The Shadow

The shadow represents all our disowned, despised and repressed traits. It lives buried in the closets of our subconscious minds safe from our judgments. The shadow is our 'dark side.' It acts out for us all those denided emotion and urges we wish we didn't have. For instance, if we're prudish about our sexuality, it acts out our 'vamp' side behind our backs. If we insist on always being kind and loving for all the world to see, it will express our other side by sometimes taking over and harshly misbehaving. It is an emotion-based self, slippery and hard to catch. And it is grounded in fear, drama and competitiveness; it can destroy our relationships if not tamed. Its sacred purpose in our transformation is to remind us of our emotional unfinished business, of what we're trying to skip over or leave behind....

Whenever you repress an emotion, or deny an issue in your life -- such as pretending an insult doesn't hurt, or insisting you're not having trouble with alcohol when it's obivious you're alcoholic -- these repressed emotions or unresolved issues will go underground into the subconscious mind. Because it takes so much energy to repress disowned feelings, the shadow will eventually pop out and make a fool of itself (you!), or in some other way bring the issue to the surface. The shadow is our awakener; it will eventually bring out of denial all our unconscious ways....

...our codependence patterns come from the shadow's fears and illusions about how to love and be loved, and until we make them conscious (recognize and own them), we are likely to act out, manipulate, or otherwise behave codependently...

The shadow dissipates or lightens when we accept it. We may still swing from negative to positive states, but our lives will become manageable because the extremes will disappear. When our shadow does manifest, we'll know it is time to listen to its message rather than act on its impulses.

Emphasis on that last sentence is mine. That's my work right now. And boy is it working me.

(There's another entry for today preceding this one.)

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