"The outer forms of our lives can change in an instant, but the inner reorientation that brings us back into a vital relation to people and activity takes time. " ~ William Bridges
Our dark side contains all the events, stories, and things we wanted to hide about ourselves, from ourselves. Many things hidden in the dark side are good things, postive things, that when we decided they were not so good we hid them. Perhaps you loved to draw like I did when I was a child and you traced things to color. One of your parents told you that was wrong so you stopped trying to draw, to use others ideas, and to use and enjoy color. So you hid it there in the dark. Or your Mother was always saying "Don't raise your hand to me young lady," You were really little so you got the idea you had power in your hands. Maybe you did have power in your hands healing power. So you hid that away too thinking your hands could hurt someone. These are just examples of what I found hidden in my dark side. Well, I found a lot of hurtful things too. I found child abuse. I had hidden it away and it was pouring out in my life, jumping out and making me act out without having any control over the hidden emotions. I found a profound fear of death that I am still exploring trying to find out whose fear it is, obviously it is mine now but who instilled that fear there. Whose idea was it in the first place. Somehow this helps me to find out it was never my idea in the first place it was my mothers, a teacher, my grandmothers. Then I can say well that was never my idea in the first place so I don't have to think it anymore. Jung said, "To confront a person with his own shadow is to confront him with his own light." I believe that by intergrating ourselves both negative and positive we become a whole person. As we allow our holiness to unfold we become more self loving and authentic. Debbie Ford says"The Shadow Process gives us access to loving all of ourselves. This deep and profound work teaches us how to love each and every aspect of our humanity. It enables us to embrace both the darkness of our smallest self and the brilliant light of our highest self. Making peace with our dark side is a sacred journey. It demands rigorous honesty, courage and a great deal of compassion. Embracing our shadow delivers us emotional wholeness and the absolute freedom to be who we are. When we are filled with self-love and self-appreciation, we automatically attract the miraculous experience of love and appreciation from others."
The shadow contains all we judge as unacceptable to show the world. We expend huge amounts of energy hiding this side of ourselves from the world and ourselves. Huge parts of ourself is lost in the shadow side. When we reclaim this part of ourselves dreams are realized. The energy we were using to surpress all of these "unwanted orphan part of ourself" is made available to us once more. As long as we will not adopt our poor orphan side of ourself and claim her, bring her to the light and celebrate her we are at war with ourselves. We will continue to draw people into our lives that will mirror for us. This is the Universe trying so hard to show us the inner, give us a chance to heal.
Embracing our shadow allows us to reclaim the power we once gave away. Our wounds are transformed into wisdom and the parts of us we once believed to be our deepest flaws are revealed as our greatest assets.
Embracing our shadows is the ultimate act of self-love. Shadow work is not about becoming perfect it is about becoming all that we can be. It is about giving to the world all the talents, abilities and light that we were born with and in this giving of ourselves we discover we are powerful.
About the Author
Judi Singleton owns http://www.motherearthpublishing.com and publishes ten blogs a week. Take a look at one of her blogs now
http://bewellnow.blogspot.com/