(Video) Can I Honor My Shadow AND My Light?

“Someone I loved once gave me a box full of darkness. It took me years to understand that this too, was a gift.” Mary Oliver

This week is typically my heaviest of the year emotionally. Between the arrival of the Winter Solstice Dec. 21 (the first day of Winter and the longest night of the year), holiday mayhem, my mother’s Dec. 20th birthday and my Jan. 7. birthday, I often find myself sliding in to a state of melancholy. If this happens, rather than run from feeling sad, I do my best to sit quietly and see what gifts or messages want to emerge from my shadow (read my post 9 Ways to Embrace Your Shadow.).   

There is a beautiful song/video from Barbara McAfee: “Every time I go in to the darkness, I return with fistfuls of jewels.” Will you join me in exploring what jewels may be waiting for you during this time?

Here’s the question I’m sitting with this week in my 2-minute “Live Inside Out” video check-in:

Want more support for finding your center during this holiday season? For a limited time, download SOVEREIGNTY: A Women’s Self-Renewal Retreat (only $59) and listen to my recent podcast on The Power of Retreats & Self-Care for Uncertain Times with my friend Torey Hill. 

I’d love to hear about the gifts you’re uncovering this week as you explore your shadow side.

HOW CAN I SUPPORT YOU? HERE ARE THREE OPPORTUNITIES:

• **Available for a limited time as a download.** SOVEREIGNTY: A Women’s Self-Renewal Retreat  A luscious, replenishing afternoon retreat with like-minded women. Poetry + singing + journaling + nature + connection + solo time + self-care resources + Yoga Nidra deep relaxation session.  Step in to your personal power and sovereignty. Only $59. Learn more. 
• Wild Souls Nature Adventures (based in Western NC where I live) offers magical, nature-based programs and practices to help you feel more grounded, alive and resilient. Winter Solstice Tues., 12/21 we’ll have a special in-person Meditation & Yoga Nidra session in Brevard, NC. Read more and sign up to get notices! 
• **NEW 2022 Retreats**~ learn more. I just announced THREE new Awakening Your Wild Soul: A Women’s Self-Renewal 2022 retreats. Join me at 1440 Multiversity (CA), Art of Living Retreat Center (NC), Kripalu Center for Yoga & Health (MA). Save your spot now; they’re already half-full! 

Subscribe here to Live Inside Out, a weekly blog written by mindfulness coach/speaker and self-care author Renée Peterson Trudeau. Passionate about helping men and women find balance through the art/science of self-care, her work has appeared in The New York Times, Good Housekeeping, US News & World Report, AARP, Spirituality & Health and more. She and her team have certified more than 400 facilitators in 10 countries around the globe to lead self-renewal groups for women based on her pioneering work. She’s the author of two books on life balance including the award-winning The Mother’s Guide to Self-Renewal: How to Reclaim, Rejuvenate and Re-Balance Your Life.  Renee lives in the Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina where she just launched Wild Souls Nature Adventures.  Originally from Austin, TX, she and her husband are enjoying a new empty nest. More on Renee here.