Running from our shadow
Have you heard that traditional folktale that tells of a man who becomes so scared of his own shadow that he tries to run away from it?
The tale goes that he believes that if only he could get away from his shadow then he would be happy. So he frantically tries to run away from it, yet as he runs faster and faster, it is to no avail, as his shadow never once falls behind. He grows increasingly distressed, and starts to run even faster to get away, until finally he drops dead of exhaustion!
If he had just stepped into the shade and sat down to rest, his shadow would have disappeared.
I find this old folktale so poignant as it has so many parallels with the way we tend to run away from and disown the more shadowy parts of our human nature.
Our personal shadow is made up of all the parts that we experience as unacceptable.
We are often taught from an early age through society and our families the qualities that are highly valued and the ones that are frowned upon.
And of course because it is only human nature to want to be accepted and loved we start to mould ourselves into the type of person that we think we should be.
But then what happens to all the less popular, yet very natural, parts of our human make-up, like natural aggression, fear, sadness, childlike excitement…?
These very natural parts of our psyche become pushed out into the shadow, into the unconscious.
And as we all know, running away from these parts of ourselves that we feel are unacceptable, is tiring. And like the man who tries to run away from his shadow, by disowning these parts we further reinforce the belief that there’s something fundamentally wrong with us.
The beautiful and incredibly liberating act of practicing pausing with a mindful presence is that we have the opportunity to reconnect with ourselves, to bring kindness, compassion and care to ALL the many parts of ourselves. To begin to welcome them back into conscious loving awareness.
As Frank Ostaseski says “Wholeness doesn’t mean perfection. It means no parts left out”.