The awareness, acceptance, forgiveness and usefulness of darkness

Everyone is born with traits inside of them that are extremely hard for their environment to overcome.

Nature is the most powerful force known to man, and the sooner we accept our liabilities and limitations, then the more fulfilled we can become.

That’s why there’s no reason to beat ourselves up about our flaws, weaknesses and quirks. It’s quite the opposite, in fact. We can use them to our advantage. We can build a narrative about our imperfections that gives us greater perspective and power.

Now, this doesn’t take us off the hook for owning and improving ourselves, but it does invite us to accept, forgive and even love the parts of who we are that we find gross.

One practice that helps me is called shadowing, which is the act of channeling all the dark and unconscious aspects of your personality in the service of your goals. It’s giving your darkness compassionate room to breathe. Keeping all of your passions in play, letting even your perversions and aversions into the picture of your life. Since you never know what kind of positive outcomes they might lead to.

Like during my morning journaling meditation. My cruelest and most awful thoughts come pouring out onto the page. It’s both impressive and intimidating to observe just how many disgusting ideas can cross my mind in a twenty minute period.

Things I wouldn’t dream of saying in public.

And that’s okay, because not a soul will ever see those journal pages. Not even me. They’re deleted the moment time is up. My meditation exists in a container of safety. Which allows me to engage in a private, honest conversation with my liabilities and limitations that doesn’t happen anywhere else.

That’s a powerful tool. Doing so helps me accept that certain things will be part of me, even if they’re not the heart of me.

Look, just because I have an offensive or ridiculous thought at five in the morning in the privacy of my own mind doesn’t make me a monster. Merely human. There’s no thought police that’s going to bang down my door and take me away. And there’s no social media cancel committee that’s going to tweet out and reveal my darkest urges to the world.

Bottom line is, this shadowing practice improves my overall happiness. By throwing all of my flaws and perversions onto the table, it trains my heart to be more compassionate towards myself, which helps me become more compassionate towards others.

That’s a healthy thing that makes me a better person in the world.

Compare that with the alternative, which would be apologizing for something that’s out of my control and only doing and saying things other people approve of and find impressive.

Sounds exhausting to me.

If you’re struggling with accepting some parts of who you are, see if you can’t change your relationship with them. See if you can’t use your darkness to make yours and other people’s lives better.

Are you cutting off your connection to your most honest impulses and powerful insights?