How to look into your Shadow
The messaging around the solstices has always been a little funny to me… Yesterday was the summer solstice, right? Around the summer solstice there’s all this talk about the light and how bright it is. “Celebrate light! Celebrate light!” Then comes winter solstice, nobody’s shouting out about the darkness. No. Everybody’s like “thank goodness here comes the light again”.
I think this is with good reason. We need the inspiration that light provides. But I’ve always had a special place in my heart for the dark.
Maybe it comes from being a night owl who loves staying up late with a good book or conversation. Maybe it comes from being an introvert who finds all the brightness a little too bright; always looking for a shadowy corner to cool off in. Or maybe it comes from being someone who has always “travelled between worlds” for lack of a better description. I’m one who slides easily into the interior territory of shadow, symbol, imagery, and Spirit.
At any rate, I’ve always been surprised that no one really sings the song of darkness, especially at summer solstice when darkness begins to creep back over the light. It seems the perfect time to praise darkness for her many gifts. If you read my newsletter yesterday it was a bit of a hymn to darkness. (Click here if you missed it)
Your Shadow
My follow up to the newsletter is to encourage you to continue to enter the dark. Within each of us there are places that are unknown to us. We have blind spots, parts we cannot see inside ourselves. And there are parts we wish didn’t exist. CG Jung called this your Shadow. Our darkness, our unconscious, holds all of it.
All that is unacknowledged slows you down, weighs you down. Only when you enter the dark can you lighten the load of your shadow.
Start Here
If you are perpetually getting stuck in your life, it’s time to look under the surface. If all the plans in the world don’t help you move forward with anything, it’s time to look for what else is at work inside of you. If most things have come along for you but there’s one area that is a niggling thorn in your side, look to the dark.
IF you don’t know where to start - look where you’re suffering. You can bet there’s something under the surface that wants your attention. Even if it feels scary, especially if it feels scary, it’s time to look inside and to acknowledge what’s hidden there.
Entering the Dark
The trick of the darkness is that it’s so difficult to see. As soon as you shine a light it disappears. Direct logical conversation is almost impossible. Something else is needed - you must speak the language of the dark.
To do that become soft and sensitive. Slow down. Sit in the dark with a candle to set the mood. Then observe symbols and feeling states. The unconscious likes you to ask your questions … and it will answer, just sometimes the answers come in unexpected ways.
Try This
One question to ask about a struggle is:
What do I need to know about (XYZ)?
Another is to simply start with the phrase:
What I want you to know is….
then allow your body/mind to “speak” to you.
Q&A can be done on paper… But your responses could just as easily come as a message in a song, through nature, or in a dancelike movement of your body. Who knows? Your task isn’t to know going in, your task is to listen to whatever comes forward from the dark.
Integrate & Heal
We don’t go into the dark because oftentimes we don’t want to hear, we don’t want to know. Likely, you have an intuition (I believe the unconscious always wants to help so it tries to tell you what you’re not ready to acknowledge) of what is there. You’ve just never allowed it to come forward.
Allow it to come forward.
It’s time to move out of stuckness. It’s time to integrate as much of yourself as you can. Because that is where you’ll find your freedom. That is where you’ll tap into your true light.
As long as your shadow is holding you down, your light cannot fully shine. The more you embrace your shadow with love and care, the more your authentic self rises to the surface.
I believe this is how we heal ourselves - by integrating the wholeness of who we are. I believe healed people are the ones who can heal our planet.