Our shadow sides

After talking with my spiritual teacher yesterday, he pointed out that I am still carrying the negative experiences from my life. A recent incident at work triggered a past pain that has been gnawing at me and has resurfaced, bringing back times I felt so powerless. It also brought up deep anger seeing how that pattern plays out like a looping video. For a long time, I had kept that buried, believing if I could do enough, soon enough, fast enough, good enough, I would be able to outrun that pain. Not so. I finally realize how exhausted I am from always running.

My teacher said I do not look good in that Jacob Marley (The Christmas Carol, Charles Dickens) kind of way, dragging all those chains which weigh me down and steal my living life. When we watch The Christmas Carol, we see that Jacob Marley was carrying the weight of his life choices (greed, disdain for others, ego-centric, gaining from other’s misery) by shackles and chains, moaning his regrets. I did not realize until my teacher lovingly pointed that out about me. What if I was also carrying around those same things, only I was casting those things onto to me? Holding on to those miseries cast my way that I have held onto for dear life as that is my legacy. What if, after all these years, that isn’t my legacy at all? What if all that stuff is just other people’s tainted views and it isn’t me at all? Paraphrasing Michelangelo when asked about his statue of David, he was just cutting away all the stuff that wasn’t David. That can be the difference. Instead of letting other label and define us, we can find out who we truly are.

That is the challenge with being labeled by others. We will either spend our time trying to convince others we aren’t like that person they think we are or we will say screw it, as long as they think I am that way, I will show them in spades. Either way, it takes too much energy and steals from living a life more happily. An option is to spend as little to no time to defend and portray. We can just out the life of who we truly are, peeling away those sticky layers and bloom. (Those of us who are late-bloomers know.)

So now I know. It is a gift when we are shown our shadow sides lurking in the background like it is part of the wallpaper of our life. So let those shackles break free, one by one, as we can walk in more sunshine than shadows.