A friend of mine recently shared a quote on her social media page which was pointing out that we as a society tend to try to always be positive in public, only share good news and apologise when we are in a less than blissful mood. I believe this is a phenomenon that can cause us much distress as social beings. The notion that we are somehow only acceptable when we are happy, in a good space or have good things to share totally negates the other half of our human experience, which can leave these parts of us feeling lonely, abandoned and unlovable. The shadow parts of ourselves, that which we have hidden away are thirsty for expression. We have repressed these parts of ourselves because we believe them to be shameful. Perhaps their expression has caused us to feel pain in the past (rejection from parents, teachers, lovers or friends), so we learned to hide them as a way of self-protection against further hurt.
The problem is that the more we repress these parts of ourselves, the more they seek expression in other ways. If they can’t come out, they go further in. We ingest these feelings of shame, aggression, sadness deeper into our own selves. Our society seems to support this dysfunctional pattern by glorifying positivity. No one wants to be the downer, the complainer, the one not having a good time. What we need to remember is that, like the moon, we are cyclical beings. If we allow ourselves to, we will go through the full range of emotional experience and expression in cycles throughout our days, weeks and lives.
When we work with the shadow parts, we endeavour to explore the darker landscapes and welcome these parts of ourselves with love. In doing so, we become more fully embodied in our whole authentic selves. In order to demonstrate the ridiculousness of our striving to present as constantly happy and bright, I like to describe this amusing situation of my imagining. The moon in her dark phase is walking through the market place. She has her little basket and is collecting what she needs as she goes. She’s feeling down, flat, empty and so she hopes she doesn’t have to talk to anyone. Nonetheless, she bumps into lots of people and has to interact. Rather than express her true self in that moment as empty, she pretends she is full. “I’m beaming” she says to her friends, who can clearly see she is dark. This is what we do all the time. When we do this, what we are essentially saying is “these parts of myself are shameful and I must hide them away”. But this is not true. The dark moon is just as beautiful, important and worthy as the full moon.
Every part of our cycle is necessary and worthy of expression and love. So the next time you are speaking with someone who asks you how you are, rather than go to that automatic response, I invite you to take a moment to feel into how you authentically are in that moment and allow expression of that part. As you continue to do this moment, to moment, you may find that you are always in flux and there is opportunity to honour each part of yourself as it arises. All of our feelings are worthy and welcome. Likewise, when someone tells you they are feeling dark, see if you can hold space for them in that moment to express that passing feeling, without trying to “fix” it and without holding them to it later. There is nothing within us that makes us unlovable. Let us learn to welcome our shadow individually and collectively so we can embody the full range of our human experience in a healthy and helpful way.
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