I’ve spent almost half of my life trying to avoid my past traumas, and issues. I believed that the passage of time would heal the pain, each tick of the clock, every hour, every passing year would take me further and further away from it all.

With time, I found that I could paint them over any way I’d like.

Colour them with positivity, excuses, illusions, forget-fullness or denial.

Whatever made me feel better about the pain.

In Junior High School, I wasn’t popular at all. I was often teased, called ugly, stupid(among other things) and one day I remember ketchup being thrown on me by some of the kids.

It was soaked into my blue shorts, and my grey-blue Gecko T-shirt.

The smell of ketchup went everywhere with me that day.

It ate lunch with me, taking refuge in the cotton fibres of my shorts, and in my classes, wafting up at the perfect moment to remind me that I didn’t ‘belong’.

I went home that day and didn’t say a word to anyone.

I was eleven.

Through time I felt like I had gotten over it; that it didn’t affect me any longer.

But to the wounded eleven year old it still did. The emotions still happening, trapped in time, playing over and over again on repeat, with no end in sight.

Our shadows…

They will come out. Inside us is where they live, echoing throughout our lives, setting off chain reactions until we find a way to diffuse them.

They are a part of us, uttered with our sweet syllables, gathering in the crooks of our elbows, the bends in our knees and in the recesses of our minds, sprouting like lima beans from the cracks.

When the sun rises they will still be there, living in each breath, moments we share with others, every drink of water, and co-mingled in the taste of cookie dough ice cream on our tongues.

Our pain will show up in many forms, as a selfish child, the abandoned one, the victim, the wounded lover, the revenge seeker, the insecure genius, the cowardly prince and the arrogant fool.

Without the shadows in our lives, following us, entangling us, haunting us, we would never know where we hurt.

We’d never learn that they are pieces of our soul’s light that have been forgotten, burned out by the pain, trauma, and moments that we thought we’d healed but have yet to touch.

Our shadows are asking us be held firmly, wrapped in our arms, swaddled like a child and given the opportunity to scream at the top of their lungs, or cry for hours with snot and spittle everywhere…

So that they can give voice to their pain, so that we can finally be free.

*

I invite you to download my complimentary e-book, Courageous Acts of Self-Love, filled with quotes to spark your state and mind.