shadow-self

...that was the one distinct time in my life, the strangest moment of all, when I didn__ know who I was__ was far away from home, haunted and tired with travel, in a cheap hotel room I__ never seen, hearing the hiss of steam outside, and the creak of the old wood of the hotel, and footsteps upstairs, and all the sad sounds, and I looked at the cracked high ceiling and really didn__ know who I was for about fifteen strange seconds. I wasn__ scared; I was just somebody else, some stranger, and my whole life was a haunted life, the life of a ghost. I was halfway across America, at the dividing line between the East of my youth and the West of my future, and maybe that__ why it happened right there and then, that strange red afternoon.

I embrace my shadow self. Shadows give depth and dimension to my life. I believe in embracing my duality, in learning to let darkness and light, peacefully co-exist, as illumination.

Creativity connects me to my truest self and vulnerability. There is nothing more personally liberating, than reaching for my face and peeling off the social mask that hides my; shadow self, pain and weakness. When i produce from this place of truth, the results transform both creator and beholder.

Every pain, addiction, anguish, longing, depression, anger or fearis an orphaned part of usseeking joy, some disowned shadow wanting to returnto the lightand homeof ourselves.

When enforcing our boundaries, first and foremost, we are caring for ourselves, but we are also helping others to have a clear understanding of what we consider acceptable behavior. We are reflecting back to them what is not acceptable and, therefore, providing them an opportunity to consider that information and make necessary changes.

When we are aware of our weaknesses or negative tendencies, we open the opportunity to work on them.

The shadow escapes from the body like an animal we had been sheltering.

Trying to impose our personal agenda on someone else__ experience is the shadow side of love, while real love recognizes that life unfolds at its own pace.

The disowned part of self is an energy - an emotion or desire or need, that has been shamed every time it emerged. These energy patterns are repressed but not destroyed. They are alive in our unconscious.