Even Our Shadow is Holy
Do you have a case of “good-girl-itis”? It is not a well-known dis-ease, but it is more common than you may think. Let me explain. Being human requires us to transverse the bumpy road between being a graceful human-being, and being an evil one, with all other possibilities of what we are filling the spaces in between these two points. In essence, we are everything — basically, we are all emotions possible. But, I have had the habit of judging the crap out of the shadow-side of my emotions as being bad and unacceptable. I think to myself, “I am not supposed to feel this way.” I want to be ‘good ‘— I want to be a ‘spiritual-being’. And somewhere in my conscious mind I believe that when my shadow arises I have failed at being a ‘good’ human.
This way of thinking seems to be perpetuated in society. Most of us want to belong, and we want to be liked. If someone reflects our goodness back to us, we declare that person to be a ‘good’ person, too. But, if a person challenges us, exposing our darker-side, we get anxious, and we tend to write them off, categorizing them as not being a ‘good ’person.
What underlies this tendency, at least for me, is that I am uncomfortable with my shadow-side. But what if we were able to see our shadow-sides as holy? I heard a woman suggest this recently, and something inside of me breathed a little deeper at the thought of it.
I’ve just come out of a dark night of the soul — out of a depression, anxiety, or whatever you want to call it. It was a painful experience, of course. When I go through these dark stints people around me notice a change in me. I am usually all love and light, except for when I am in my ‘shadow-times’. When I am there, I am fearful, sad, lonely, depressed, insecure, and out of my proper-mind altogether. I get asked what is wrong with me. When I answer that this is merely a part of me — that I have these bouts, they still don’t get it. They worry about me. It is like I can only have one side to me. I cannot be both good and bad, dark and light, at the same time. In order to make everyone else (and myself) feel better, I have to fake that I am on my game.
The problem with this is that it implies that in order to be a ‘good’ person, I have to deny a big part of the truth about who I am, and this causes me to become fragmented.
It makes sense to me that it is only by accepting all of who I am that I may become whole.
It is no surprise to me that the original meaning of the word ‘holy’ is ‘whole.’ If you think about it, all aspects of everything come from the Divine, or Source. So, it makes perfect sense that everything that exists in the Universe would then, together with all the other parts, make up the whole of the Universe. Nothing can exist outside of the Divine, or Source, because it had to have originated from this original Consciousness that thought everything into existence. The whole of the physical realm IS Consciousness expressing Itself through us, and everything that happens in the physical realm is, therefore, part of Its (W)Holiness.
I believe that being whole — accepting that all parts of us belong, and are holy, is the key to beginning to heal from the dis-ease of ‘good-girl-itis’. Being kind to our shadow when it arises, is a really good start. That is self-care. Giving ourselves permission to feel the way we feel, and providing the space, and understanding for all spectrums of our moods is self-respectful, and self-loving.
Our shadows are here to teach us, and when we reject the lessons they become wasted opportunities for the beautiful growth that is trying to inform, and transform, us.
Life is all about expansion and contraction. We are all part of life, and so we too must expand and contract. It doesn’t have to be as painful as we tend to make it by rejecting certain aspects of ourselves, though. If we can be loving and respectful to all parts of us, having faith that our shadow and our light, are both here for our highest good — to teach us, we will get to be more whole (holy). Remember, all flowers need a little manure in order to bloom. So perhaps we need to see that there is value in the shitty times, too?
Here are some questions to reflect upon with your own shadow-side:
1. Do you also sell yourself short by rejecting your shadow-side, in order to keep up a ‘good-girl’ image?
2. What would your dark-nights look like if you were able to accept and love yourself, and remain teachable through them, instead of judging and berating yourself for having this part to you?
3. Can you see that you might not need to spend as much time down that dark-rabbit-hole if you were able to accept, honor, and love all aspects of you — seeing them as a necessary part of the whole (holiness) of who you are?
