I remember as a child being afraid of the dark. Fearful of what could be hiding in it, of what could attack me from it. It seemed endless and felt ominous. Like anything could jump out at any moment. This unease changed as I grew older. It morphed from a fear of the dark to a fear of the dark places inside me.
The places that harbor the parts of ourselves we hide from. That we shove into the blackest pit we can find so we don’t have to acknowledge they too are a part of us. The parts of us society have deemed unfit, grotesque, and shameful. It can be so subtle, as subtle as a thought that comes to our mind, that we quickly shove aside.
As subtle as a feeling that we immediately repress, not fully understanding why. As subtle as words we wish to speak but swallow back instead. Catching it can be quite challenging since we’ve gotten so efficient at hiding from it.
These parts of us live in the shadows waiting to be heard, accepted, and loved, hoping to one day be integrated back into our being. The pressures of society make us feel afraid to express all of who we are. So the parts of us that don’t fit end up getting repressed and buried.
They stay repressed until we become ready to face and own them. I started doing this necessary work a few months ago. Many people call it shadow work. This work leads to deeper self-love because as we acknowledge these shadows and accept them as a part of us, we expand our light and decrease our fear.
Everyone has their own way of exploring their shadows that works best for them. Mine is to find a quiet place where I can focus. I start by bringing my awareness to what I feel inside of me. I allow anything and everything to come up. I then follow the pain to its root.
For me, this is always an aha moment. I have deep epiphanies that answer my questions of why I was experiencing certain feelings. Often I find a part of myself I had unknowingly buried—one time, a deeply repressed part communicated with me.
She seemed young; I felt like I was speaking with my inner child. She told me I never put myself first, that I always put everyone else’s needs ahead of mine. I could feel her emotions of abandonment and betrayal for being left behind. There was a quiet desperation about her, an aching sadness.
She asked me, “Will there ever be a time in your life when there is room for me in it?” This innocent question shattered me. I broke down crying for her, this beautiful part of me that I had rejected out of fear. She had stood for everything society said there was to hate about me.
The part of me I was supposed to overcome so I could mold myself into society’s vision of what’s best. And all the while I was busy ignoring her existence, I was actually ignoring my very essence. What makes me uniquely me. But by the time I realize this, the wounds have already been inflicted.
The damage from conforming has been done, and I am left with the understanding of how disconnected I am from my own body. I imagine my body had been trying to communicate this truth to me many times over the years. To not have perceived that part of me existed goes to show the level of domestication we undergo.
We are trained to ignore the voices of our own bodies, so I am now re-teaching myself how to listen to my body’s instincts and cues. And now, all that’s left to do is begin healing. Begin the beautiful integration of all our parts. We get to know ourselves again with a set of fresh eyes.
Get reintroduced to who we really are. That knowing gives us confidence, and confidence makes it more difficult to step into the trap of abandoning ourselves. I see now I had been living an incomplete life. A life built on a house of lies. Lies created to persuade us we’re not enough.
It is essential to our well-being to continue to let go of that conditioning and let flow the abundant wisdom that is the inherent nature of our divine bodies. Truth has made herself known, and she says we are everything. We are complete and whole beings.
Truth is the self that wants us to choose ourselves, to put our well-being first. To allow our self-love to carve a space deep enough within to hold all our tremulous emotions steady. Truth is knowing deep down inside that we are safe, we are held, we are enough.
Quotes:
Our shadows hold the essence of who we are. They hold our most treasured gifts. By facing these aspects of ourselves, we become free to experience our glorious totality; the good and the bad, the dark and the light. -Debbie Ford
One does not become enlightened by imagining figures of light but by making the darkness conscious. -Carl Young
The rewards are profound. Shadow work enables us to alter our self-sabotaging behavior so that we can achieve a more self-directed life. -Connie Zweig
The shadow is needed now more than ever. We heal the world when we heal ourselves, and hope shines brightest when it illuminates the dark. -Sasha Graham
Unless you learn to face your own shadows, you will continue to see them in others because the world outside you is only a reflection of the world inside you. -Carl Young