Imagine seeing your shadow for the first time. Imagine the fear of this dark, forbidding image, following you everywhere! Imagine believing with absolute certainty that that shadow could really hurt you.
What would you do? You would do whatever you could to protect yourself. You’d build a fortress, get weapons, hide, run away, plan your defense.
But if you realised, that a shadow is just a shadow, that it’s part of you, it just looks scary but it can’t hurt you. what would you do then?
Probably nothing. You’d just let the shadow carry on being a shadow without needing to change it, control it or get rid of it. It may look scary, and feel scary, but it cannot hurt you. Because it’s just a shadow…
This is how we are with our emotions. We get so caught up in trying to escape our painful emotions. We build walls, defenses, try and deny or hide from them. But what if we realised that painful emotions are part of being human? Sadness, anger, anxiety are just proof of our humanity, it doesn’t feel good, but it can’t hurt me… my feelings are just part of who I am.
And being human includes the whole array of emotions. So let’s see the shadow on the wall for what it is. Just a shadow. I can live my life with that shadow, I can be human with that shadow and I don’t need to be afraid of it.
When I stop trying to control or change my feelings, it naturally flows through me. I can be ok with feelings of sadness and joy. I can just be human.