There comes a point when you realise that some things keep repeating.
The same argument with different people, the same feeling of not being enough no matter how much you do, the same disproportionate reaction to something small that you cannot quite explain. You have read about it, you have talked about it, perhaps you have been in therapy and you understand it perfectly, and still it keeps happening. That happens because there are parts of you that were left outside your awareness a long time ago, when showing them was not safe, and from there they go on making decisions without you noticing.
Shadow work consists of going to look for them.
Not to correct you or to fix anything, but to look straight at what you have spent years avoiding and to discover that there is no monster in there. What almost always appears is strength of your own that you had to put away: the anger you could not show, the desire that did not fit, the freedom you did not allow yourself, the tenderness that made you vulnerable.
When those parts return to their place, you stop spending energy on sustaining a version of yourself that no longer serves you, and you begin to live from something much closer to who you are.
