This week we started to really notice the weather changing, temperatures dropping and the hours of light diminishing. And now with the clocks changing, it's the beginning of the half of the year I find the hardest here in Ireland: the one with the shortest days, the darkest season.
(Halloween drawing provided by Eva, thanks!)
As I mentioned in previous posts, many traditional celebrations at this time of the year, like Halloween, Diwali and the Day of the Dead, are a reflection of this fear of the darkness that surrounds us, with its ghosts and spirits, and also of our hope that light finally triumphs.
At the end of the day, the darkness that we see outside is nothing but a reflection of the darkness inside of us: our shadows, the things we don't like about ourselves. And also inside of us, we fight for our most luminous side, our most virtuous side, to finally win the battle.
Thinking about this, I realize that, in the same way I don't like horror movies, or movies showing violence, and therefore choose not to watch them, my reaction to unpleasant things in general is to try not to see or hear them, unless I absolutely can't avoid it. I don't want to feel the discomfort of having to acknowledge that things are not how they "should be" in my opinion, that people don't behave as "they should" (including me, of course), so my strategy is to block my ears (almost literally!) so that I don't have to hear.
But deep down, I know that's not the solution. Because the reality is that we all we have our shadows, the same way we all have our light. All of us human beings are complicated and contradictory in nature.
Y sí, hay aspectos de nosotros de los que no nos sentimos orgullosos, y a veces la intención con la que hacemos las cosas es más bien egoísta (lo cual puede traer consecuencias más o menos graves). Pero eso no significa que seamos «malos»; significa que somos personas humanas, como todos los demás.
A veces es tentador hacer oídos sordos e ignorar nuestra parte más sombría, o reprimirla y castigarla, a ver si así desaparece. Pero esto no funciona así. La solución no es «matar a nuestro ego», sino reconocerlo, aceptarlo y comprenderlo. Y cuesta, claro que sí, cuesta mucho, porque implica mirar para dentro y enfrentarnos a esa incomodidad de sentirnos malos, rotos o imperfectos. Pero también es muy liberador; nos alivia un montón de sufrimiento y nos permite por fin avanzar sin autoengañarnos.
Because at the end of the day, we need the shadows to be able to distinguish the light. We need to experience the consequences of our "shadier" actions in order to learn to make better decisions.
How about you? What's your relationship with your own lights and shadows? And how much darkness are you willing to see and transform in your life?