This week's Shadow Work was a real brain bender for me...I really had to dig deep and think about my past which was difficult for me due to the fact I had supressed and buried most of my childhood pain and resentments long ago... Which brings me to today's Shadow Cards... The World ..."Chasing a Rainbow -vs-The Challenge of Living in the Here and Now" and Judgement..."Paying the piper -vs-Rebirth."
These are the most loaded keywords that I have encountered to this date! While I completely understand how both of these Shadow Cards apply to me, I find it rather difficult to distinguish one from the other. To me, they are intertwined and to find the end of one Shadow simply leads me to the beginning of another and I feel as though I'm chasing my tail. It's strange to me how they depend on each other but at the same time I realize that if I can unravel the mystery, I can kill two birds with one stone.
As a child of an alcoholic home, dealing with reality (the World) was nearly too painful and almost hopeless as far as my choices went, so I had a very rich imagination and developed the ability and preference to be a "loner." Unfortunately this allowed me to cripple myself when in situations that I needed to relate to others on the same level. (Judgement) I felt and still do , even this day, very detached from others in my peer group.
I related very well to older individuals, because I was always mostly around adults (there wasn't too many kids my age that were close by, way out in the country) and when I turned 16, I made my living as a nurses aide in nursing homes and retirement facilities because it was a comfortable element for me. On a lighter note, I have four children and being an only child, it is near impossible to comprehend that whole sibling rivalry issue... It drives me insane!
Anyhow, back to the issue at hand...The frustrations and emotional losses ( like my father's suicide and estrangement from my mother) allowed me get stuck in loss and remained fixed in that loss as well as being an extremely harsh critic of myself and others rather than have a healthy ability to forgive past actions and being able to appraise myself and others realistically. I am able to look back now and see the past for what it was and within myself, as I work through this book, to forgive myself (and those around me) for real or imagined flaws and reflect that view where I might once have had a very black and white viewpoint.
Today's post was rather long, so I think that I will finish up a few random thoughts on this step next week.
2 comments:
Healing the past is long, slow work but once it's done, you can leave it there and go forward in life. I identify with elements of your story.
What a tough post to write... I'm sorry to hear of the really intense times in your past. Thank you so much for sharing it though as it makes the rest of us feel less alone with our own shadow darknesses. I think it's so important to process and love our shadows now as the world shadow is going more insane by the day... and processing our own allows us to have safety in this mad time. Thanks again, Liani.
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