Steven Twohig

Through shadow integration, I help others break free of patterns that keep them trapped in a labyrinth of suffering and confusion. We see these loops in ceremonies. We bear witness to the suffering people endure every day. These loops are just fractal representations of the shadows they are trapped in. What if your suffering was sacred? What if your suffering is sacred? Integration means bringing the unconscious (or deep conscious) into the conscious. It was coined by Carl Jung when the term shadow was first used. Shadow is the unseen relationships between people, places, things, and events. Shadow work is the practice of diving into the algorithm of the mind to awaken the sacred in you. I believe Mother is calling us to wake up to the sacredness of life. To wake up now when it is most necessary.

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While seeking to heal from trauma inflicted while just a toddler, I was introduced to the practice of shadow work in April of 2000; this initiation into ancient traditions led to a lifelong study and what I believe is a path to enlightenment. As a shadow guide practicing for over 20 years, I’ve continued to evolve my practice by immersing myself in and working alongside the best I could find. I came to Soul Quest to expand my gnosis and deepen my healing.

 

I found a teacher of teachers and was given a vision. I joined the Soul Quest team to help build the online integration program to support the church through COVID. I stayed because I found a tribe of healers walking in the same direction. I believe we have built the best integration platform in the industry to integrate the vision Mother gave me. I am the proud founder of the Shadow Tribe, a tribe of committed shadow practitioners who have given countless hours to the practice and study of shadow work. We host the weekend-long Shadow Ceremony to initiate others into the practice.

 

I also facilitate the Mental Cleanse i-group on Fridays at noon. We’ve incorporated an app to help you through the journey. The goal for me is always real change, done “in-theater.” That is, you used to think the only thing you could do was go right. You were trapped. Now, you have multiple options in front of you and know which path is meant for you. Your mind is filled with the old programming given to you by 3.5 million years of survival-based meaning. Isn’t it time to change the channel?

 

Working with Mother, Mike Malloy, and I co-founded Ayahuasca in Recovery (AIR). Come hang with the AIR tribe on Thursdays if you want to recover from your addiction to anything. My healing journey started in a 12-step recovery room with stale coffee and cigarette smoke. I realized that most of us are recovering not from the actual wound but the problems associated with the maintenance of it. This goes beyond drug addiction. Most of us are hobbled before we even know how to walk. Working in the addiction industry for Jackson Recovery Center led me to study under Alida Schuyler, the mother of modern-day recovery coaching (Crossroads Recovery Coaching), and eventually BTTY as a certified recovery coach. I left the recovery field 12 years ago when I saw that addiction had become an industry with a revolving door. I wanted to find technology that worked to curb the addiction wetiko. 

 

Working with business owners to integrate mother’s lessons is one of the most important skills I can provide. I am a certified business strategist through Cornell University and spent a decade working for and studying under the world's leading business strategist, Tony Robbins. Tony commissioned me to interview over 10,000 business leaders worldwide to determine what did and didn’t work in their business. By introducing business to shadow work, I was able to help thousands transform their businesses to be more productive and strategic. I learned that business is a spiritual sport. The lesson is still the same. In business, we call it implementation. Without integration, any insight eventually resolves as insanity. I’d love to help you to implement these concepts across your business, no matter the structure or size. This is operating your business at the highest level. Come expecting actual results. 

 

I lead the shadow integration process on Saturday Morning during the daytime ceremony. The process is designed to give the members navigation equipment while under the medicine and doing shadow work. Saturday morning shadow ceremony drills home the lesson “YOU ARE THE MEDICINE!” This shadow work is offered as an add-on instead of a Saturday morning ceremony.

 

I’ve been given a vision of two vines; one is dark, dangerous, and difficult to grasp. The other is an ancient and alive vine glowing with love. Together these powerful vines combine to create an even more powerful entourage effect. It speeds up the process of change and deepens lessons learned. They blend into the rope we can use to climb beyond our suffering-based minds as individuals and as a society. I am working diligently to channel my breadth of work through the lessons Mother Aya and other plant medicines have given me. I’ve spent the last three years working with plant medicine integration as a certified psychedelic integration coach, and I have found that the very root of all suffering is ignore-ance. It’s shadow. But as Mother lovingly assured me, “It’s all story, all the way down to the very gaze of God.” If you’re going to tell yourself a story (and believe me, you are), tell yourself a story worth telling.

 

The mind makes meaning. It always pushes that meaning to the mechanical. If you choose not to act on decisions, strategies, and insights you pick up, you are making the meaning that was not your answer at some level. Even if it was, then you must go through the process of working up to the change all over again. Remember how much work it took to decide to change? Isn’t it true that it’s easier to keep moving than to start, stop, and then must start again? So many fight so hard to get the insight but fail to leverage it because they thought the lesson was the goal. Change is. Transformation. That requires engagement. That’s integration.