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OA Recovery: 40 Days of Abstinence

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I have decided not to return to that face to face meeting. I believe that it’s a really low-level meeting since only one person seems to have abstinence for any length of time and she was the one who told my husband to leave — at an open meeting. Some people argued that I should go and help raise up the level of the meeting. Some people thought I was not far enough along in my recovery to do something beneficial for that meeting. I thought that I didn’t have the time or energy to waste on a meeting with toxic people.

I am no longer really concerned about losing weight. Yes, I want to lose it, but focusing on the steps has kind of shifted my focus away from losing weight. I have lost 8.5lbs since January 1st, only by cutting out sugar. It’s kind of funny, this past week, my meals have kind of sorted themselves out. I have been finding regular foods to eat, I have mostly been packing my lunch, and I mostly know what foods I will be eating each day. I think it’s kind of ironic because I couldn’t really do it before. I guess I have just reached the right part of my recovery where it’s become easier for me!

I have now reached step 4 in my journey of overeating recovery. It requires that we make a moral inventory. I read through the chapter on step 4, which just gave a lot of reasons why this moral inventory was necessary. My sponsor also said that this is the point where people tend to disappear from OA. When I asked her why, she said it was because it’s too tough and too emotional and people tend to overeat as a result. It was a good reminder for me.

They call it a “fearless” moral inventory and stated that a lot of people are dishonest with themselves. I knew that the only real way I tend to be dishonest with myself was about food, so I assumed that this step would be easier for me. The OA book Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions has a laundry list of questions that seemed quite daunting. My sponsor said she preferred the AA forms for that and e-mailed me three forms — one about resentment, one about sexual conduct, and one about fears.

My resentments took up two whole pages. I had a lot of people and institutions I held resentment towards. My gaslighting, emotional-abusing ex-husband took up almost half a page on his own. Other fall-out from that divorce, the friends I have lost over it, and things I stopped doing because he “ruined” the experience took up another half page. The rest were other times where I had mostly believed that I was wronged by other people. After writing in why I was angry, I had to “own” the resentment and figure out why it was my fault. I had some issues with this. I complained to my sponsor: how can I take responsibility for a gaslighting, emotional-abusing ex-husband and the friends that believed the lies he told them about our breakup!? I didn’t even realize that I was emotionally abused or gaslighted until over a year after our split. She said I should just write that I am at fault for holding onto it for too long. I did that for a while. Then I realized that I trusted people too blindly and expected too much of these people who were clearly not my friends. Then I re-read the chapter saying that this step is supposed to help me trust people again. Wait, what!? I had just come to the conclusion that I had trusted people too much.

The rest of my resentments were a mish-mash of issues — everything from being upset that my sister wants to live across the country (because I love her and I miss her), someone who denied me a scholarship even though I was the only one who met the requirements for it, a friend who was a pathological liar, a friend who broke off the friendship claiming that I was using her, all of the schools that fired me for being Pagan, etc. Anyway, I was hurting inside to relive all of these episodes where people and institutions made me angry. I didn’t overeat or eat any sugary foods, but once my husband knew I was upset and he was very helpful about trying to make me feel better.

The remaining two lists were comparatively easier. One great thing about being Pagan is that sex is part of the religion (“all acts of love and pleasure are my rituals”), so we don’t get shamed for having sex. I feel no shame for it. However, there were a few times where I didn’t say “no” with enough conviction when I was still healing from the emotional abuse. There were sometimes when I used my sex appeal to help me feel better about myself significantly earlier in my life, sometimes giving guys the wrong idea. Honestly, the sex section really only had 6 entries.

I was glad that I saved the fear section until last. Thinking about my resentments, I have a lot of fears due to them. A fear of not being good enough. A fear of rejection. A fear that no community would ever accept me being Pagan. I pushed to get these all done in one day so I didn’t have to feel bad for two days in a row. I asked what was next and my sponsor said I had to read step 5 and discuss my answers with her. I read chapter 5, which seemed to outline why it was important to share my lists with another human being. Both my sponsor and I agreed that we would save that for next weekend.

Willful and Unintentional Invalidations

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There are people in this world who prey upon others by purposely invalidating the experiences of others. Doing this constantly is called gaslighting. That was my experience with my ex-husband. I entered the relationship a strong, independent female. I left it seven years later an emotional wreck. I didn’t trust my inner voice. I couldn’t make simple decisions. I lost my trust in people having lost almost all of my friends (they all believed the lies he told them when we broke up). And while that was 6 years ago, I have not yet fully recovered today. I think I am significantly better, but I still haven’t recovered. It’s tough losing your husband and almost all of your friends in one fell swoop. I was devastated. It didn’t help that the few people I still trusted didn’t really know how to react when I told them what happened. I was met most often with sympathetic silence or disbelief. With such limited success, I stopped telling people about it. I kept to myself and stopped trusting others. I stopped making new friends and distanced myself from the few friends and family I had left to me. I lost many years to misery and snatching bits of myself back piece by piece. Each piece was a struggle and a fight.

However, there are people that just unintentionally invalidate the experiences of others. I have had some issues with a few of them lately. I confided in one of them who knew my ex-husband and I thought was “on my side”. This person told me that since my ex-husband didn’t realize what he was doing it didn’t make him a bad person and that I should really get over it already. It killed me to hear that. After all of the things that my ex-husband has done to me, it shouldn’t fucking matter if he realized what he was doing. The damage was still done. It hurt so badly that after all this time and all of the struggle this person had seen me go through trying to become the person that I wanted to be that I was still not believed or supported. It just reinforced the damage done to my trust of others by my ex-husband and those “friends” that believed his lies.

Another time something like this happened recently was when someone overheard me talking about OA (overeaters anonymous) . That’s something else that I talk about that is again met with stony silence. Nobody seems to know what to say. I can only guess what their thought processes are. I have known people who have done AA. Whenever they talk to someone about it, they have been met with sympathy and support. In this case, I was met with disbelief. I explained the exact nature of my eating issues and she claimed that everyone was like that, that she was like that. I bit my tongue because I wanted to tell her that maybe she needed to do OA too. I didn’t know this person well enough to feel she had violated my trust, but I happen to know this person is a UFO enthusiast and interested in people looking for bigfoot. So the fact that she couldn’t extend her belief to consider that some people can be addicted to certain foods in the same way others are addicted to alcohol was astounding to me.

In the first example of my ex-husband, while he may not have known what he was doing, he was certainly getting the feeling of power from it. In the second and third examples, it was clearly not intentional and I don’t think that they intended to do harm. However, when you tell someone their experiences are not what they were is invalidating them, their inner voice, and their assessment of the world. It wasn’t like we were debating facts. We were debating my life and my point of view. How do you even combat that? You don’t. It is my life and my experience. Be a good friend and show support regardless of your opinion of my experience. Or at the very least hold your tongue. This is yet another case of “If you don’t know what the other person is going through, hold your tongue.” Or “Don’t judge others. Everyone is fighting his own battle.”

Recovery – 33 Days of Abstinence

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I got started with a new sponsor. She seemed to be very thorough and to-the-point (which I like). She gave me a list of eating behaviors and asked which ones I did. She then gave me a bunch of rules that I needed to follow in addition to abstaining from sugar. I don’t remember all of them because many were non-issues for me. The ones I do remember are: don’t eat standing up, eat slowly, do not do anything else while eating (like play on your phone or watch tv), do not take seconds, do not hide your eating, do not eat in the car, and only weigh yourself once a week. I argued for weighing daily and for our movie night once a week where we share a big bowl of popcorn. She was willing to allow movie night, but not weighing more often than once a week. She did not ask that I provide her with my food ahead of time and seemed to trust that I was following the guidelines, which I was. There was one exception, but I figured it wouldn’t count. I wanted a banana for a snack. However, my son loves bananas and would want one if he saw me eat it. We only allow him one banana a day because they make him constipated and he already had one that day. So I ate a banana while standing and hiding so my son wouldn’t put up a fuss (he’s only one and a half).

With this new sponsor, I was flying through the steps. She had me read each step in the book and then discuss the step with her. There seemed to be some pivotal questions to answer and then I was onto the next step. Today I reached step 3: “Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him.”  I knew I would have to deal with this eventually. I prayed and meditated for weeks hoping to find a deity willing to take on me and my recovery. Instead, I was met with silence. I finally decided to use “my-best-and-highest-self” or “Goddess-within-me” as my higher power. I’m glad I did, because when I thought about turning my will and life into the care of an outside deity, I think I would have had a more difficult time doing it. Instead, I could definitely turn my will and life over the best version of myself. Gods know, I am certainly not the best version of myself right now, but she is in there somewhere.

I attended my fourth meeting today. I had even convinced my husband to attend (albeit in the back). He has eating issues but is still convinced he can handle them on his own. Even so, he was curious about what happened at these meetings. He was called out at the beginning of the meeting for not being part of it. The woman who did this was the only sponsor in the room (what a great example). She claimed she was concerned about anonymity (even though this was an open meeting) and told him to go sit in another room. I was annoyed but stayed because I am abstinent for 33 days today and was looking forward to getting my coin for 30 days of abstinence.

The meeting continued with their usual announcements at the beginning, including “children are welcome so long as they are supervised”. My 1.5 year old son was there, giggling, running around and smiling at everyone. He was never an issue before. In fact, I was told to bring him back because he was a sweet boy. Now I am not one of those parents who is deluded in thinking that my terror of a son is a sweet boy. My son did not scream or cry. He didn’t even babble much and when he did it wasn’t that loud. They asked if my husband could look after my son. I said he could for today, but that there were days when I would have to bring him. I brought my son to my husband in the other room who suggested we leave. I agreed with him and started crying because I really felt unwelcome. One woman came out and apologized for the others and begged me not to give up OA because of it. I told her I didn’t intend to, but that I wasn’t going to drive an hour to go to that meeting again either. I was livid. There were no other meetings within an hour drive of me (except for the ones that met when I was at work). I never did get my coin.

I received a phone call from one of the members of the meeting about an hour later. Apparently after I left, they were all discussing how they could have handled it better. They decided to add language at the beginning of the meeting to mention that all who were interested in OA were welcome at the meeting. Unfortunately, they also changed the language at the beginning of the meeting from “all children are welcome if they are supervised” to “all children are welcome, but they must be in a different room from the meeting.” There is no way in hell I’m putting my one and a half year old in another room by himself (or with another child). So basically I can only go when I had child care, meaning my husband would stay at home with him when he could. That also meant that he could not come to meetings with me. I am very angry that this happened. I resent them for the way they treated my family today. I also resent them for changing the rules so I could no longer attend regularly. I am told that the next step is all about resentments, so this next step should be fun.

Recovery – 21 Days of Abstinence

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I have now been abstinent from sugary foods for 21 days now. It has been one hell of a journey so far. For the first two weeks, I was detoxing from all of the sugar. I wanted it. I craved it. Because I couldn’t have it, I overindulged on other foods. I was concerned for a time that it might be another food issue I have, but then after about day 15, I stopped wanting extra foods at meals.

That was around the first time that I managed to make it to an OA (overeaters anonymous) meeting. I had tried a few times, but due to the holidays and meetings that were no longer active, I finally found this meeting (and made sure to call first). It started with the serenity prayer and a bunch of other stuff that was read. It seemed like a ritual, so I guessed it was said every time. The best part was when people shared. One of them mentioned that after the physical detox was over, I would have emotional issues to contend with. She said that all of the feelings and issues that you ate to cover up would now show up and need to be dealt with. I had no idea how right she would be.

For the past week, I was angry, sad, depressed, but most of all I was distracted. My work started to suffer because I was having problems planning my lessons and getting things done that needed doing. It was a struggle, but I think the idea of having made it so far that I didn’t want to start over again helped.

I also had problems with my first sponsor. She wanted me to tell her what I was going to eat each day before I ate it. I really struggled with this for a few reasons. First, there are so many different resources out there with conflicting statements about “good” and “bad” foods, so I found myself in a state of chronic indecision about what to eat. Second, not knowing what to eat, we didn’t end up picking up any foods for me for lunch and so I didn’t have anything to eat, so I never knew what I was going to have. I found out later that this is a common tool for people to tend to overeat in general, but since my issue is with a specific food, it really didn’t apply to my situation. She also wanted me to fill out this checklist every day. I found out later that it was part of the 10th step and I was on step 1. I thought. I wasn’t sure because she sent me these lengthy emails with a ton of reading to do and questions to answer. She contacted me and said I needed to start doing those things on a daily basis (which I really struggled with doing) or she would drop me as a sponsee. She was doubtless doing what she thought was best for me. Some people need the “tough love” approach, but I was doing fine, so I found another temporary sponsor online.

Embracing the Mother Aspect

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Many Pagans worship the triple Goddess — the maiden, the mother, and the crone.  I spent 37 years of my life as a “maiden”.  I had always wanted kids, but finally found myself in a place in life where I felt like I could have one.  The birth itself wasn’t exactly a miraculous experience.  After a number of factors, I ended up giving birth via c-section while very drugged up.  At first, I was afraid to hold my baby because my hands were so shaky due to the morphine.  After that, I was awake for 24 hours straight due to extreme itchiness  (also due to the morphine).  I was overtired and drugged up and afraid that I would fall asleep and drop him.  Thankfully, my family more than made up for my lack of holding him!  I worried that I didn’t hold him enough in those first days.

It seemed like motherhood was a constant state of worrying.  I worried whether or not my son was getting enough to eat.  I worried whether or not I was producing enough breast milk.  Before he was 6 months old, I worried about SIDS.  After he was 6 months old, I worried about him putting something in his mouth and choking.  It seemed like no matter how well we scanned the area where he played, new items that he wasn’t supposed to have would turn up.  Like a bottle cap.  Or a penny.  It was probably because of our cats, but it was still a constant worry.  I was also worried about him choking on food.  Or having a severe allergy to one of the foods we give him and him not getting to the hospital in time.

Motherhood was also a joy.  I watched how he looked at the world with wonder in his eyes.  It wasn’t long before he learned to smile.  Then he smiled at everyone.  He smiled a lot.  He was the happiest little boy ever!  I loved snuggling him to sleep, even when he lost the newborn smell.  I loved playing with him when he crawled around.  Some days it was heartbreaking going to work.  It didn’t help that I hated my job.  It was super sweet when he learned to crawl, that he would hear the door open and he’d crawl to the nearest baby gate to the entrance to wait for me with a giant grin on his face.  He started to do other things like feed himself and clap.  He loved all of it.  So did I!

It seems that there are two faces to motherhood — worrying and loving.  Either way, I don’t feel much like a Goddess.  I don’t feel like my womb is divine, even though my body looks more like the Goddess of Willendorf every day.  For all mothers out there, how do you associate motherhood with the mother aspect of the Goddess?

Stagnant in My Spirituality

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MyPathIs

I have reached a point in my life where I’m feeling really stagnant in my spirituality.  I had a great Circle in the last place that I lived.  While I didn’t go all the time, I feel like they helped me continue to connect with my spirituality.

I have moved since then.  I also had a baby, so there’s a 9 month old to look after.  Somewhere in all of this, I really feel like I’ve lost my spirituality.  I haven’t meditated on my own in over a year.  I barely even celebrate all of the Sabbats, much less the full moons.

When I first discovered I was Pagan, I read every book I could find on the subject.  Since the internet really wasn’t helpful for Pagans at that point in time and most bookstores didn’t have many Pagan books, that really wasn’t that many books for me.  I read the Scott Cunningham book (you know which one) and a bunch of very misguided older books that I have since discarded.

Finally, the internet got a little more accessible and I was a WitchSchool student for quite some time.  I got my first degree in Corellian Wicca and was halfway through my second degree when I met a teacher in real life.  She taught me some stuff about Wicca I hadn’t learned.  She also taught me Shamanic Journeying and Reiki.  We had a falling out (she accused me of some very nasty things that weren’t true) and I moved again, though the two were unrelated.

Finally, I found my current circle.  Or maybe I should say that they found me. They’re a bit more advanced.  I liked that everything we did was open-ended and often non-pantheon-specific.  You could walk away from Circle with a lot or a little, depending on the day.  It was nice.  There was one very interesting circle where Tyr had a message for me.  Since then, I’ve tried to talk and connect with him, but I’m not sure really how to.   Then I moved again.

Now I’m in a place that is VERY Christian, so I don’t really feel comfortable advertising the fact that I’m Pagan.  It’s where that former teacher lives, so I also don’t have any interest in her knowing that I’m in the area.  But I’m so lonely.  I feel the need to learn again.  I have a ton of books, but I still feel lost.  I also have a ton of stuff.  I have a number of Goddess statues and a few God statues.  I have athames, pentacles, wands, incense, candles, and a ton of stones.  I feel like I need to pare things down, but I just don’t know what to keep and what to get rid of.  I feel like my spirituality needs work, but I’m so eclectic, I really don’t know where to start.  It’s like I have too many choices and not enough direction.  I could use some advice if anyone has any!

Light Work

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It has been hinted that I write a blog post on light work.  Having spent so long in the darkness, struggling to find any light, it is much easier for me to write on this topic than shadow work.  Before you decide to focus on light work, please remember that we are all beings of balance.  You cannot have light without dark.  At some point, you should also spend some time doing shadow work so you can learn to be content in any state of being.

First, I should talk about the nature of the depression that I experienced for so long.  Because of it, I lived in the shadow.  I was diagnosed with Major Depressive Disorder (MDD).  One of the characteristics of MDD is that it continues for more than two weeks of depression at a time.  I didn’t feel particularly depressed.  I felt self-loathing at times.  I hated how I felt.  I felt lethargic and apathetic most of the time.  I hated to smile.  It hurt to laugh.  These last two statements may seem odd if you have never been so depressed that you can relate with them, but believe me, they’re true.

My first glimpse of the light was through anti-depressants.  For the first time in a long time, I started to understand what it felt like to be happy.  I had forgotten that feeling.  I liked it, so I tried to sustain it.  First, any time I felt myself slipping back into depression, I would request a higher dose of medication.  When I was on the maximum dosages for two anti-depressants, I realized I needed to try something else.  I would not recommend this method for finding the light within yourself.

After I discovered that medication alone would not help me, I realized that I needed to do some self-work.  Here are a list of strategies that I found (in no particular order) that brought out the light in me.  I wouldn’t recommend doing all of these at once.  Pick one and try it for a while.

  1. Write down one positive thing about my day at the end of the day.  Once you get good at this, try two positive things, then three.
  2. Write down one thing you’re grateful for each day.  Once you get good at this, try writing more than one.
  3. Spend 10 minutes a day in nature.
  4. Meditate.
  5. Adjust your diet.  I have found that eating certain foods made my depression worse.  It took a long time to cleanse my body before I could feel the differences that different foods made in my energy levels and mood.  You really have to be very body-conscious before this one will work.
  6. Move.  Go for a walk, ride a bike, dance, play tag with your kids, or anything else that you find to be fun.
  7. Reach out to friends and family.  Try and spend a little time each day talking to or spending time with friends and family.  Not on the internet, but in real life or on the phone.
  8. Pay attention to complaints.  If you complain a lot, try and become aware of it.  Try to lower the amount of time you complain each day.  If you hang out with people who constantly complain, try and find a way to diffuse the topic or spend less time with those people for now.
  9. Stop trying to compare your life with someone else.  Remember, it’s easy to make your life look perfect on the internet! The grass is always greener…
  10. Get your vitamin levels checked.  Often a lack of B-vitamins and vitamin D can produce a result that can make you feel depressed.
  11. See a therapist or counselor.
  12. Get your thyroid levels checked.  Sometimes hypothyroidism can be mistaken for depression (and in rarer instances other, more severe mental disorders).
  13. Focus on your spirituality.
  14. Take a break from things that cause you to check-out from reality like TV, movies, the internet, and fictional books.
  15. Do whatever it is you’re beating yourself up for not doing — be productive.
  16. Try minimalism (purging some possessions).  If you don’t want to be that extreme, at least clean your house/apartment/room.

I hope these help you find the light.  Please feel free to add more in the comments section!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Will Fate Find A Way?

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I just found out that I will be losing my job at the end of June.  I am really upset.  I’m not upset because I will miss my job.  Frankly, my job was miserable.  I hated it there.  There were some days I when I came home from work crying.  I am upset because I am the sole breadwinner for my family and I’m worried that I won’t be able to provide for my husband and our wonderful son.  I am upset because we completely uprooted and moved 6 hours away with a 1 month old baby just so I could get this job that hasn’t even lasted a full year.  I am upset because I have been told that my performance is not good enough when everyone loved my work at my last few jobs.

In the past when I’d lose my job or something else awful happened, I always trusted to the Gods and things always came out alright in the end.  I believed that everything happens for a reason.  I always bounced back.  Now that I have a family to take care of, I’m finding it much harder to trust my fate to the Gods.  It’s not that my belief in them has gotten any less.  In fact, I talk to them almost daily asking for a good job to come along.  I think it’s because my fear of failure is more.

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I suppose there are three different types of thought on the subject of fate.  The first believes whole-heartedly in fate and the Gods that what is happening is happening for a reason.  It’s comforting to be able to be told that everything is meant to be and to just leave everything up to fate.  It also is comforting to think that no matter how crappy your life is, that there is a plan.  I always used to say that everything in life is either a blessing or a lesson.  I loved to be able to look at things that way.  I just wish I could.

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Then there are the people that think things are a combination of choice and fate.  These people believe that fate puts things in our grasp, but we need to choose what to do.  I can see why this one has a lot of appeal.  Nobody likes to feel completely helpless in their life.  This option is a great middle ground for people that want to have faith, but also feel like they’re in control of their own destiny to some extent.

Fate-Quote-Concept-Determine-Personal-Destiny

The final group of people believes that we create our own destiny.  I guess I could see how this could be appealing.  However, I guess I just don’t believe in myself and my power to create a destiny like the one that I want.  I suppose this one is for those that are super confident in themselves to create the life they want.  That’s just not me.

I’m currently trying to work on believing the first type.  I’m trying to tell myself that I learned a lot at this current job.  That’s true.  I’m trying to tell myself that my husband and I needed to move here because we needed some closure with some of the people here. We both used to live here and were initially excited about coming back.  However, it seemed that they all had moved on without us in our absence and we really didn’t have the friends we thought we did.

I also think I’m disappointed.  I keep telling myself that each job is going to be the last one.  It will be the one I stay at until retirement.  Except for the last one where I worked for the Archdiocese.  I knew I wouldn’t stay there forever!  It was hard enough being a Pagan working for Catholics and keeping my mouth shut for three years.  I couldn’t have kept living that way.  It hurt not to be able to live my truth.  But I digress.

What is your opinion of fate?  Are some things by chance or by choice or are they meant to be?

Sabbats: Beltane

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Beltane or Beltaine (pronounced “bell-tayne” takes place on May 1st in the northern hemisphere and November 1st in the southern hemisphere.  This is my explanation of this holiday.  It may or may not work for you and your path.  There are a number of things that this Sabbat usually celebrates:

  •  Fertility (in plants, animals, and humans)
  • The consummation of the marriage between the God and Goddess
  • Flowers appearing on plants
  • Union
  • Maturity
  • Deep love

Some ways of celebrating culturally are:

  •  Dancing
  • Decorating a May pole
  • Wearing or making things with flowers
  • Having  a bonfire
  • Make a “wedding feast” using foods that are harvested around this time of year
  • Going on a picnic
  • Going for a hike

Some ritual ideas are:

  • The Great Rite (either actual or symbolic)
  • Fire magic
  • Fertility

Shadow Work

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In my time working with older and more experienced Pagans, one thing I have found is that most of them talk about “shadow work”.  The idea always bothered me because I mistook “shadow work” for doing energy work for negative outcomes.  I have recently discovered that shadow work is getting to know and spend time with the parts of your personality that you do not necessarily like.

I have never personally felt the need to do shadow work.  I just figured out why.  I spent about 15 years of my life struggling with depression.  Only about 8 of those years overlapped with my time as a Pagan.  When I was depressed, I spent my life on a daily, weekly, monthly, and yearly basis with my shadow self.  I spent all of that time being a self-loathing, pathetic-feeling, emotionally-unstable wreck.  Most people do shadow work to get to know their whole selves.  I had to do light work go get to know my whole self.  I had to claw my way bit-by-bit out of my shadow self, struggling towards the light.

Other people, who have lived much of their life in the light tend to repress any negative or “icky” emotion.  Some examples of “icky” emotions might be fear, emotional pain, jealousy, sadness, grief, regret, worry, a sense of unfairness, and negative feelings towards yourself or your body.  I am kind of an expert on these types of emotions as I lived with them for a long time.  If you repress any of these negative emotions regularly, you may find yourself expressing anger or rage (anger’s ugly cousin).  You may find yourself crying for no apparent reason.  Anxiety, depression, and/or panic attacks could occur.  You may have problems sleeping or over-sleeping.  You may have problems under-eating or over-eating.  You might have problems focusing or focusing on only one thing.  These can all be manifestations of ignoring and repressing these “icky” emotions.  They also might be problems involving a psychological disorder, so make sure to get yourself checked out with a psychologist if you think that might be the case.  Often the two go hand-in-hand.

As someone who lived for so long with my shadow-self, the best way I have found is take a very Buddhist approach to my emotions.  I acknowledge the emotion for what it is.  I allow that I am feeling it.  I do my best to not react to it while trying to feel the emotion fully.  That part is the most difficult because the strongest emotions make me want to act, to want to take some sort of action, just to end the horribleness of the feeling.  I have found that the more I allow myself to experience the feelingness of that emotion (for want of a better term), the less it effects me and the less I want to do something to react to it.

Anyone interested in doing shadow work, here is a great website which includes some great information, including step-by-step exercises: https://scottjeffrey.com/shadow-work/.

Do any of you have experience with shadow work?  What would you recommend to someone who is new to it?