The child in us remembers...
Illustration
The child in us remembers trying to jump away from our shadow on a sunny day. We jumped and our shadow jumped. We swayed and our shadow swayed. At noon, we could leap on top of it. As the day lengthened, it grew longer. No matter how we looked at it, our shadow always came with us.
A shadow cannot be altered permanently by someone else's shadow. Similarly, we cannot take on the shadow of anyone else. We can claim only our own.
We all have parts of our lives --things we have said or done, regrets, losses --which shadow us. The darkness of these shadows may overwhelm us until we look at them and come to terms with them.
Like the child who struggles in the sun to get rid of her shadow, the truth is, her own shadow is part of her. Whatever the vestige, it echoes only our past. We are responsible only for our shadows, not those of our friends, our parents or other ancestors.
Yet no shadow is completely dark or negative. Looking at it from another side, we see that it serves some purpose. We can acknowledge a shadow as part of us, a part of the whole person. We can view it as one dimension of our lives which has helped to shape who we are in the now of our lives. Then we move forward into a new day and literally leave our shadows behind us.
--Brauninger
A shadow cannot be altered permanently by someone else's shadow. Similarly, we cannot take on the shadow of anyone else. We can claim only our own.
We all have parts of our lives --things we have said or done, regrets, losses --which shadow us. The darkness of these shadows may overwhelm us until we look at them and come to terms with them.
Like the child who struggles in the sun to get rid of her shadow, the truth is, her own shadow is part of her. Whatever the vestige, it echoes only our past. We are responsible only for our shadows, not those of our friends, our parents or other ancestors.
Yet no shadow is completely dark or negative. Looking at it from another side, we see that it serves some purpose. We can acknowledge a shadow as part of us, a part of the whole person. We can view it as one dimension of our lives which has helped to shape who we are in the now of our lives. Then we move forward into a new day and literally leave our shadows behind us.
--Brauninger
