GOLDEN AND DARK SHADOW REFLECTED IN OTHERS, WAIT WITHIN US, FOR OUR FREEDOM

All of us at some time in our lives, are confronted with parts of ourselves that get in our way, that limit us, and keep us from becoming more than we are.  It might be a manipulative behavior, or avoidance.  It might be an unexplainable attraction to bad boys, or even attraction to a “golden child” or person who seems to move in complete grace.  This is our shadow in action, and our ego instinctively looks away because shadow holds the limited portions of our personality and habits developed in the past that no longer serve, and are not part of conscious awareness. These are the parts of ourselves that we have learned to repress. 

Our dark shadow holds repressed negativity while our golden shadow holds our repressed potentiality.  These two aspects of shadow are the Guardians of the Threshold to spirit, to non duality, and to living in grace.  They prevent us from being all we can be, from reaching our highest potential, and from living our lives in the experience of heavenly, loving spirit. 

When we come to the same place with our science and our mysticism, the importance of understanding our viewpoint and our place in it cannot be denied.  That threshold of fear, where our own shadow keeps us from the non dual experience, is where I find most verbose folks whose need to rail against the world's ills might be threatened by taking responsibility for the world in a new morality.  This anxiety can be difficult to let go of, like the fear that guards the threshold.  Letting go of the need to find the world wrong so that we can feel right is releasing our own golden shadow.  What we cannot know without crossing the threshold, is that releasing the shadow is also stepping into it, and opening the door to infinite possibility for ourselves and our experience.  We choose possibility with our viewpoint, creating our experience, and when we cross the threshold and accept the will of God as infinite possibility, we accept all that is as our own.  The paradox can be unimaginable, especially to those who hold tight to fear, good and evil and its sweet fruit, me and not me.  The promise of the Kingdom and infinite possibility is just beyond, and so much more...

Excerpted from All About Living by Molly Brogan

All About Living With Our Fears

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GUARDING THE THRESHOLD TO OUR POTENTIALITY, FEAR CONSUMES OUR ASPECTS AS WE INSIST ON IT

You need only watch the evening news to see how fear driven humanity has become. So much of what the media presents displays and exacerbates our fears that we have to wonder, how much of our daily individual experience includes fear? Do we need fear? Can we live without it? 

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From my experience, I can tell you that the longer I treat fear as a signal to feel my total connection to life, and have faith that what will happen next will be in accordance with my highest potential, the less fear I experience. Things that triggered fear 5 years ago do not now. By not allowing the feeling to become emotion, (feeling becomes emotion by including memories of other fearful experiences or dread of future difficulties,) the fear is quelled. What comes up more and more now instead of fear, is a mild interest, sometimes amusement, but always faith that what is occurring is reflecting to me what I need to recognize in the moment.

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It is not possible to find harmony in our lives when it is filled with fear.  Sometimes letting go of fear is as easy as taking a deep breath, and finding our faith or compassion in the moment.  Sometimes it is as difficult as a dark night of the soul, where we face our fear by understanding that what we fear is a part of us, and accepting the divinity of all that we are by letting go of every ”thing” in our experience. 

The emotion of fear needs to be recognized and released, so that we can feel our harmony.   Life with an unattached and fearless viewpoint allows us to live in tune with the infinite.  

All material copyrighted 2010: excerpt, All About Living, Molly Brogan
 Artwork by Rachelle.   Many thanks.

Reconciling the Problem of Evil

THE FEELING THAT WE ARE IN THE PRESENCE OF EVIL IS OUR INVITATION INTO HEAVEN ON EARTH

 There is a wide variety of opinion on the existence of evil. Some see any opposing force as evil, while others think that to be termed evil requires an act resulting in an injury to life of some kind. What are your thoughts? How does your belief about evil affect your life?

I think that "evil" is much like fear. Overcoming fear doesn't mean that I will never experience it again in my life. It means that I understand it differently and process it differently than I once did. Overcoming evil is much the same. Once we understand that evil is a value judgment of negativity in our world, and that judgments assigning positive and negative value are a function of mind, but we are much more than our minds, we can transcend our dualistic mental constructs. When seen at this viewpoint, the world is in balance; what we value as good and evil can be seen differently, as aspects of the same experience.

We sometimes take identity in holding ourselves separate from others as we judge and value the differences. Not good or bad, it is something we humans do as we identify ourselves. This is a function of our ego, which is limited to duality because it creates our identity separate from the world. Here, good and sometimes evil is established as we explore the "I am not" of I AM. This exploration is important to raising consciousness and expanding awareness.

Who we are and what is possible is reflected to us in the moment. We can live these moments in a separate string, or in the eternal moment or both - the one and the many. But however we choose to live these moments, they are a reflection that invites us into spirit and the possibility of more, all ways.

All material copyrighted 2010: All About Living, Molly Brogan
 Artwork by Val Jean.   Many thanks.

Beauty as the Path to Inspiration

Sioban said...
This is an interesting post. In your books, do you connect beauty and inspiration?

Thank you, for the wonderful question, Sioban. I do think that when we allow ourselves to contemplate the beautiful, we are taking ourselves to the state of connection with spirit. This is a sure and easy path to allow ourselves to feel connected to everything and all that is, which is our God nature. Sustaining this state of awareness puts us in a place to receive inspiration, starts the creative juices flowing. When we are connected to all of creation, we become creation and are moved to express creatively.

I think that usually my poems express a state where everything is coming together into such a flow. My trilogy of novels also, follows the main character as she is able to appreciate and express this more and more until finally, she is living from it. Byron’s “she walks in beauty like the night” is the perfect example of a character that learns to live as the creative force, in a state of inspiration. My third novel, Shadow Dancing, portrays the main character moving beyond her own shadow to fully embrace her own beauty and live from it. Seen from the broad pallet of the trilogy of novels, this character has come a long way from allowing life to happen to her, to creating a life expressed as her own highest potential.

One Journey, Three Novels

Linda said...

How about the second novel, Chasing Twilight - what part does shadow play with these characters? Their emotions are so intense. And what about all three books together? Do they all relate to each other in terms of shadow?

Thanks for the question, Linda. In Chasing Twilight, the characters have evolved in their recognition of their shadow aspects. Molly does some wonderful shadow transformation, not only when it comes up in the love relationship, but in her past life regression sessions. However, her lover, the Scientologist, will not acknowledge his shadow behavior, as he is unwilling to give up his attempt to control outcome. This shatters the sacred space which requires honesty, appreciation and psychological safety for the relationship to flourish. Molly is, however, able to recognize this and move on.

Shadow transformation can be very intense and takes a great deal of courage. Since this post, I have had several folks tell me that most people don't live like this or understand themselves this way. I think that more and more, we do.

The trilogy of novels is a journey of spirit for one woman, so yes, quite naturally, her ability to integrate her shadow is reflected in the stories of each book. When the novels are read in succession, I hope you can see her process and triumph. Molly Brogan

Personal Mythology Expressed in Dream

Callie said...
One of the things I like most about Remember Me is the dream diary. Does this have anything to do with shadow?

This is a great question, Callie. In Remember Me, Mary Margaret takes the wonderful first step necessary in understanding her dreams at a very early age. She begins a dream journal at the suggestion of her mother, who does not want to have to hear about them anymore. This is significant to the character because while it gives Mary Margaret a place to record and examine her dreams, she is also given the message that they are not worth attention. So, throughout her life, she records her dreams, but does little interpretation or integration of the dreaming process.

I see our sleep time as a time for our body-soul-spirit to relate in ways unfettered by conscious constructs. Vivid dreaming, creative dreaming, and dream analysis are all wonderful processes wherein our soul speaks to our mind and spirit in ways that allow our conscious, continual becoming. The spoken language here is symbols, devices by which ideas often too complex or highly charged to articulate in ordinary language are transmitted. Developing a personal mythology of dream symbols involves using a body of personal myths to form a system for organizing one's conception of reality and guiding day-to-day behavior. Mary Margaret’s soul was instructing her to examine shadow through her dreams, she did not understand because she never learns the language.

Writing the dream journal in Remember Me was like writing a novel within a novel. I began by establishing symbols that were related to Mary Margaret’s current age and daily events, but also her collective unconscious. I then developed the symbols in her dreams to speak to her of life unfolding – trying always to guide her into becoming through soul. It was one of my favorite parts of writing the book and you may see this device used again sometime in the future! Dreaming, and all it can offer us, is a true joy for me! Thanks for asking.

Transforming Shadow Into Possibility

Linda said...
What happens when shadow emerges? Why does it happen in our closest relationships?

Good questions, Linda. I think the answer can stand as a new thread on the nature and importance of our shadow. Here is a short poem that sums it up well:

As I was going up the stair
I met a man who wasn’t there
He wasn’t there again today
I wish, I wish he’d stay away
- Hughes Merns

That man is our shadow, and our ego instinctively looks away because shadow holds our limited portions of personality and habits developed in the past that no longer serve and are not part of conscious awareness. Our dark shadow holds repressed negativity while our golden shadow holds our repressed potentiality.

The shadow can also be comprised of portions of our collective psyche. This comes up as circumstances or emotions that separate us as a group. It can also present as external fascination or spectacle that holds our attention, and thus keeps us from accessing internal resources and connecting with the group in spirit.

We usually project our shadow into places where it is “safe” to show this side of us, like our closest relationships. We instinctively know that the people we love the most give us the best chance to transform our shadow aspect by recognizing it, and then initiating and sustaining expanded awareness. This transformation process removes limitation and allows us to release what no longer serves, having recognized that it does not fit the “big picture” of integration and unity.

Molly Brogan

The Sacred Space of Relationship

Linda said...
You say, "in the sacred space, anyone who understands can become your twin..." Please explain what is meant by "sacred space."

Hi Linda: When I refer to “sacred space” I am referring to the conditions that people allow for relationships to flourish. To achieve this, the people involved need to create the space for themselves that includes complete honesty, appreciation and (psychological) safety for one another. This space allows for self exploration and connection with spirit. It can only occur when each person is first able to witness themselves and maintain an internal balance that allows them to experience without “charge” or judgment of positive or negative.

This means that before we are ready for a sacred relationship, we each have to have done the internal work necessary to allow the sacred space. A good understanding of anger and how to effectively process it is essential. An understanding of our shadow aspect is necessary, that part of us that holds the unrecognized fear, and projects a victim – villain - hero triad or good and evil dynamic into relationship. It is also important to have an understanding of golden shadow, and how an over involvement with the beautiful parts of ourselves can interfere with the appreciation or psychological safety of another. It is widely thought that once we have “readied” ourselves, we have cleared the way for twin flame and soul mate relationships to enter our lives.

Having sacred relationships does not mean that problems or crisis will not enter our lives. As long as we are alive we are drawn to all levels of the mirror experience, even what we judge in the moment and the dark night of the soul. But the sacred space in relationship provides the foundation for our experience to be clearly realized. We must make sure that our partners are provided honesty, appreciation and safety at all times and that includes not assigning blame for deconstructing circumstances or emerging shadow. If we can provide our loved ones with the room to explore all aspects of themselves and appreciate who they are and who they are becoming, they can do the same for us.

Once we have learned to create a sacred space for relationship, it becomes easier to walk away from relationships incapable of providing it. It becomes the kindest thing to do because it establishes the model for all relationships to follow. You will be surprised at how many people can rise to the understanding, if given the time and sacred space.

The characters in my book, Chasing Twilight, are discovering how to create this sacred space. Thanks for asking. Molly Brogan