Facing our Shadow

Our greatest fear is that we are not adequate enough.... that there is something dreadfully wrong with us.... Deep inside a void is growing and instead of looking inwards for answers, most people start looking outwards for solutions, for kicks and for simply running away from having to face those fears and the shadow sides of themselves....

It is not that we are born with those fears, those feelings of inadequacy, the pain.... These are simply things that we learn and accumulate into our sub-consciousness, as we start growing up, in a world that has forgotten how to simply be in the state of pure love....

I am often asked how does one cope with the shadow side of life and most of all the fears and shadow deep inside....

Some simply give up and depression becomes part of their life... and endless visits to psychologists and psychiatrists become the norm. Some simply LIVE that polarity by only beginning to see the shadow side of life, and forgetting the Lighter side... some simply get so drugged with prescription drugs that they cannot think straight anymore.... So another visit to the psychologist.... who in the end merely adjusts their prescriptive medicines...

I had a case where a psychologist openly admitted that for most of his years in practice he never really cured any of his patients from the maladies haunting them - until he changed his mythology and then the healing started to come...

Others simply resort to escapacism in the form of taking drugs, (dope), alcohol, overeating, overspending, workaholics, endless partying, running the rat-race, orgies... anything, but having to sit down and face their own shadows.....

For the minute that all is clear and they have to sit down, that inner voice gets too loud and then, the fear start welling up.... the mountains of life become too steep... so it’s easier to take the dope, drink the alcohol, work yourself dilly, party, have a stream of one-night stands, orgies, eat, (or not eat - anorexia) go shopping etc. etc. etc.

Anything under sun, except going INWARDS and ASKING YOUR HEART AND SOUL WHAT IT IS THAT YOU ARE RUNNING AWAY FROM?

Another form of not facing that shadow is the way one start blaming all of the bad things in life, the pain, the shadow side, onto others and never taking responsibility for your own life!

I have sat in the company of someone, who for two hours lamented about how badly she was treated by her parents, how she hated them, and how she hated going to school, how she hated being married to her hateful husband.... the list just went on and on...

When I could get a word in side-ways, I quietly asked her, if she had ever sat down, and made a thank you list for what is GOOD, and WHOLE in her life... No, she said, that will be the darn day, she loves moaning about everything!

Finding fault with others all the time, is one way, to hide from yourself... for if you always see and notice what others are doing wrong, you don’t have to put that self-same spot-light onto yourself. That one of the reasons why people love gossiping, pointing fingers and simply enjoying the calamities and struggles of others.....

There comes a time in one’s life though, when the scales start tipping, and when something will happen to give you a wake-up call. It might be in the way of a divorce... or a car accident... or losing something or someone very dear to you...

I remember my brother telling me, (who had joined the rat-race, climbing the success ladder, being somebody) how, when he had collapsed in a doctor’s surgery with a massive heart attack, and was rushed to the intensive care unit, his whole life flashed past him, and how he suddenly just felt the Presence of the Divine, and in that moment all that my mother had ever been trying to teach him about Love, about walking the Higher Road, and of the unconditional Love and Acceptance of the Divine Source, came up and he remembered the prayers of his childhood. “I remembered ALL of it!’

After coming out of three heart-bypass operations, this brother said: “There is ONLY LOVE.... That is the greatest lesson we have come to master here.... and the ONLY one!’

When we are forced to lie flat in a hospital bed, with literally no-where else to run to, we will be forced to start looking INWARDS and then we simply cannot run from ourselves anymore...

When we truly wish to heal, at a very deep SOUL level, (for this is where ALL healing truly starts - in the HEART), then we need to make peace with those shadows, the pain, that constant gnawing and most of all, our deepest fears and our greatest dragons... It simply is of no use to put the blame on our parents, our siblings, the educational system, the government and goodness knows who else....

All the roads in life LEAD BACK TO SELF!

We cannot always CHOSE what happens to us, BUT WE CAN CHOOSE HOW WE REACT to the circumstances, the people etc.!

Our parents did the best they could, under the circumstances.... They also were carrying soul wounds inside them, some unhealed parts of themselves... and sometimes they simply did not know better. I remember my mother always telling my middle sister, when she got rebellious etc. that you will never be able to understand your own parents until the day you have your own kids. For funnily enough YOUR CHILDREN WILL CHALLENGE YOU EXACTLY ON THOSE PART OF YOURSELF THAT YOU HAVE NOT OWNED NOR MADE PEACE WITH!

If you start reading the biographies of those people who really made a difference on this planet, and start OWING THE CHARACTER TRAITS OF THEM, THE GOOD AND BAD, you will notice that most of them did not have wonderful childhoods, some were badly abused, some were extremely poor, some had to overcome some of the greatest trauma and pain... Yet, what carried them through was making peace with the shadow and the RISING ABOVE THE CIRCUMSTANCES AND TOWARD SOMETHING GREATER THAN THEMSELVES...

Now, here is the Key: THE MOMENT YOU START TO OWN YOUR OWN SHADOWS AND MADE PEACE WITH THEM, YOU START GETTING A GREATER VISION FOR YOUR LIFE AND THEN YOU START BLOSSOMING.... FOR NOW YOU START LEARNING TO OWN YOURSELF - THE GOOD AND THE BAD.... AND YOU START LEARNING THE ART OF UNCONDITIONALLY LOVING AND ACCEPTING YOURSELF - AND OTHERS!

You are not running away from yourself constantly, you are now learning to face the fears, face the feelings of inadequacy, face the void, and most of all face your MAKER.

YOU START TAKING RESPONSIBILITY FOR YOURSELF, YOUR ACTIONS AND MOST OF ALL THE WELBEING OF YOUR OWN BODY, MIND, SPIRIT AND SOUL.

Nobody else can live your life for you - not your parents, siblings, spouse, or boss. ONLY YOU CAN LIVE YOUR LIFE!

With the art of truly learning to face that shadow, becomes the art of truly forgiving yourself and others. Of letting go of the accumulated pain... all that baggage that you lug with you, because of your own refusal to let go.

I challenge you to write down the name of the person who most pushed or is pushing your buttons in this life and who gives you the most pain. Now, list all the traits that you cannot handle in the person’s behavior: arrogant, bully, slop, aggressive, etc.

Now, on the same piece of paper, go and list where YOU HAVE EXACTLY THE SAME TRAITS OR ARE EXPRESSING THE SELF-SAME BEHAVIOR! Aha! Now you start to balk, because here lies your own shadow and the one you do not wish to OWN! For this person is SERVING you, BY REFLECTING EXACTLY THOSE TRAITS BACK TO YOU THAT YOU HAVE NOT OWNED IN THIS LIFE - THE SHADOW!

Now go one step FURTHER - and then sit and write down, how, by doing this, (what the person is doing that is pushing your buttons) how THIS IS SERVING YOU INTO ACTION: - for instance the bullying might be making you stand up for yourself, or is pushing you to seek other means of supporting yourself etc. KEEP LOOKING AND YOU WILL FIND THAT BY DOING THIS, THEY WERE PUSHING YOU INTO ACTION, HONING YOUR INNER STRENGTH AND RESILIENCE AND WERE TEACHING YOU WONDERFUL LIFE LESSONS...

Now, go on, and then look at this person again. Now list HOW OTHER PEOPLE ARE SEEING THIS PERSON, THE POSITIVE TRAITS (yes, even the greatest criminals and dictators like Hitler had someone who loved them and thought the world of them), and then go and look where you have the same traits within you!

The interesting part comes, when you start thinking back to the MOMENT that this person, say for instance, bullied you: IN THAT SAME INSTANCE SOMEONE OUT THERE WAS SUPPORTING YOU: - it might have been Angels, God, or a feeling of Love, or your mother phoned and told you how much she loved you.... IF YOU START LOOKING CLOSELY YOU WILL FIND THAT THERE WAS ALWAYS THE OPPOSITE HAPPENING SIMULTANEOUSLY THAT THE PERCEIVED BAD WAS HAPPENING!

This is the moment that you start discharging all the emotional pain associated with the actions of people and then start getting GRATEFUL!

It is ONLY by looking INWARDS and confronting the shadow, the incidents that gave us pain, by starting to release the memory and collective pain, in truly forgiving others and most of all ourselves (for it is sometimes easier to forgive others and not so easy as to forgive ourselves), that true HEALING comes.

ALL ROADS IN LIFE LEAD TO THE INNER SANCTUARIES OF THE HEART... IT IS THERE THAT OUR SOUL CONNECTIONS LIES... AND IT IS THERE WHERE WE HAVE TO HEAL FIRST OF ALL BEFORE THE OUTER SELF CAN HEAL....

It is here that we start FREEING ourselves, and where our true wings lie... the wings that are waiting for us to be used, to master the true art of flying free and unencumbered... and to learning to SOAR!

BY FREEING THE SOUL WE ARE FREEING OURSELVES AND THEN THE HIGHER STATES OF CONSCIOUSNESS CAN COME IN AND THE STATE OF UNCONDITIONAL LOVE!

by Judith Kusel at judithkusel.com/blog on July 17, 2019