Shapeshifters: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

Shapeshifters are a complicated spiritual entity. Depending on where you’re looking, some people see the light and goodness that can come from their mischievous ways, others only see the chaos and destruction and chalk them up to being evil manipulators. So, which are they? Good or evil? Are they just causing mayhem or could they possibly be misunderstood and have good intentions? Working in the chaos has allowed me to see a different perspective when it comes to entities such as shapeshifters, and I’d like to share based on those experiences.

Spiritual entities that work in chaos are typically neither good nor evil. Instead, they can be described as “chaotic neutral”. Essentially, that means they work in the shadows to enhance the light. By shifting their appearance, they use a person’s fears and insecurities to create an illusion that causes them to face that fear. Shapeshifters work in deception and trickery, and there are many valuable lessons to be learned in that. However, I wouldn’t go so far as to say they have “good intentions” with their work. Some shapeshifters might have different motives, but at the root of it all, their intentions are simply to cause upheaval in general. They don’t specifically want to hurt a person, but their focus isn’t on assistance, either, despite what they might say. They’re only doing what they’re designed to do and don’t particularly care what the outcome is.

Yesterday, I got back in touch with a friend who I hadn’t been able to get ahold of in a few months. Before her disappearance, she was struggling with a personal situation and had been coming to me for guidance on how to navigate it. Then, I stopped hearing from her. I was concerned because, if she wasn’t listening to me, who was she listening to? Not that I think I’m an expert by any means, but the journey she was on was extremely delicate and I think bouncing advice off of multiple sources to see different perspectives is a better idea than strictly following one person.

Turns out, she had joined forces with a shapeshifter who gave her a wonderful dream and then lead her down a path of destruction that made it not only undesirable to get in touch with me, but also impossible. Still, she was fully convinced that this would have a positive outcome and wanted to continue following their advice. Advice that, to be discrete but also clear, would completely destroy any chance of her resolving her situation in the way she wanted to, ever, and could potentially cause a whole host of additional problems that would be endlessly difficult to come back from.

The thing is, shapeshifters are not without purpose. What this entity was telling her illuminated a path to show her how destructive it can be to fully embrace negative energy without any thought for others. In the moment, that may seem desirable. We all have our phases with this—the so-called “villain era”—which gives us an opportunity to selfishly pursue what we want. But it takes someone who’s been there before to realize that mindset is not what gets us to the end goal. It’s meant to give us a break from people-pleasing mentalities, figure out what we want, and then let go of the anger and focus on ourselves in the spirit of self-love instead of fear. Sometimes the only way to really gain what we desire with all good intentions is to allow it to come to us simply because it wants to. You can’t force it. The negative and positive energies in the situation must be balanced.

I’m a firm believer that this is a natural part of the process for anyone going through a healing journey through spirituality. In some way, we all have to see how dark things can get and how destructive it can be to go down the wrong path before we realize that’s not where we want to go. Some people get stuck there in the confusion and can’t find their way out of the forest, but the majority of us have a sudden “wake up!” moment, like an alarm clock ringing in a dream that gets us back on track. Luckily, her’s nudged her to reach back out to me and I was able to explain why taking that path was not the greatest idea.

I’m no different, either. I’ve been down that road and have seen where it leads. Enough times that instead of seeing a path offered up to me, I try to look at it more like a mirror. If I’m being guided to be destructive, to follow anger and fear, then I instead ask, “Where is that fear coming from? What am I afraid of?” and then I allow myself to face it without acting on it, so it doesn’t cause a ripple effect of upheaval in my life where it’s not necessarily needed. A little spiritual death and rebirth moment, gradually building a path through the forest that guides me to learn more about myself and get to my destination organically rather than taking the path already worn in the dirt.

To sum everything up and answer my original questions: Shapeshifters are avenues to achieve personal growth working in negative energy. They aren’t well-meaning and good-intentioned entities designed to lead us to the light, nor are they purposefully trying to destroy us by leading us down the “wrong path”. They simply cause upheaval at important moments in our lives that give us an opportunity to either lean into the destruction and embrace it or use it to learn something about ourselves and forge a new path. Whether we get something positive out of that experience is completely up to us.