The Shadow Work That Frees You To See Some Light

Sometimes all that’s left is to face the fact we’ll never receive the love we yearn for from the people we care about.

Sometimes all that’s left is to agree to love those our heart wants to love though it hurts to know they can’t love us back.

Sometimes all that’s left is to let that person you crave their approval die so you can be free to see life beyond the shadows.

The grief will be real. It will be strong and powerful and perhaps even devastating to the point that something will fall apart. And the only thing that can fall apart or break is not you.

You can never really break. The fragile bough you hang on thinking it gives you safety and stability will break. And when it does it will set you free. When it does it will lead you to the other side of grief, to a new and fresh land of life waiting to be narrated by you.

Notes on grief:

It’s never too late. You can start even after 30, 40, 50... years.

It comes most unexpected, perhaps in most inconvenient times. When queuing up at the super market, when walking from one place to the other, when getting on the train, when meeting a colleague afterwork for a drink. Grief has no schedule like the waves in the sea cannot be predicted they just rise.

It can come over many different losses. A dwindling friendship. An unfulfilled dream. The passing away of a dear one. The state of the earth.

It can last for a short or a long time. You’ll never know before you start.

Each wave of grief is different. It’s only the first intense waves that you need to brave. Or surf. Or just let them carry you away with all the exhaustion and confusion that it means.

Most of my own work and the one I do with clients is meeting the unseen parts, bringing light to shadowed places. The “darkness” in our life (sadness, anger, frustration, addiction, loss, whatever it is for you) is only a place that hasn’t seen light. Yet. The very act of ‘turning towards to look at’ is an act of love. And love, my dear friend, is the kindle of all the lights we know in the world.

Sometimes all that’s left is to turn towards the most scary spot in your life to see how shadow turns into light.