Walking with Shadows

Walking with Shadows

Authenticity versus negative space?

I used to think I was good at pretending. As a Thesp from the tender age of 4 until I was 21 being someone else was always more comfortable than being myself. Yet my "make believe" was always on stage and in rehearsal. I was about 18 when I figured out some people spend their whole lives like that.
There is an idea that to be "positive" you must also be fake. You must pretend it is fine until it is.
This to me is an emotional and mental blindness. If you do not look within and see you can not know how to heal yourself.
That is not to say you should wallow or allow yourself to spiral into the choking fumes of many toxic thoughts or feelings. You must stand on that edge and feel it, and accept it is there.
You don't have to throw yourself into it.
Understanding this took me many years. A lot of the problem is the language we have for this toxic mental miasma is about "darkness" and "negativity". While the feelings and thoughts do happen in a shadow space, in our shadow inside it is not the "darkness" that is the issue, it is our unwillingness to bring light and look at what is happening there that is the biggest problem. The next part is to do something. To address what is going on.

To look within. To accept how you are thinking and feeling. To change and heal.

That might look like this.

"Why am I feeling so weird. I feel so...restless...so...fidgety...so...angry. Why am I angry? My sister did and said unforgivable things.I am really really angry. She hurt me. Anger is pain. I am in pain. What helps me heal? Should I paint? No..not feeling that. A bath? Dancing. Loud music. Yes! Let me put on loud music and dance."

 Feeling guilt or shame for your feelings stops this process in it's tracks. It makes a feed back loop that is damaging making us dwell in our shadow space swallowing thoughts and feelings that make us sick and miserable.
(Being sick and miserable is okay, staying sick and miserable is a horrible way to exist).
Therapists can really help expand most people ability to look within, but they can not make you heal. They can not make you change. You are in charge of your whole self. Making peace with your feelings is not the same as allowing them to ride roughshod over you and your life.
It is okay to feel you want to smack the shit out of someone, it isn't okay to do it! You might also need to look why you feel that way about this person or situation.
It is possible to be positive and authentic. It is okay to commune with the shadows within. It isn't okay to live there.

I almost became an art therapist but the Masters course said I didn't have enough experience with mental health. 10 years (at the time) of being a carer didn't count because I wasn't employed at it.
Still, my interest in action to heal persists, even if it is a different path than I might have expected.

Bright Blessings xxx

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