Our Shadow Is Our Radiance Turned Inside Out

However you slice it, everyone is running from something inside of themselves. And if not running from, then being chased by. Whether it's a painful memory from our past, a wounding from childhood that has left an indelible imprint on our then all too vulnerable psyches - which of course unless consciously attended to, faced and eventually embraced, keeps playing out in all the hurtful and hurting ways that adversely affect our live and those we become intimate with. As they saying goes, we all got something to hide.

As I was told for years, if I didn't try so hard to cover up what was fairly obvious for others to clearly see and actually began to deal with my Shadow (though not called that at the time), I would not only be much happier, I would then create more satisfying and fulfilling relationships all the way around. What is hidden in the small print of the Awakening contract, is that going into the dungeons of our Shadow to finally identify, face and clear up all the cloaked junk hidden away, would be a painstaking and yes, often messy affair. That would probibly take years and for me, certainly has. 

It is a remarkable thing that compels a person to engage this quest to finally awaken to the Sacred they are. 

I mean, how many people actually make life-significant course changes that empower them to  make new proactive choices to then create a more fulfilling life experience? Not as a value judgement as much as pure observation and speaking from my personal experience, not so many and not nearly enough. Thus enters the Grace Factor. As Einstein once said: a mind can't solve the problems that that mind created. We can't get out of our sandbox by staying in the same box. Duh! If you keep doing what you did, you'll keep getting what you got.

For me, it was having a Spiritual awakening at an early age that no, didn't pave the way to effortless attainment, however, it did expand the ceiling of my consciousness to such a degree, that it put all else in my young life into crystal clear perspective. The downside of this was it devalued the significance the world placed on material attainment and the goals of personal satisfaction that most people seemed to be attracted to.

I believe the awakening process is a per-determined time-code, that is activated or set to go off a a certain point in a Soul's journey that in effect, is the pivot point for that wandering Soul to then begin searching for it's way back Home. All the neighborhoods that Soul spiraled into through and out of past, life time after life time, in order to return back to It's Source, has to be passed through in reverse. It is Grace that awakens us to the suffering we create for ourselves and from the Sufi tradition, it is Divine discontent that drives this innate impulse for us to finally return Home.

All the woundings we suffered going through the first pass on our living on Earth journeys, will have to be encountered on our way back out again. Because throughout recorded history, the nature of man's world has been less than kind to those living from a less than control, dominate, conquest and posses mentality, we have all experienced hardships and horrors that at the time, were simply impossible to reconcile let alone 'integrate in a healthy way.'  These painful experiences are the force and content that create our Shadow in the first place.

All the myriad hurtful moments we were told we were less than the magnificent Beings we in fact are, combined with all the experiences we were treated - and treated others - is dishonoring, hurtful and degrading ways built up the warehouse accumulation of experiences we simply had to stuff away in order to survive emotionally. In order to cope with the too much pain, we essentially filed it all away. And of course, it doesn't really ever go away, it just get stored along with the other memories too difficult to deal with at the time they occurred.

To turn and face the often enormous stock pile of emotional stagnant shit is the mythological and metaphorical Hero's Journey. This Sacred quest takes an even more than enormous commitment to transform, resolve and eventually 'heal.'

The Awakening Sacred Masculine At The Turning Of The Ages has on all necessary levels, chosen to do just this. In order to fully engage this enterprise, we all have to face the parts of ourselves that have prevented us from seeing ourselves as already Sacred. This is the huge value our Shadow affords us now. It is only through it that we can really Love our self back into Divinity.

... to be continued ...