Shadow

There is a process of reattaching the emotions to the body. I realize, that over time, I came to discount my emotions as lacking the reality of say a stomach pain. The pain was real. The emotion was something else. I have learned the practice of taking inventory of how I feel, starting with .... of all things.... how I feel. Are there sensations, within my body, that are asking for attention? Pains? Tingling sensations? I learn to relax the tensions where ever I am holding them...my stomach..... my shoulders.... my neck..... I listen to these feelings, and am coming to know that they are indeed my feelings.

Abandonment. Betrayal. Inadequacy. Recurring feelings that are as much a part of who I am as my arm, or my leg, or my foot. Pick a part. Its all the same.

I learned this exercise while trying to come to some accommodation with depression. I read parts of a book my a female Budist monk. I came to picture the meditations where I learned to accept my feelings of depression as the process of reattaching my shadow. Around the same time, I was reading some Germanic myths, and in one, the heros mother atatches an animal skin cloak to her son by sewing it onto his shoulders. It gave me the mental picture I needed to continue the painful process of sewing my shadow back on.

In the process, I learned that the reality of my emotions is on the same plane as the reality of physical pain. Not higher. Not lower. not to be idealized. Not to be discounted.

Enough for now.