wanting what we want

Wanting what we want often requires us to integrate shadow.

Because wanting something can bring up all sorts of ideas about what that means about who we are.

It can stir up thoughts like:

- It’s selfish to want more time for myself.

- It’s shallow to want more money or success.

- It’s dangerous to want a deeper experience of my own power.

- I’m a bad person for wanting personal fulfillment in a world where so many people are suffering.

We can challenge thoughts like these + pick apart their logic + change our minds + turn our attention in more supportive directions.

Which is important.

But it’s also important to look at + integrate these shadow parts.

The parts of ourselves we’ve stuffed down + exiled.

The selfish parts. The needy parts. The shallow parts. The powerful parts.

Whichever parts frustrate, frighten, or disgust us.

Simply because they’re alive in us.

They invite us into deeper awareness -- and offer us resources + energies we can’t access any other other way.

And when we push them away, we live more fragmented lives, cut off from the fullness of who we are in all of our complexity + humanity.

Which means we have less awareness around how our shadows are moving + active in us -- and fewer resources for relating to these parts with intention + discernment as we go after what we want + create the lives we crave.

There’s a lot of power + richness + possibility in our shadowy parts, and I’ve found that when I just give these parts of me space to simply be + exist -- when I look a little more closely + make a little more room -- there’s less internal discord and more creativity, equanimity, and access to my core energies.

So what might your shadowy parts have to offer you? And how might you give them some room to be as they are so that you can receive their gifts?