Learn to meet your shadows.
“Everyone carries a shadow, and the less it is embodied in the individual’s conscious life, the blacker and denser it is. If an inferiority is conscious, one always has a chance to correct it… But if it is repressed and isolated from consciousness, it never gets corrected, and is liable to burst forth suddenly in a moment of unawareness. At all counts, it forms an unconscious snag, thwarting our most well-meant intentions.”
Carl Jung
I’m no stranger to shame. It’s been with me a LONG time. Luckily, I’ve learned to meet this highly undesirable emotion in ways that carve a path to more deeply and sustainably heal.
As we work to heal, we also work to allow. Shame keeps us from this gift of allowance. It amplifies a false identification of never being enough and punishing ourselves in order to stimulate change.
It’s just plain… Exhausting.
As we shine more light and heal, we become even more aware of our shadows (in the mind/ body). The light casts the shadow as an invitation for even deeper healing.
“The world always moves toward healing” (Louise Hay)
I know many of you are in the midst of experiencing this, so I wanted to address it the best I can.
First, you already know you aren’t your shadow. You’ve done the work. You get it, at the conscious level you are NOT that avoidant, reactive, or aggressive behavior… You know you are NOT that mindset, thought, or limiting belief that fuels such behaviors.
Many of you have been doing the work of building greater awareness and healing the depths of your behaviors and mindsets; so when the shadows return, a sense of self-defeat can overwhelm the progress you’ve made. In the space of overwhelm, outdated stories about your worth, your value and your strength may reemerge, carrying deep shame and punishment.
Are you in a constant battle against them? Do they feel like THEY are your enemies… THEY don’t belong…. ?
I get it. At times of uncovering my shadows, I’ve allowed myself to be consumed by them… later to learn this only deepens the wounds they are longing for me to heal.
Sooo…. How can we not get swept up into their energy?
Dissolve the density by noticing, consciously, the shadow/behavior/pattern.
Having aversion, a wall of disgust for what has arisen from within, is an attempt to keep these shadows hidden, to keep them from taking up space in your life. Yet, this aversion, while it may seem to protect you from identifying with these shadows, ONLY makes them more intense and expansive. You can’t just hate them and fight them or flee from them, and expect them to fall away.
One of the laws of the subconscious mind is the “Law of Reverse Action,” which means that the more you try to shove something away from consciousness, the more fuel it has to take up space in your life. Perhaps you’ve noticed how this plays out with pain… the more you may try to remove it, to NOT think about it, to despise it, the more powerful it becomes.
So, if we don’t play into aversion, and also not attach to what feels SO good, then what?
We accept what is. We even allow ourselves to demonstrate compassion for what is.
This does not mean we become complacent to change or “throw in the towel” (as my father likes to say about aging:)), but we soften to the challenges with presence, a state of allowing “this is,” even as it passes… we allow the rhythm of life to be our guide, not our muscling… we allow the ebbs and flows to comfort us with compassion for all tides we experience in our lives. It is.
Noticing aversion to our shadows invites us to see our stories… and allows for the wisdom of the story to guide us to the truth, to the now, to more expansive love and possibility.
Become a gentle observer of what is present. Notice the part of you feeling the shame around your behavior, and give it space to be heard. You don’t need to overanalyze, just let it open to share the memories, statements, thoughts, beliefs there. Soften your body. Soften your heart. And listen. Allow yourself to understand its positive intention: “This part hurts right now. It needs __ (comfort, love, compassion, understanding, support, …). I may need support meeting this need.”
And remember, the behavior or pattern prompting your shame arises to assist you, to protect you, to take the pressure off. Yet, when we shame it, it only gets hotter, denser, darker, more consuming.
When we give space to meet the part, we can surrender into other parts of our lives with more strength, feeling anchored, calm, clear, and curious. Addressing our own protective parts from this calm space allows us to confront challenges in our lives –at work, in relationships, around our health- with a superpower of peace and compassion.
We reignite greater feelings of wholeness and unity within… and we appreciate the tapestry of our lives for all it’s allowed us to experience, to grow, to love, and to BE.
It truly is a miracle each one of us is here. Yes, indeed. BE with that truth.
