My usual morning routine is as following. I wake up at 5:30, have one hour of yoga, followed by meditation, then shower and breakfast. Between 7:30 and 9 I try to read new books that ended up in my reader a day before. I scan through the first pages and table of contents. In case i connect to the book, I give it my morning, read a bit and keep it for later. Otherwise I delete it. In the mornings I don’t engage in continuous reading of previously read books. Evenings are kept for it. I like it this way. My expansion qualities are higher in the mornings, evenings are my contractions. Like a long breath that takes a day to be completed. A breath that contains many breaths. Expanding and contracting.
Yesterday morning started to read a book by Robert Johnson called Owning your own shadow. One sentence caught my attention: The shadow gone autonomous is a terrible monster in our psychic house. The main idea behind shadow integration is to get to know the darker side or your ego and find the ways to be at peace with it. Main motivation for you to do so, is that no matter how hard you try, and how much you disbelieve the existence of a shadow, there is no way one can be free of it. So, there are two choices you can make, if there is even such a thing as choice, but let’s say there is. For now. Either to get to know your shadow, accept it and integrate in your life or not engage, keep it in the unconscious and save yourself some rather nasty work. The downside of the latter, is that it will cause you trouble in social interactions, manifested in uncontrolled emotional responses and incomprehensible actions. Hovering about the couch doesn’t make dust disappear, it only accumulates with time and eventually from dust transform in to threat to respiratory system or dermatological condition. And then when one starts coughing or itching go and find what causes it. Lifelong stock of invisible dust reveals itself.
I found the metaphor of a house very suitable when thinking about the shadow. Nobody has to know about what is inside of our home, either we keep it clean or hoarding things. Do we have bright wallpapers or a secret basement with socially deviant artefacts? Do we wake up at 5 or at 11, do we pee with your door open or we snack at night? Nobody knows what we do there, in our home. Only we know. And nobody cares much how we keep our household. The only thing people care is the quality of contact that we share. And this is the part where the conditions of the house matter. Keep our shadows within ourselves, nobody has to know and realise that the only way a shadow comes into contact with the world is through our behaviour. Remaining ignorant to the shadow keeping it away from our consciouses will make us wonder, why everyone is so afraid of us? Why people are angry with us? Why nobody lives us? The answer to these questions is not in people but in our own house. Perhaps it is time for a cleaning? Is the shadow hiding somewhere under the couch? Or in the fridge? Or being the television? Go look for it. Become friends and make sure is it comfortable inside so it doesn’t want to escape and overshadow the sun. Start with small steps, bit by bit lure it out, be patient and gentle. The shadow is a sensitive, unstable but very powerful creature, capable of the magnificent destructions impossible to repair.