What are you afraid of?

Ciao and Sacred Sunday,

Grab your cup of ☕️ dear heart as this SS is a little longer and I want you to be all cozy and comfy.

As you might know I’ve been a student of psychology for many years, and I hold a BA in Transpersonal Psych. For some time, I’ve been particularly interested in depth psychology and Jungian thought.

I’m fascinated by Carl Jung, his life, his collaboration with Sigmund Freud – his eventual break with his mentor and friend, and Jung’s own development as an analyst.

📚What Jung has given us remains relevant today. Considering the wonkiness of our world, perhaps even more so than when Jung’s teachings first became known.

As it’s become mainstream jargon, most likely you’ve heard the term “shadow” which Jung coined.

And I imagine you have a cursory understanding of what the term shadow means and how it applies to you individually and collectively.

🤓While I am no expert in this realm, I am a continuing student and as such my appreciation for Jung’s work grows the more I learn and self-coach.

Jung believed that each of us holds deep within aspects of ourselves that are unavailable to our everyday consciousness.

Thus, the word, the concept of, shadow.

Something unavailable to us, under the cover of darkness; hidden.

Parts of our personality that you and I are not able to access, because we’re unable to see them, results in our blind spots. It takes a therapist, a coach or a really trusted friend to help us see that which we cannot.

Or these aspects of self seem to conflict with what we hold as our core values. So, we by-pass, dampen them down with substances or wear the mask of “everything is just fine and dandy”.

The thing is…

👉Sometimes you and I are not ready to see what makes us uncomfortable about these parts of our beingness.

👉Sometimes we simply haven’t done enough inner work to have built a strong enough container for transformation to occur.

👉Sometimes, quite frankly, we’re lazy and are comfortable enough to simply coast along.

Why rock the boat?

That thinking though is problematic. Why indeed.

Because it keeps us living small. Not facing what makes us a bit squiggly, prevents us from living to our full potential.

Jung believed that our ego, the part of us we identify as “I” feels threatened and does its best to keep us from evolving.

👞This quote of Jung goes something like, “we walk in shoes too small for us.”

He believed that to grow and expand we need to shine the light of awareness into the dark alleyways of our mind.

The truth is some aspects of the self will remain buried in the depths of our unconscious and will forever remain there where they belong.

However, most of our darker natures only seem formidable and insurmountable.

🌤We are such rich, complex beings that often are not shining as brilliantly as possible because of adaptive behaviors and strategies that we’ve developed over our lifetime to keep us safe.

But safe is not what we’re here to do.

We’re here to live❗️

We’re here to live fully❗️

We’re here to take risks and make art and meaning of our lives❗️

Turning towards the shadow, inviting the shadow in, is the only way you and I will walk through the portal of self-awareness.

👣Yet, that’s only the first step.

Then, like the Buddha, we must invite each shadow to sit down to tea with us.

We must befriend them. And we must allow them to teach us something.

When we can do that, then we’re able to cross over the threshold of fear into freedom and potential.

😫While there is much more to learn about the shadow, and the way in which it shows up in our lives, what I want you to understand today – is that the shadow looms large in our minds.

The good news, when you face your fear and welcome the shadow in, you learn that instead of the scary monster living under the bed, it’s only a dust bunny waiting to be swept up.

🌟When the light of conscious awareness shines onto the shadow, you have the chance to turn your “baggage into advantage.”

You my friend, have then entered the world of alchemy – turning the base metal of the pieces and parts of your nature that you’ve been turning away from – into gold.

What most people don’t know is that the shadow holds enormous energy. When embraced and channeled with insight and intention it’s the power that ignites curiosity and creativity.

So, my love, my questions for you this Sacred Sunday are:

❓What’s one way you don’t show up fully?

❓What’s one trigger that causes you to be reactive?

❓What’s one quality you observe in another that just pisses you off? Can you see it as a mirror?

❓What’s one way you block yourself from taking that next step forward in your relationship, your career, your dream life?

Shadow work is a dance. With the right partner it doesn’t have to be hard. And it doesn’t have to be overwhelming.

What are you afraid of?

💖With love and appreciation, xoxo Paulette

PS I’m accepting applications now. If you’re interested but not sure you’re ready for my 3-month immersion, fill out the assessment anyway, it’s a great exercise and maybe there’s another way to work together. Or contact me for a connection call and let’s chat.