How to embrace the Shadow...

I was in a Forest. We were running from one shadow to another. Confused, without knowing why we ran.

Everything was too fast to stay in tune and listen. Noises crept under the skin, whispering insecurities.

Then, a black body obscured the whiteness of the Moon; it was a Great Wolf.

Fear flared into instinct. Breath captured time, preventing us from seeing the life behind the encounter. The Wolf's soul was denied in its intent, in its potential to be, in its power to choose. Because, tired, we stopped to defend ourselves and strike blindly.

A clash of gazes allowed me to see. The Wolf was on the ground. Struck. Defeated. Brought down. It was then that feeling crumbled the ungraspable. The Wolf's belly became my belly; its pain became my pain. That Wolf was me.

I screamed. I broke the crust of ice that covered my skin. With my back, I cushioned the blows that still rained down from Fear, and with an ancestral voice, I drove away every aggression.

Weeping, immersed in that soft fur. Joy. Abandoning myself into a warm body. Finding a revolution toward the self I was not. An independence like a miracle of possibility. And against all justice, all measure, rule, or constraint, grasping the Threads of Time. With strong arms and a determined soul, pulling. Pulling until I went back.Pulling to give life back.I pulled to be able to choose, once again.

[From a Dream]

Often we find ourselves fighting or running away from what we deeply desire for fear of not being able to grasp it.

When what makes us feel good clashes with the image of ourselves that we built to feel safe, we may move away instead of getting closer. In these cases, our most authentic desires remain hidden in the Shadow of our inner cellars, while a personality we consider winning, invulnerable, or perfect lives in our place.

The Shadow Personality is a part of us that is afraid, feels guilty, feels ashamed; a part that needed to hide or forget. We call it "Shadow" not because it is dangerous, but because we had to deny and disconnect it. It is an inevitable process: we shape our identity through experiences, the desire for belonging, and defense mechanisms. From these compromises, an Armor Personality is born: the best form we found to relate to the world and, at the same time, protect our vulnerabilities.

One might dream of intimacy, an authentic relationship based on mutual love, but faced with the vulnerability of a deep bond, we protect ourselves, fearing to lose control and suffer. We then create a Fugitive Personality: pretending not to need involvement, we live in the lightness of short-term relationships, settling for momentary satisfactions fueled by a need for novelty that often does not fill the void. Or we convince ourselves we are invulnerable by creating the personality of the Superhero Warrior: pretending to have no needs, we seek satisfaction in caring for others. Finding ourselves, then, drained and disconnected because, constantly busy saving the world, we forget to listen to ourselves and no longer know how to receive or nourish ourselves.

Rediscovering the Shadow Personality does not mean justifying every impulse, nor does it mean escaping from oneself without asking why things happen. The complexity of our soul, in its aspects of Light and Shadow, can be so ambiguous that sometimes we prefer to step over it rather than walk through it.

Growing up, we might find ourselves completely identified with our Armor Personality, to the point of being unable to strip it off. It becomes all we know, at the expense of a softer possibility of adapting to a present that asks us to remember what lies underneath. We may then feel fragmented and confused, perceiving the constant lack of something we cannot define. It is in these moments that the Shadow Personality pulses in our arteries to give us the opportunity to broaden our freedom of choice over who we can be and how we want to live. Encountering the Shadow is an intense and frightening experience: it puts us on the threshold of a transformation, showing us the reflection of our most authentic nakedness. It scares us because it requires sacrificing the old identity to generate matter from which the new self can be reborn. Just like the caterpillar, which melts before becoming a butterfly.

"I dreamed of being in an unknown house; I was going down the stairs at the end of which there was a door. I entered and saw a man who was a stranger to me, but who was also very similar to me."

The first step toward authenticity is recognizing those parts of ourselves that we impulsively tend to hide. By controlling, avoiding, or judging the impulses that live under our skin, we deny ourselves the possibility of feeling completely, settling for a life lived halfway. Thus we repress vital forces: the ability to defend ourselves by recognizing our limits, pleasure, and the will to feel clearly who we are. We have become accustomed to acting to prove something to the world, and we no longer know how to act for the pure pleasure of living.

Often, what we fear most, or what disturbs us in others, conceals a fragment of ourselves that we have forgotten and that asks to be heard. I found myself denying my jealous side, playing the role of the 'revolutionary' woman. When I loved deeply, however, jealousy emerged with a paralyzing force. I fought it because I considered it a 'wrong' sentiment—petty and incompatible with the idea of free love I wanted to embody. And yet, that feeling was real and pulsing within me. By trying to eliminate it as if it were a defect, I was actually suffocating my fundamental need to feel safe and respected. Jealousy was not an enemy, but a messenger: it pointed to an ancient insecurity that I needed to tend to. Only by stopping my judgment of this emotion as 'uncomfortable' and starting to ask myself why it was present was I able to listen to what it wanted to communicate: a need for reciprocity and care, necessary to love without getting hurt. In that moment, honesty changed my perspective, clarifying my desire: I was not asking my partner to change or limit his freedom, but I was asking him to be a witness to my fragility. I was asking him to accompany me on that journey toward security, respecting my wounds without having to heal them for me, but staying by my side while I learned to light a candle where there had always been darkness."

"The Shadow, however, does not disappear. It presents itself in dreams, in symptoms, or in relations with others."

What we hide under the armor does not vanish. It stays in the body and resurfaces every time reality awakens a fragment of us that we abandoned. The body sends signals: tachycardia, sweat, paralysis. We get scared of feeling the unknown and think there is something to "fix." In an attempt to turn off the symptoms, we frantically change what surrounds us or resign ourselves, stopping feeling. We are not used to investigating what happens inside; we consider bodily reactions dangerous because they are out of our control.

When we flee for too long, an internal conflict emerges: indecision, ambivalence, or a loss of vitality. We feel lost. The Armor tries to keep everything in order, while the unconscious sends increasingly intense signals because it can no longer pretend it doesn't exist. The Armor acts out of habit and past patterns; the Shadow reacts with spontaneity to the present, creating upheaval. We feel trapped and fear that reality must be either all white or all black. And what if what was being asked of us was a form of integration? I wondered what the difference is between choosing and accepting. Can I feel kind even if I sometimes get angry? Can I explore motherhood without having children? My answer is that there is no limit to the creativity of a fulfilling existence if we are honest about our limits and our expansions. The Greeks used to say: "Find your Daimon, your divine power, and then give it the right measure." We are made of complementary forces. Living means learning to welcome them without labeling them as right or wrong, but being aware of how they influence our world.

Welcoming the shadow is a delicate process. The Gestalt approach suggests giving space back to everyday perceptions evicted by an abstract rationality. To notice one's shadows, one doesn't need heroic acts, but small gestures:

• Noticing when we repress a gesture, an emotion, or an impulse. Becoming aware of when we avoid something, because in avoidance we flee from the present. (Being aware doesn't mean acting on every impulse, but simply recognizing it).

• Recognizing what was happening at the moment of avoidance. Becoming narrators of our lives to understand what influences us and how.

• Welcoming with love what we are. Observing our reactions with honesty to be able to serenely choose which part of us to follow, remaining curious about ourselves every day.

• Asking "Why". Asking ourselves why we choose to do or not do something gives us a direction that must be clear, first of all, to ourselves.

  
  

What can happen? You might surprise yourself by discovering unknown parts of yourself, free yourself from the idea that to be loved you need to repress who you are, and learn to communicate your uniqueness. When I judge or devalue myself, the Shadow leaks out in the form of withdrawal, sudden outbursts, sharp remarks, or obsessions. This makes our communication ambiguous and pulls us away from inner clarity regarding our emotions, needs, and boundaries.

Welcoming the Shadow means returning to feeling, to choosing, and to living according to what nourishes us, not according to what makes us "perfect" or "invulnerable." True success is having the courage to bring your true self into the world.

"Becoming conscious of the Shadow means opening a door to ourselves to live with greater fullness." — C.G. Jung

If something resonated with you while reading and you wish to share your experience, write to me: lanottedigiorno@gmail.com |

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