![]() At all counts, it forms an unconscious snag, thwarting our most well-meant intentions.” “Everyone carries a shadow, and the less it is embodied in the individual’s conscious life, the blacker and denser it is. We heal the world when we heal ourselves, and hope shines brightest when it illuminates the dark.” ![]() “The shadow is needed now more than ever. When I produce from this place of truth, the results transform both creator and beholder.” There is nothing more personally liberating, than reaching for my face and peeling off the social mask that hides my shadow self, pain, and weakness. “Creativity connects me to my truest self and vulnerability. “Every pain, addiction, anguish, longing, depression, anger or fear is an orphaned part of us seeking joy, some disowned shadow wanting to return to the light and home of ourselves.” Anyone who perceives his shadow and his light simultaneously sees himself from two sides and thus gets in the middle.” Once one has experienced a few times what it is like to stand judgingly between the opposites, one begins to understand what is meant by the self. “To confront a person with his shadow is to show him his own light. I believe in embracing my duality, in learning to let darkness and light, peacefully co-exist, as illumination.” Shadows give depth and dimension to my life. Not the exact image, but everything reversed or upside down.” The same way old painters would sit in a tiny dark room and trace the image of what stood outside a tiny window, in the bright sunlight. Instead, we see only aspects of ourselves that fall over them. “Maybe the only thing each of us can see is our own shadow. Shadow-work enables us to alter our self-sabotaging behavior so that we can achieve a more self-directed life.” This problem is exceedingly difficult because it not only challenges the whole man but reminds him at the same time of his helplessness and ineffectuality.” It cannot be argued out of existence or rationalized into harmlessness. The shadow is a living part of the personality and therefore wants to live with it in some form. But if we are able to see our own shadow and can bear knowing about it, then a small part of the problem has already been solved: we have at least brought up the personal unconscious. “This confrontation is the first test of courage on the inner way, a test sufficient to frighten off most people, for the meeting with ourselves belongs to the more unpleasant things that can be avoided so long as we can project everything negative into the environment. “When we are aware of our weaknesses or negative tendencies, we open the opportunity to work on them.” The more cut off and unconscious we are of our personal shadows, the more vulnerable we are to having those shadows break out and be set free for a time by addictive behaviors.” Often the addictive behavior allows the personal shadow the only opportunities to live and to be. “In these ways, the personal shadow reinforces, encourages, and becomes dependent upon the addictive behavior to express itself, to have any existence in the light outside of the closet, the attic, and the basement where it has been locked up and hidden for so long.
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