Spring is here and
it seems like I’m getting an awful lot of emails lately about doing “shadow
work.”
Now, if you aren’t
familiar with shadow work, in a nutshell, it’s looking at the deep dark hidden
parts of your psyche with the intention of bringing the negative junk to your
awareness so you can transmute it into more positive emotions, and the varied
practices for accomplishing this have been around for decades.
Sounds great, but
think about this for a moment from the perspective of the shadow that your
physical body casts. When we are in a
brightly lit area, our bodies cast a shadow, and we all know that. Now, turning around to look at that shadow
does not in any way shape or form cause the shadow to change into something
else, or to disappear entirely. Further,
while we can be in areas where we can’t actually see our shadows, that doesn’t
mean that the next time we walk outside into the sun that we’ll never see our
shadows again, and it’s ridiculous to even think that is possible. All the shadow means is that there is light
source shining on us (and that we’re not a ghost!) and it isn’t neither bad nor
good.
And, it’s the same
with our inner shadows. Every single one
of us contains ALL the emotions and traits - we just express them in different
ways and intensities. Some people are
generally more upbeat, and others are more sad, but we all have the capacity to
feel every single emotion in any given circumstance, and we are meant to feel
those emotions! Note: feeling an emotion
is different from expressing an emotion, and too often we inappropriately
express our emotions because we haven’t been taught (or allowed) to simply feel
them.
Truthfully, we don’t need to get rid of our “negative” emotions (and we couldn’t even if we wanted to, any more than we can permanently get rid of our external shadow), we need to just allow ourselves to experience and feel them in a safe manner. Emotions, aka energy in motion, are meant to be felt and moved like waves lapping on a shore.
Beth
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