Dear friend,
We ignore our shadow at our peril.
Walking with Chiara and her sister Barbara in the woods near their parent’s home we fell into talking about self knowledge. What it means to know yourself and to see the ways we act and speak that continue the unnecessary suffering in the world. Our personal worlds and the collective.
Even though we see it, it’s hard to change, but it’s better to be aware than not to be.
At the very least we are able to take responsibility and draw back from attacking the others. Projecting what we haven’t owned within ourselves out onto ‘them’.
It’s harmful when we do so on a personal level and devastating on the collective.
Pick any crime against any living being, you can trace the roots back to into the dark places. Unconscious of our shared identity as eternal spirit, attached to the material world. Fearful. Vengeful. Unwilling to look deep within.
The false self is raging rampant across the face of the world.
But we can meet it with compassion.
Disarmed.
Each one of us have been hurt, excluded, mocked, ignored when our needs were at their most poignant.
We wish it weren’t so, but our vulnerability is our strength.
How would it be to be unceasingly kind to yourself today?
How can you remember to do that? Especially after you’ve slipped into an unconscious reaction.
You are changing the world just by being aware of the deeper you.
We rarely get to see how our individual efforts fit into the big picture.
The shadow dance seems endless. But we can dance with it.
The more of us who enter the dance, the more light pours into the world.
Don’t concern yourself with perfection. At the deepest level you are already that.
Looking at the false self with compassion is strength.
Breathing your way to freedom.
It will become part of our culture for everyone to have access to the kinds of support that make self knowledge commonplace.
How that will happen will reveal itself over time.
Just to know that every effort we make, being kind, seeking to understand, refusing to blame and label the other, taking a stand against dehumanisation in the here and now, shifts the balance.
Also this:
Including ourselves in our kindness.
The shadow self is not the enemy. It’s learned to seeks love and safety in the places where it cannot be found.
What happens when we love the parts of ourselves we believe are unloveable?
That’s our way home.
Till tomorrow
Love
Mikey