The Shadow Jump.
(#6 of 9 or 10, still working on that)
This one’s going to make you uncomfortable. It usually does. If it doesn’t…well, that in itself should make you uncomfortable.
In this jump you’re going to have to look deep inside you to find those parts of you that you don’t like, the parts that you let no-one see, and do something harder than making peace with them.
You have to integrate them into who you are today.
This is difficult, because integration is not suppression, and it is not denial. Integration involves accepting that the darker impulses of your nature have a function in protecting you, and helping you find your way through a difficult and confusing universe.
But left unchecked, or as I prefer to call it ‘untrained’, your shadow self will come to the fore of your thoughts in the worst possible ways, or force you to use incredible amounts of emotional energy to suppress and control it.
It’s better if you learn to leverage it.
Trained, practiced and harnessed, your shadow can be a powerful mechanism to create change and prevent pain and frustration, especially when dealing with people who would use you and take advantage of you, and believe me, they are out there.
For example, a person who grew up with a domineering parent will often experience difficulty in expressing their wants and desires as an adult. This can lead to them staying quiet in situations where they should have spoken up. Their shadow, long suppressed, desires to speak out and express their wants.
Eventually, the suppression breaks and what follows is an outpouring of anger and frustration that feels ugly, sounds worse and actually harms the person, as their desire to communicate their wishes is lost under a flood of anger on their part, and defensiveness on the part of the recipient.
Nobody walks away from that experience happy.
Imagine if their shadow had been trained and integrated into their everyday life. They would have been able to calmly and kindly express their desires at an appropriate time, manage the conversation in a way that worked for each of them, and hopefully reach a conclusion to the conversation that balanced for both parties.
No anger, no frustration, no jealousy, no suppression. Just the free expression of ideas, and the joy of being heard.
Yet often people who have suppressed their shadow face fear in integrating it, partly because they have no control over it, and mainly because they have been taught that it is wrong to have desires for themselves. They struggle daily with the unmet needs of their soul, living in the sadness of suppression, when they could be living in the enlightenment of expression.
Today, I offer to you the jump into your own shadow. Integrating that which can help you into that which will guide you will bring about a newness of identity, imagination and illumination.
You will become the you that you were always meant to be.
And you can enjoy peace.
— Dr. Alan Barnes
@maddrbmusings