Honoring your Shadow - Self Acceptance of the highest form.

Honoring your shadow. 

I have been thinking about this concept a lot lately. It speaks volumes to me. 

In essence it's a mind set of accepting and honoring all parts of yourself. whether they are dark, light, good, bad or things you want to hide. 

Honoring oneself regardless of your shadows and darkness is true acceptance. 

I used to hide those parts away from others. The darker parts of myself would stay behind closed doors only for the closest in my life to see...and sometimes they're not pretty. 

But, I feel as though it's a disservice to myself.

 If I can truly accept and honor all parts of me, the darkness included, then I am truly and profoundly loving myself authentically. 

We all have shadows. We all have dark and emotional sides to us. We have learned from a young age that certain sides of us need to stay in hiding...especially in public. This, my friends...is such a sad reality. Not one person I know has always felt beautifully, perfectly acceptable and happy all the time...yet, I've seen it in their interaction...them hiding these deeper, darker intense parts of them self as they silently brew. I've seen the smiles and felt the pain...Hell, I've been the fraudulent smiler over and over again. In order to allow true growth I think there needs to be some discomfort in life. Things should get a bit racy, conversations can get a bit dark and twisted, and your freak flag can fly. 

So, as the winter blows in and the darkness grows longer I have been pondering this acceptance, self love, and true embrace of my deeper parts.  The parts that at times don't feel great, don't feel "clean", or don't feel acceptable. The parts of me that I NEED to let out in order to grow as a person...the parts that I suggest you let out as well. 

We can allow these parts of us to show through by embracing our darker emotions, embracing the parts of us that we shy away from around others and truly just feel these things, accept them and learn from them. Even as a mother I firmly believe it is acceptable and right to show my children that life isn't always sunshine and rainbows. It is raw, confusing and weird at times, but without the dark there can be no light.  Without good there can be no bad...and vice versa. 

You might call me a moody broody artist at times, but I am okay with that.