Dancing with the Dark: 8 Ways to Embrace Your Shadow

Lately I’ve been dancing with a deep sadness that comes and goes like a flickering light. While I love celebrating Christmas as a season of renewal and time of spiritual rebirth, sometimes the days before and after this sacred holiday can be a bit dark for me. Between the cold, grey weather, honoring my deceased mother’s Dec. 20th birthday, and the Dec. 21st Winter Solstice (the longest night of the year and the first official day of winter), I find myself taking a deep dive into the well of my soul. Often, worries or fears that may have been buried over the past year slowly begin to surface like ghosts from the past.

I used to cringe with discomfort when these feelings arose. I am an optimist and am blessed with a high “happiness set point” the majority of the time. But, I’ve learned there are many benefits to having tea with my dark side or shadow (a psychological term introduced by Swiss psychoanalyst Carl Jung that encompasses everything in us that is unconscious, repressed, undeveloped and denied; the dark rejected aspects of our being). I could easily justify my melancholy with a long list of socially acceptable woes, but now, I don’t even try.

Some of the gifts that have come from dancing with my shadow include:

• The opportunity to go inward and reflect on where I’ve been; balancing a rich “inner world” with our robust “outer world” is essential to emotional well-being. Contemplation is essential internal housecleaning—we need to clean out the closets and clear away the cobwebs to make space for what’s next. Download my virtual retreat and carve out a few hours this weekend to reflect and enjoy deep rest: Solace: Winter Solstice Self-Care Retreat.
• The chance to ask for help; to be reminded we’re interdependent and support is all around us if we just reach out and allow ourselves to be vulnerable.
• The gift of contrast: when we experience the opposite of happiness and joy, we are reminded how fleeting all of our emotions are. Contrast helps us get clear on what we truly desire.
• A chance to practice mindfulness: surrendering, trusting and knowing that “this too shall pass.”
• The opportunity to ask, “What am I de-pressing that is trying to surface?” My wise brother who navigates a wide spectrum of moods believes feelings of depression arise when we’re de-pressing something that is trying to come to light.
• A ticket to the most unpopular vacation destination known to humanity—“the unknown”—and a chance to realize that it’s not as bad as the brochures lead us to believe.
• An invitation to revisit old, stuck patterns and thoughts—repetitive worries or fears—and to ask if we’re ready to let these friends move on and find a new home.
• The realization that if my thinking, perspective or relationships are off-course, I have the choice to re-set my GPS and go a different route. Thank God.

Growing up, I loved attending Christmas Eve midnight mass with my large family. Silently and sleepily, we’d enter the dimly lit sanctuary, inhaling the smell of frankincense.

After communion, we’d wordlessly turn to our neighbors and light one another’s small tapered hand-held candles while quietly singing Silent Night. I loved the symbolism of this act, seeing the dramatic sea of flickering lights and knowing that from the darkness, we would all, eventually, return to the light.

Warmly,

I’D LOVE TO SUPPORT YOU ~ HERE ARE FOUR OPPORTUNITIES FOR SELF-RENEWAL: 

• *NEW* Jan. 30-Feb. 1st ~ Tending & Befriending Your Beautiful Self: A Women’s Self-Renewal Retreat at Kripalu Center for Yoga & Health (Berkshire Mountains, Western MA- photo above). Packages start at just $700 for this deep rest restorative retreat; register here!  
• *NEW* March 20-22nd for Awakening Your Wild Soul: Women’s Self-Renewal Retreat at 1440 Multiversity in the CA redwoods (image above) ~ an embodied spirituality retreat filled with joyful song, pleasureful movement and deep nature immersions with 1,000 year-old trees; learn more/ register.
• Facilitate women’s groups/retreats! Check out Secrets to Facilitating Life-Changing Women’s Groups/Retreats ~ an online, self-paced mentoring course. Would you like to empower women in your area through facilitating women’s groups/retreats? Based on Renee’s 30+ years experience training 450+ facilitators and teaching at world-renowned retreat centers like Kripalu Center for Yoga & Health. Omega Institute and Esalen Institute, this on-demand video course offers everything you need to start facilitating women’s circles and retreats. Only $195. Learn more.
• Live in the Southeast or near North Carolina? Join me in the NC Blue Ridge Mountains for a Wild Souls Adventure: authentic movement classes, community song circles, full moon hikes, meditation/resiliency workshops, women’s circles & more. Have me design a custom experience/ritual for your team/friends: learn more. Join us Sunday, Dec. 21 for a special Winter Solstice Wild Souls Authentic Movement Class; learn more here. 

Subscribe here to Live Inside Out, a weekly blog written by mindfulness coach/author/speaker and self-care evangelist Renée Peterson Trudeau. Passionate about helping men and women live more intentionally and find balance through the art/science of self-care, Renee has been facilitating high-impact, interactive workshops for Fortune 500 companies, national nonprofits/conferences and organizations/teams worldwide for 25 years. Her work has appeared in The New York Times, Fast Company, Good Housekeeping, US News & World Report, AARP, Spirituality & Health and more. She and her team have certified more than 450 facilitators in 10 countries around the globe to lead self-renewal groups/retreats based on her pioneering self-care curriculum. 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 and her husband live in Western North Carolina and they have one son in New York City. Her latest venture is Wild Souls Nature Adventures. More on Renee here.