Sophia Learns to Roar
The shadow is a storehouse for everything that we have denied, repressed, or had to disconnect from for survival reasons early in life. The shadow is what we are not aware of within ourselves. In other words, we cannot see our own shadow - it is unconscious.
Here’s an example of how this process can unfold: Sophia’s parents both have their own traumas connected with emotional intensity. When Sophia cries as an infant, both her parents pull away from her because they feel overwhelmed and don’t know how to deal with her “intensity.”
When Sophia gets angry, the way every child does, her parents keep pulling away and emotionally separate from her instead of comforting her by taking her into their arms or simply soothing her through physical contact.
To get her needs for warmth and closeness met, Sophia quickly learns to repress any intense emotion she feels. She no longer cries hard, neither does she get angry like before. She smiles to her parents and they respond lovingly and provide the physical closeness she desperately needs as a child.
Sophia adapted to her environment for reasons of pure survival by repressing how she actually felt. This is the only way she was able to get her needs met.
Later in life, now an adult, she finds that she’s having a very hard time expressing herself when she is upset or angry. She automatically smiles and tries to please her partner in moments when she would rather express herself and make a request or say “no” to him.
Sophia’s power and healthy anger (her healthy “no”) is in her shadow. She is not connected with these essential aspects of her being. As a result, she often feels scared and disempowered, especially when she thinks she might be abandoned (the way her parents abandoned her emotionally by pulling away from her) if she expresses herself authentically.
Her fear of abandonment is also in her shadow - she is not aware of why it is so difficult for her to express herself clearly and directly even when she feels very upset at times. As she gets into shadow work, she discovers “the nice girl” personality that she had to adopt as a child to get her needs met.
The more she gets in touch with the wounding of her earlier dynamics with her parents, the less scared she is of being abandoned. She is learning to be there for herself and to take care of the scared little girl in her.
Through role-plays and emotion-focused practices, she is getting in touch with her power and her righteous anger (her healthy “no”). As she learns to embody her fire, she begins to feel less scared - she feels empowered to speak up and to stand her ground when she needs to.
She is bringing her authentic self-expression out of her shadow. Now that she can be herself with more ease and with much less fear, she feels a lot more at peace in her life and in her body.
Her relationships become much more fulfilling and mutually supportive and loving, because she can now express her boundaries and needs and make requests.
As she continues to explore her emotions and pain, she begins to feel more complete and whole exactly the way she is instead of thinking there is something wrong with her emotions or her “intensity.”
Getting in touch with the child in her also brings out the child-like qualities of her being: Spontaneity and joy, awe and wonder, natural openness and curiosity.
She finds life becomes more fun and much easier to manage when she is not living in her mind (in her fears, self-doubt, and worries) and instead directly connects with her emotions and pain and takes care of her real needs with both curiosity and self-compassion.
As she continues with her daily self-connection and grounding practices, she begins to feel very powerful in a truly humble and human way: Her trust in her own capacity to deal with Life is getting stronger. She feels much more embodied than before and more awake and peacefully present in her day-to-day life.
By getting in touch with everything that she is, she is naturally starting to embody what is called the Lion’s Roar in Buddhism: Unshakable self-confidence and faith in Life.
A lioness of true strength and natural courage is being born!
It is more than possible (it is our birthright!) to get in touch with and embody everything that we are: Our tenderness and power, our vulnerability and true strength, our fire and our love. These are not opposites, but complimentary aspects of our being. These are doorways into wholeness.
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