without….?’.

The question, however, does come with its own set of challenges, as the body can shut down in response as the armour comes up to serve and protect.

Time and time again, I have proposed this question to myself in my own shadow work, and to my clients to explore different areas of our lives where there is an extreme emotional attachment, whether that be to people, relationships, situations, an outcome, a pattern, belief or behaviour.

For example, being married, or in a long-term relationship, or being financially or emotionally reliant on others to meet our needs, or being in a toxic relationship with a family member, we cannot imagine life without them, as they are deeply embedded in our sense of identity.

If we are to reclaim a sense of independence we will need to expand our imagination to separate from the unconscious pattern of co-dependency.

This does not mean we need to instantly break or destroy the relationship in our search for freedom, because doing so never really brings lasting results as we will eventually repeat the pattern, but instead, we give ourselves permission to play with our imagination and ask - who are we without this person?

The same goes for an emotion that we keep reacting to, whether that be fear, jealousy, depression, anger, frustration, shame or a myriad of other challenging emotions we would rather not feel. We see how these emotions keep us in a vicious cycle of sabotage, hate and destruction but we feel powerless to change them as they are so embedded in our sense of self. But, who are we without these emotions?

The same goes for when we constantly seek and strive to obtain something in our external world, whether that be love or connection, safety, security or stability, health, wealth or success, but no matter how hard we try we simply cannot seem to manifest it.

Because what we seek on the outside is a reflection of what we feel we don’t have on the inside and we want it so much, our bodies ache for it and the pattern of longing coming from lack repeats itself, so instead we ask - who are we, without connection without safety, security, or stability. Who are we without health, wealth, or success?

In my own life, I’ve been seeking a home, a place I could put down roots, however, the more I sought it the more elusive it became and as a result, I became obsessed and possessed by it.

While it’s my greatest desire, my own shadow work revealed to put down roots is also my greatest fear, to be trapped forever in the same place, while at the same time fearing the ever-present and impending threat it would be taken away because this has been my past experience and the pain was still lodged deep inside me.

So I asked myself who am I without roots and home? I sat with it, meditated with it, prayed with it, walked with it, leaning into the fear and panic that were constant companions and by doing so I invited my imagination to open.

Suddenly, a million different possibilities presented themselves all of them buried beneath the fear and the panic and in this imagining I felt I had more space to create, to be and to be present on my journey through life awakening me to a deeper sense of confidence and trust I never knew existed.

After the initial shock this question presents and we have calmed the nervous system, we invite our imagination to come out and play, and suddenly we recognise it’s not about envisioning alone, but about feeling.

And this is the secret of manifesting with our imagination, the feelings of living a different reality are the fuel that awakens us to the potential that has been hidden.

A potential we are giving ourselves permission open to by asking the un-askable, and simply playing in the present with our imagination without reacting from the past or escaping into the future.

Yes, it is scary at first and this just reveals the huge amount of limitations we have in the psyche, but the awareness we bring by sitting with the feelings, allowing the imagination to wander without hindrance, the more we can transform those limitations and step into a world of possibility, wonder and alignment, of manifestation and magic.

And this is where the road to sovereignty lies.

With Love, 

Nicola x