Day 312: Living With Shadows
Deep down beneath all the layers we have built up and crafted around ourselves is an entrance to the part of our past we would rather not invite others to see. We keep it shut up with a heavy cover, it contains all the memories, events, or actions that are tinted darker than the rest of our past.
Every mental landscape has such an entrance, it leads down into the darkness and it is filled with long menacing shadows. The creatures that we have contained there live on in the depth, waiting for the cover to be slid off and their chance for escape to be made clear. They watch and wait, their hands clawing at the shadows trying to find a surface solid enough to bring them closer to the top.
Some of our greatest fears are often wrapped up in the thought of people finding out about the things we hide down in those depths. We would rather people didn't find out what our past consisted of. We would rather no one knew about the shadows that have walked in our lives, we don't want them to know we have suffered in our own history.
However, life is not meant to be lived ignoring the darkness we have endured in our lies. They are as much apart of our story as the good and the light that has existed in our lives as well. It may be time to allow the cover over the depths to be pushed off and to allow the light to seep through the darkness.
The evil we have faced in our past does not make us any less of a person, it does not taint us or make us less worthy. We are not the darkness we have faced, we are what we chose to become from that place. It is our decision to try and act as if those creatures do not exist or to learn to live with them side by side with the goodness we have known.
Allow the shadows and the light of life to live side by side, open yourself up to the realization that our pain does not define our history. Welcome others into your story and show them that there was pain and that's okay. You might be surprised at how this opens them up and helps them to share with you their own shadows. Living with the darkness, does not have to be a nightmare.
The darkness is part of our story, but it is not all that there is. Hiding it away intensifies it's grip on your mind and on your life. By allowing the light to often the edges of the darkness, you take away it's death grip over you. It is okay to acknowledge what you have faced, it is okay to not be okay with what has happened, and it is okay to allow it to live in your mind without being shut away in the darkest recesses possible.
Our past may be written, but our future is not. Try not to allow the fear of adding new shadows to your life keep you from living fully.
Until Next Time,
Lillian Merritt
(concerning, belonging to, or inhabiting the underworld)
Within the deepest shadows kept far below the surface something stirs, a sliver of light awakens that which is kept below. Upon the surface the creatures are expected as a brilliant sunrise chases away the darkness.
