damp dark place

I am following a path on a steep wooded hillside, and it's a beautiful bath: stony underfoot, but with also a carpet of leaves. It is somehow very welcoming to walk on this path. The trees feel friendly. Every now and again there's a nice view. The energy is somehow warm, inviting.

But I've come to a place, a spot, where a couple of slightly overhanging, dark boulders have formed a very shady place, where the sun never reaches. And suddenly the energy feels different. There is a feeling of foreboding. The darkness, the damp: a place that is not inviting at all, a place to be avoided. It is a stark contrast to the rest of the path.

And seeing this dark place, it reminds me of our shadow side: all those aspects of ourself that we want to deny, the things we feel shame about, things we feel guilty about, the things we are afraid of in ourself. We all have a shadow. Usually these things have been pushed deep into the unconscious part of our mind, so we may not be aware of them at all, but they are there. And of course, we are trying to avoid them, just as I feel to avoid this dark, overhanging, damp spot.

However, whilst those shadow elements are in us, they will be affecting us. We cannot really suppress them. And so – if we are to lead a healthy life, a life where we feel we are whole, integrated, where we respect ourself, where we love ourself – we have to be prepared to look at this shadow, unearth it, expose it, bring it into the light. We have to admit all these things that are in us, even though we don't like them. It's as if I have to step into this damp dark place, even though I feel this sense of foreboding, even though there's an urge to run away and not go there. With our shadow it doesn't work, though, that running away. We need to face it. We need to go to that dark place within ourself. We need to bring it into the light.