“O, what a tangled web we weave…” – you know the rest from Sir Walter Scott. You may be thinking this blog is about spiders and their webs and I’m sorry to disappoint perhaps some of you. I’m borrowing from this particular species as their webs serve a definite purpose to ensnare their prey. A sticky wicket if you will that humans can fall into at times if we’re not careful with weaving to deceive. To be sure spiders are only one of the many brilliant species on Earth who simply don’t deceive themselves. Certainly not about who and how they are.
As I said though, this isn’t about them. It’s about our species’ continually-amazing-at-least-to-me ability to deceive ourselves. About our very own thoughts and emotions by looking the other way when we feel them sneaking upon us. As if they came from somewhere else other than our own brains and hearts. And as if we don’t know how they got there at all. Now that I think about it, it’s not dissimilar to our physical shadow. You’ve seen the cute videos where kids try to unsuccessfully run away from their shadows. Because just like the physical shadow we cannot run away from the mental/emotional ones. We do this as times because we’re so uncomfortable with what we think and how we feel. So we run. Fast and far away from authenticity in an attempt to exert some form of control just so we don’t think or feel. Over whatever it is we don’t want to think or feel. And so that we can continue to blame, justify or defend ourselves to others and put our mostly shadow thoughts and feelings on them. Tangled web, indeed.
The point isn’t to ignore or to control because that tends to be an immediate set-up for a battle of push/pull of both thought and emotion. They exist, after all, and need to be validated as existing in our energetic space. They are present for a purpose. To bring attention usually to something that’s not in alignment with your particular vibration. Just that and only that. You’re not being asked to take action on them, you’re not being asked to decide anything about them. The one and only point to them is illumination of where you are and where it’s better for you to be. To a space of pure joy and not in a place of negativity or stuckness in either thoughts or emotions.
That’s your body speaking up for you. The way that it tightens or tenses when a thought or emotion comes up that doesn’t serve your highest and best good. Because the body only wants one thing for you: well-being. In all ways.
The next time you find yourself in a place of deception perhaps about what you’re thinking or feeling simply because of what you’re thinking or feeling I invite you to move in this direction. First, embrace and observe what the thoughts or emotions are. Ask yourself questions about the why behind these thoughts or emotions that after all, as a being of light, probably do belong only to the experience of being human. Then, ask yourself – where do I want to be? It’s not necessary to move by leaps and bounds immediately to a new place of being. Baby steps, it’s all about baby steps. I guarantee two things: the moment you actually face your thoughts or emotions is when you harmonize with them and actually have the power to guide yourself and them to a different place. And secondly, you’ll begin to notice any patterns of thoughts in addition to the individual ones that are asking for your review. Shadow is simply the other side of the light and as such holds as much empowerment as the light. It’s just from a different part of Source from which no one needs to be deceived.