Comments on: Our shadows know…

By: Ronna Detrick

Ronna Detrick — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 14:17:06 +0000

Thank you, Tracy. I wonder sometimes how much of our shadows are our own, and how much of the time we feel covered/hidden/darkened by them because of those cast by others (or worries). As with all things, of course, it’s a combination…just something I’m pondering given the on-line conversation that’s ensued in these last posts. ‘Appreciate your kind words – and your presence.

By: Tracy Todd

Tracy Todd — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 09:03:25 +0000

I’ve learned from personal experience that the smallest worries can cast the biggest shadows. Sometimes it takes a whole new mindset to escape those shadows – to come out into the light and really reveal oneself (the truth).

You have such a beautiful way with words and I love the way you have the ability to challenge my mindset.
.-= Tracy Todd´s last blog ..Just Feel =-.

By: Ronna Detrick

Ronna Detrick — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 18:41:04 +0000

OK, Karen. This could be a whole blog post all your own! I’m deeply humbled and grateful that it shows up here. And also SO moved by the idea of the golden shadow. Yes. I’m convinced that our shadow, though untamed, wild beauty, is most definitely kind, gracious, and not at all scary. It’s a quiet, solid strength that waits, that emboldens, that nudges and reminds, that germinates and fertilizes, that whispers of our truest self – not the one on the edges, but the one who will most definitely be known/seen in crystallized, glorious, golden ways. Thank you!

By: Karen Sharp

Karen Sharp — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 16:07:23 +0000

The potent, fecund shadows… yeah it is scary there.

There is a trick I sometimes get caught up by:
My cogitating thinking mind, her who I think is me, is often just busy-making noise. She is not my truest me. She’s not generally bad, her busy-ness may not kill off new life, but she certainly doesn’t provide those fertile resources for growth. However she knows as an intellectually-cognizable fact, that the shadows are a source of wisdom and strength, which, she was told at some point, are good things. So she cogitates, “I’m supposed to go to the shadows. If I go down to the shadows I’m a spiritually wise person.” And she was told at some point, that being a spiritually wise person is good. So she compliantly holds onto this cogitated fact, and thinks she’s being a good girl.

But that ain’t goin’ down into the shadows.

And then because the shadows are scary, the truest heart-of-me isn’t necessarily heading there all too gleefully either. But because my conscious mind holds onto her little fact, and thinks she is going into the shadows, it means my resistance, my hanging around on the edges of the darkness, poking a toe in now and then, is kind of invisible. Hidden beneath my cogitating self-congratiulating (oh what a good girl I am) compliant busy-making mind. And the more I tell myself how good a girl I am for holding onto that spiritual fact, and the more scared I get because I’m not really going there, the more unknowingly stuck I am on the shadow’s margins, all bound up in this tricky and largely invisible double-bind.

Truthfully I think a lot of spiritually-inclined folks get caught up in similar ways.

But for me, this eases some of the stuckness:
Jung had a term that I like, the golden shadow, which he used exactly for what you’re talking about, Ronna — those “gifts that are pushed into the dark, hidden there and waiting to be discovered.” For me, the idea that they are rich gold, shining soft and calm in the shadows, is a reassurance. Not so scary. And then I can be a little softer and calmer myself, not so scared, a little more kind. And that means I can avoid getting wrapped up quite so badly around the axle of my double-bind.

Sometimes it helps. Sometimes it gives me courage to settle down into the heart of me, just breathe, just be, and look around. And then from there, sometimes I see noise and chaos and lostness. Sometimes I see shadows. And sometimes I see rich gold gleaming in the dark fertile soil.

By: Ronna Detrick

Ronna Detrick — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 14:21:23 +0000

Mmmm, Shauntelle. So much here. So much I want to say. But for now…maybe just think about lengthening Necole’s chain, letting her into the light for longer stretches, introducing her to those who depend on you, seeing what happens when she just says/does one or two things. It’s a lifelong process – both knowing our shadows and then inviting them into our lit-up world; or, as I said to Amanda below…escorting our lit-up world into the depth of our truest selves. Not a light-switch process, by any means.

Just know that you’re not alone – and that Necole’s welcome here anytime.