Open Door Healing

Up until the last couple of years, I abhorred shadow work. Being pollyanish, I could not understand why I had to do it. Sugar and spice and everything nice you know. If you do not know what shadow work is a short definition is facing those parts of you that you have kept hidden deep inside you, and even though you think they are safely out of the way, they do affect your actions. Most of my shadows are from childhood, experiences I did not have the tools to handle at the time, and so inside they went, hiding in dark corners until I was ready to face and release them. And most of my shadows are much bigger in my mind than they actually are. You know, like the Tardis, bigger on the inside. Once faced, they can reveal patterns I no longer want to follow. What brought up this most recent bout of shadow work? Recently a policital figure was involved in something that had nothing to do with him. He wanted to be seen as a Hero, saving the day. It didn’t. I don’t know if his intervention made a bit of difference, but the outcome of his interference was not what he wanted. So I had to ask myself, first, why did this bother me so much? This situation had no bearing on my life at all, but alas it did. Because the situation did upset me. What shadow was lurking at my edge, wanting to be heard, healed, released? Oh yea, that saviour complex. The last two years (or more, but that is for another time..) I have been trying to save my mother, from dementia, Alzheimer’s, old age, a path of pain, herself. I cannot. I consider myself one of those that can learn from other’s mistakes, unlike my son, who if I tell him the fence wire is hot, he has to touch it twice to make sure. My mother has made some dicey decisions in her past (at least in my opinion), and in her doing so, I was able to learn and not make the same ones. I married differently, raised my children differently, learned that I was just as important as anyone else. She is still in the saviour role. Yesterday when I dropped by her place unexpectedly, she was not in her room. I knew she was in the building because her door was unlocked. I dropped off the things she had asked me to pick up and was just leaving when she came in. She was upset that I hadn’t called. I told her I was given a day off from the grandkids and did not really know what the day would bring. She had been at another resident’s apartment, helping him look for his lost keys. She said she had forgotten how hard it was to get off of the ground from her knees. She had no business being on her knees. She is having severe right hip pain, and is having to use her walker inside her apartment now. The doctor says it is just wear and tear and nothing they can do. I softly reprimended her for getting on her knees, that it was not her responsibility to find his keys and that they have people there that could help him. So what does this have to with shadow work? She is still trying to “save” others, and I am still trying to “save” her. I am doing it out of selfishness too, because if something happens to her, whether it be a fall or something worse, I am the one responsible for cleaning up the mess. Ah, and there it is, I am tired of cleaning up her messes. Messes I have been cleaning up since I was a child. Or at least trying to. This one is going to take just a little more time than stating the shadow and releasing it. This one goes deep. There is a fine line between watching out for her welfare and allowing Her journey to unfold. Blessings.