November Shadow
“Nothing to hide, nothing to prove.”
This statement changed my life. If I have nothing to prove and nothing to hide, I can really live without as many defenses and lay down the heavy armor that has been a burden to carry. Learning about the shadow and the feelings that I have spent a lifetime hiding from others, is actually one of life’s best kept secrets. If we can be courageous enough to bring these parts of ourselves to the surface, we can expend less energy in hiding parts of ourselves and begin to be able to really see all aspects of our emotions— as we do a diamond. MULTI-FACETED and BEAUTIFUL! The armor that at one point protected me is now guarding me from giving and receiving love.
"To heal, we have to lift the armor carefully-it saved our lives, after all. It's like moving your best friend off to the side of the path. You honor her presence like a warm blanket that has kept you safe and sound during wintery times." - Jeff Brown
It is in the unveiling of these aspects of ourselves we are able to fully step into life.
Our hearts splinter throughout our lives just by living and learning as we travel through. We learn through our family, societal norms and cultural pressures about what is "good" and "bad". We begin to label these in ourselves and quickly learn to hide the bad and magnify the good qualities. This KNOWING very quickly turned into a process of hiding and pushing down what we deem as unsavory. This pushing away/down became essential to make our lives "safer". A story we quickly make up is... "If we only show others our "good" side we will not have to deal with being alone."
My personal adaptive strategy became “being helpful” and not causing drama, as well as keeping everyone at arm’s length. This is how the great abandonment from ourselves begins. At some point, something felt too big for us to feel and too scary for us to hold, and in our innocence we decided to turn away from our deep feelings which in turn makes us betray our own needs and wants. The wound that was created was keeping everyone at a distance because the people in my inner circle are not trustworthy or safe.
The gift of movement, breath, cognitive therapy, and meditation have helped bring unconscious aspects of myself into conscious awareness. These incredible tools helped me to move into my feeling body and out of my thinking head. I remember in therapy learning that as a child to survive we use coping mechanisms as a way of survival. These are called adaptive strategies and now I get an opportunity to choose if they are working for me now as an adult. A big part of my coping skills became not trusting the love and attention of others and not letting people get close to me.
I really got hungry to learn about loving, trusting myself and finding safety within me. I remember hearing the quote from Rumi that says “your task is not to seek for love, but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it.” This was the beginning of seeing the soul lesson in this wound. Maybe my role is to learn to love and accept myself in this lifetime and all other relationships will be drawn to this magnetic force of wholeness.
Carl Jung called our hidden creative potential the Golden Shadow. The bright qualities we admire in other people and disown in ourselves. It has been known to be called our submerged greatness. The Golden Shadow I have gained has really been what has created the Space. This poem from Tanya Markul that sums it up so clearly—
“I have grown from blaming everyone else to taking responsibility for my story- from looking outside for the missing parts to finding the answers within myself- from playing the fragile voiceless girl to becoming a strong, roaring woman- from having a fear based mentality to living with a courageous, abundant heart- from feeling embarrassed for the space I take up to holding my own with pride- from being unable to fight my own battles to an army of one.” - Tanya Markul
So it is my mission on earth, this time around, to lead people back to themselves. It is my deepest honor to remind souls that they are worthy of loving, discovering, and knowing deeply in this lifetime. I desire a community that is learning about our shadow and bringing it into the light more often than not. I love teaching people to show up completely themselves and to take away the shame. The ability to do the work on ourselves is essential so we can authentically lead others on this path of honesty and vulnerability. I really believe the deepest reward in this work is we have more energy to move us forward. We lose more energy hiding and proving ourselves then to just show up and be clear what is coming up for us. It takes extreme courage and bravery. Let's be warriors together!
Love and Light.
Written by Kelli McMullen
I N S T A G R A M
C H A L L E N G E
An Instagram challenge to invite the shadow into awareness.
Nov 15 - 19
N O U R I S H
SHOP LOCAL, SHOP SMALL.
We are honored to be in our 5th (!!!) year of business. Only 40% of small businesses last as long as we have. It’s truly remarkable all of the things that go into our operation and one of the places we have been amping up is our retail selections. We love to seek out unique and beautiful small businesses that enhance our experience here. We have recently added several new brands that we are currently loving. We invite you to shop small this holiday season. Quality over quantity has always been our motto.
Stay tuned for —> The Box, a collection of products that come in a box for the complete experience. Wrapped and ready.
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We offer several inner work sessions that are led by our Guides at the Space. Life Coaching, Spirituality Mentoring, Enneagram Consulting, teaching different modalities of knowing and honoring the story within you.
Want to know more? Click below for more info.
We love the feeling of normalcy that we have gained after all our world has gone through in the last (almost!!!) two years. We have been curating places for you to arrive and check in with yourself. Below are access points to learn more. Connecting deeper to the places within you that are ready to be seen.
C H E C K
IT O U T
Highlighting a Space community members, Brianna Belanger and Rachel Kovelle, new business. AllMade Whole Food Meals is a packaged meal prep food service that is local to the Brighton area, and made with clean and wholesome ingredients.
They are doing a soft launch by offering sides and desserts this Thanksgiving. Contact them to get yours today! Or chat options for weekly meal deliveries for yourself!
