Everyone is always working on themselves in some way. We have a need, like a baby who simply has to move fro crawing to stading to walking. They will try, fall, bump their heads, weith a resounding thud, but still there is some gnawing need to get up on their feet and make the transition from crawling to walking. We all have our shaow selves.
Our shadow self shows up in several ways, but, mostly, when we are interacting with other people. It shows up when we see our shadow sides in other people. It shows up when our thoughts turn messy, typially when we lay down and the house is quiet and we are tired. Suddenly all the negative thoughts we colleted during the ady turn on. All the negative feelings we tamped down, begin to rise like bad yeast. We judge ourselves throughs ocietal lenses, and harshly so. We have a cesspool of unwelcomed thoughts, of thingds we did said, did not do, did not say, start rising like bad fumes and we can either let them take over or we can put on ur big girl poants and go to war with them. We try and try to deny them access to our Present thoughts but, they rise. They also rise.
We have hav our shadow sides. We have those feelings and thoughts that are of what is ecpected of us. And our stuffing eventually comes toi an end and those thoughts have no where to go but to rise.And we try to stop the nagging mid-stream, but,especially at ight,before we sleep, we either give it rein or we get up and deny ourselves the opportunity to take charge, or we tamp some more. The more we tamp, the more that one wild horse thought takes off and it is a runaway. There is not one person free of that shadow pit of things we wish we did not have about ourselves, of things of shame, of guilt, of sorrow. Finally, in our elder age, we simply are driven to deal with it.
If we have not spent the work doing somer Spring or Winter cleaning, faithfully, to clear out thoughts that no longer serve us, are no longer who we are, are the stuff we beat ourselves up over. It is time we stop self-judgement and alloew ourselves to siply live out our days working towards being exactly who we are; flawed human beings who try, fail, suceed, fail, try.
We should have gorwn up and away from lugging old negativities behind us. But, the quieter our life becomes, the louder those unwanted thoughts get. It is time to stop trying to tamp them down. It is time to pull out the things that belong to the ways we manipulate, the times we wer self-cetnered, the times we were not cvmpasionate…thos recurring themes in our shadow side.
In tht cesspool of thoughts are thingd tyht speak to times we wished for rvenge, that karma would happen to jsutify our feelings. In ther are the feelings we have, or have acted upon, whose roots belong to jealousy. Our wishes that someone or something would simly disappear, or, perhaps. That we could. All the htoughts come racing through that say we are not “enough”, that hard times come to us because we deserve it. We forget that we are wise sages, that we have great reams of knowkedge as to how to change, to surrender, to accept, and yet, we do not turn those gifts to ourelves. We know that they are just thoughts but we allow that they disturb us. It’s old news, all of it. We sare ot who we were when we had those flaws and frailties. We did what we did with the skils we had…yes, of coure, we would do diffrently if we had known… but we did not, and we cannot go back and fix it, which is a woman’s wont.
It is time to forgive ourselves. It is time to be as locving and compassionate towards ourself as we have been on our best days. We have no more te left to be dragging pasdt self-deprecating things that no longer serve us. We msut be workig on being our most authentic elf. We are not our past self. We know it, but we love to be our own whipping boy. We now have a gnawing need to feel whole, to feel ‘enough’ and our shadow side begs to be given some attention. To not do sdo means we will fight depression, our pshycisl body ( aging and hurting) will only hurt worse, our chronic pain will heighten, and our heart can only take so much. It is time to stop the exhaustion due to unleashed negative thoughts, it is time to stop using up energy we need for again.
Tomorrow, I will give you some coping toolds that you alrady owen, but may not be using, to have a clearer head, a comforted heart, a more joyful soul.
©Carol Desjarlais 3.17.22
Working with Whimsical techniques, a fovrite one of mine, is using book pages for parts of a portrait.
I lightly drew a side portrait on to a book page, the traced my drawing in charcoal. Then I wetted a small bursh with lots of water and watered down the harsh lines of the charcoal drwing. This creates shadows.
I glued her on to a page where I had done some collaging, then tied the collaging together by give it a wash of light blue.
It needed to be darker so I did another wash over top.
I am learning to let a painting go before I muddy it or change it from what feels lovely to something I wish I had not touched.
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