"Where the spirit does not work with the hand, there is no art." Leonardo DaVinci
We all have parts of ourselves that we have denied, packed away, hidden, placed in a forgotten bin, secret, and/or stuffed in a space for ‘best left in the shadows’. Our total balance or healing will never come until we acknowledge those things, dust them off, name them, and then let them go their way. Clearing out the debris of our shadow self and coming to terms with those shadow things is a way to become whole. We accept our whole self when we accept that we all do have a shadow side.
Being compassionate with self can help us discover that many of the shadowy things do not even belong to the present, they belong to figments of experiences that no longer hold any power. Yet, keeping them in our shadow area has given them power as they can have become triggers.
Once we know them, name them, we can gain control over how they affect us. First, we have to swallow our ego and admit we have a shadow side. Then, once you do that, you can access your deepest, most authentic self, in compassion. I think that happened to me when I had my brain bleed and I soared above that hurt body of mine and saw it laying there and hardly identified with it as me.
I saw it as a wounded thing and I felt compassion for it. Then, suddenly, I was somewhere else, begging to come back to raise my babies. I knew there would be something to pay for it, and by goddess, the work I did on her when I came back, through greatest pain of oxygen going back into every nerve of that body, and I knew compassion for myself. I knew it as I learned to walk and talk, to stop people from pouring broth down my front so I could pour it on myself by myself, and my previous vanity flew up and out the proverbial ceiling when I did. I came back not who I was before. Not the same looks. Not the same personality. Not the same memories until someone, later, would provoke a return, in part, of some of the memories. Perhaps I have never gained a few. Sometimes I wish I could sit someone dear down in front of me and have them tell me who I am now, what my flaws really are, tell me some of my shadow side that I have forgotten or have no awareness of. I am sure it is there, just that I do not know for sure. And I am danged sure I have gained some more in that space since 1982. When a memory or an awareness pops up, I deal with it right away because I am not wanting to meet my maker and have to say I did not learn a thing. I own it right away so I can change things. Does it mean that I add no more? No, daily I work on myself. I know what lies byond the veil.
None of us are promised a tomorrow. Don’t let it sneak up on you. Own your whole self. Love your whole self. To love oneself means to compassionately sort through the debris and sweep it out of its hiding holes. Let’s be as whole as we can be. I wish us this.
©Carol Desjarlais 4. 16.23
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