Return to Wholeness when the Trickster is the teacher

Affirmations for when life flips the script and the Trickster is asking you to evolve

Lately, I’ve been feeling that so many people in my community, myself included, are going through a lot.

It’s like the veil is thin right now.

And what’s coming through are all these parts of ourselves we maybe didn’t know existed.

Parts we might call shadow
Parts we’ve ignored, rejected, or just never had the tools to hold

And with them… waves of

Grief
Anger
Disappointment

If that’s where you are, just know:

It’s okay to let yourself feel it
To not rush to fix or label it
To hold space for the unknown
To let yourself meet the part of you, you haven’t met before.

And
The most important “and” I’m learning right now is this:

What if it’s all a joke?

Not in a dismissive way
But in a cosmic Trickster kind of way

What if in the middle of all that feels unbearably serious, there’s a deeper force playing
What if we are jokers in the game of the Great Joker, call it God, the Universe, Allah, Spirit, whatever name fits

What if we’re not here to prove our goodness
What if our real wholeness comes from recognizing even the parts of us that don’t seem “good” by the world’s standards
And what if freedom is actually found in knowing we are all tricksters

Because the energy it takes to prove our goodness
To make sure they are wrong and we are right
To fight the polarities and come to some kind of conclusion
That energy burns us out
And then life flips the script anyway!

So what if we stop fighting
What if we let ourselves be terrible and good
Wild and tender
Shadow and light

I know for me
There’s a deep part that’s felt unwanted for so long
And I spent so much energy trying to prove I could be wanted
Trying to prove I belonged

But the moment I let myself actually feel my unwantedness
Not fix it, just be it
I started to see something else

The opposite started to emerge
A kind of worthiness that doesn’t have to fight for space
It just is

And maybe… that’s the kind of worthiness that lasts

Carl Jung spoke about archetypes, those universal forces or patterns that live in the collective unconscious and show up in our dreams, stories, and behaviors.

One of the earliest and most provocative of them is the Trickster.

Jung called the Trickster raw, instinctive, and wildly human
It is the archetype that doesn’t follow the rules, not to destroy, but to reveal
To expose truth through inversion, humor, and contradiction
Not to mock us, but to remind us

That sometimes the deepest truths come dressed in foolishness, and sometimes the medicine is in the mess.

In this short talk, Alan Watts reminds us that maybe the whole point of this human experience isn’t to get it right or figure it out
But to play it like a piece of music
To dance it
To be surprised by it

As I sit with these hidden parts of myself more deeply these days, I’m also reflecting on how needed this is
To create systemic change
To break out of conformity
To expose the illusion of false belonging

Because the Trickster helps you remember that you are not your programming
It stirs the part of you that knows how to dance with chaos
That can disobey with grace
That can laugh in the face of fear

In this way, the Trickster is more than a myth
It is a liberator!

So the next time life throws a wrench in your plans
Or your/their behavior surprises you
Or you find yourself giggling in the middle of the storm

Consider this
The Trickster may be near
Asking you to evolve in a way logic alone cannot predict!

Jung saw individuation, the journey toward psychological wholeness, as a process that requires embracing all parts of ourselves, including the shadow.

Trickster energy can help us access that shadow not through shame, but through wit, curiosity, and play.

Where the Hero wants to achieve, the Trickster wants to interrupt.
And sometimes interruption is exactly what’s needed.

In a world obsessed with performance, productivity, and linear growth.
The Trickster brings loops, detours, and divine jokes.
It doesn’t operate from the logic of control but from the intelligence of surprise.

And maybe that’s the real medicine right now.

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🩵Guided Affirmation Meditation: Return to Wholeness (Embracing the Inner Trickster

To help you soften into this energy, I recorded a gentle affirmation meditation for you. It’s a short practice to meet your shadow, release the need to prove, and open to the freedom of being your whole self.

Listen here on Substack ↓

Prefer YouTube? ↓

A few affirmations from the practice:
I am allowed to not know
I honor the parts of me that do not fit the world’s idea of goodness
I welcome the Trickster as a guide, not an enemy
In my contradiction, I am whole
My worth does not live in performance or control
The Trickster within me is not here to destroy me
It is here to set me free

Wanna explore my 121 containers, book an alignment call here: https://calendly.com/hedishah/initial-consultation

Thank you for joining me on the path of unconditioning,

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Hedi Shah
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👁️ Bodyworker & Mindfulness Teacher
🌊 Teaching change makers to uncondition their bodies, nervous systems, and voices from systems built to keep them small so they can move, speak, and live with sovereign power.

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