Outing My Shadow

We all have shadows - parts of ourselves we feel shame around and believe we have to keep in the dark, hidden from the rest of the world at all costs. But, when we keep these parts of ourselves hidden, they only gain power over us.

I deeply believe that what we don’t own, owns us. If we push away the parts of ourselves we feel shame around, they can begin to entrench themselves into our lives. They start to shape our beliefs around ourselves, influence our identities, and begin to dictate our actions and mindsets. Without realizing it, we can build our lives around hiding our shame. Our life becomes a wall that is built around us to keep our shame in and the rest of the world out. Our shame keeps us stuck.

But, when we bring our shadows out of hiding and shine light on them, they are forced to loosen their grip on us. They begin to feel less scary and all consuming. In fact, some may start to feel untrue, funny, even.

So here’s me outing (some of) my shadows —

I feel shame around where I’m at in life - that my parents still financially support me and I’m not yet where I wish I was in my career. I feel shame around how much of my teenage and adult life up until this point has been instructed by my eating disorder.

I feel shame around wanting to be confident. I think I can’t be confident because I’m not ____ (skinny, pretty, smart, successful, fill in the blank) enough. In my mind, wanting to be confident has been portrayed as self-centered, dramatic, attention seeking. The same goes for wanting to be seen. It is why I battle so much shame and insecurity around showing up online in the way I am starting to.

I can feel shame when I start to feel happy. I think I can’t be happy because I haven’t struggled enough, I’m too privileged, spoiled, not worthy of happiness. And yet, I also feel shame when I’m not happy or when I’m struggling and need support. I know my privilege and therefore I carry around the belief that everyone has it worse than me, so who am I to ask for help or complain or struggle…

I don’t like the fact that I have insecurities. That I associate so closely with my body. I want to not care. To accept all of myself. Be unattached to my body. Recognise at all moments that I am only a soul. Be confident and never care what others think of me.

I want to ignore my shame. But that wouldn’t be accepting all of myself. That would be rejecting the human parts of me. Because I am not just a pure perfect soul floating around. I am a human, on earth, in a body. And being a human is hard and confusing. Insecurities are inescapable, we all have them.

In order to be and embody the grounded, confident, self-assured energy I desire, I must welcome in my insecurities.

And it makes sense that having a body feels strange. It is not the truth of who we are and yet society has told us it is all of us, that our body is the sum of our parts. And it makes sense that many of our shadows are contradictory and irrational, they are connected to the unending stories society has fed us. And it makes sense that we fight to hide our shadows, we were not born with our shame, our shame has been taught and passed down to us, interwoven into our lives.

In order to free ourselves from our shame, we must be able to see it, understand it, talk about it. We can not ignore, reject or push our shadows away. We must accept and work with them, that is how we find peace with these parts of us, and ultimately, with ourselves. That is how we transform that energy.

All we can do is keep showing up. We can choose what we let dictate our actions, our mood, our worth - and I know that I won’t let my identity and my life be dictated by my shadow or shame.

What about you? What are your shadows and how do they impact your life? How can you slowly start to out your shadow and own your shame?

You don’t have to publicly scream your shame from the rooftops, you can start by first even admitting and opening up to yourself about what you feel shame around. Despite how challenging and uncomfortable this may feel at first, when you normalize knowing your shadow, it starts to feel less scary.

Take away the power from your shame. You deserve to live from the light of your worthiness.