Bring Light to Shadow

When I first started my blog just over a month ago, I decided on the name “Jodacious Writing”. This cute, quirky moniker was my way of jumping right in, rather than getting mired in the process of choosing something that would perfectly encapsulate who I am and what I do – and it worked! Since that day, I’ve published ten written pieces, a big win for someone who has a tendency of getting bogged down by perfectionism and details to the point of inaction.

Though useful for the purpose of getting started, I always knew that “Jodacious Writing” was a temporary title. Writing is only a portion of what I have to offer. At my core, I am all about connection. While writing is a wonderful way of sharing my inner world, it is most often a one-directional relationship: I share a piece, you read it, and go on with your day – hopefully you’ve gotten something from my work, but often I’m not privy to what that might be. 

Bringing Light to Shadow: The Process of Self-Discovery

What really lights me up is communication. It’s through communication that we learn, grow, and develop a deep sense of connection with others. As a resident “support human” in many of my circles, I have seen firsthand the beauty that can come from truly honest, vulnerable communication. I’ve watched people go from shy and uncertain to vibrant and self-assured when they’re encouraged to share their experiences. 

And so I introduce you to my new brand: Bring Light to Shadow. In addition to sharing my writing, Bring Light to Shadow is a forum through which I offer self-discovery coaching and tarot readings. 

I chose the name Bring Light to Shadow because we are all made of both of these parts. We all possess light – love, brightness, the parts that we want to share with the world – as well as shadow – those dark bits of ourselves that we don’t like and want to keep hidden, but that invariably impact the ways we move through life. As much as we’d all like to pretend our shadows don’t exist, they do – and refusing the shadowy bits of ourselves is what keeps us enacting harmful patterns, what keeps us feeling small, and what keeps us disconnected from others. 

Bring Light to Shadow is my way of gently holding a torch up so you can get to know and accept the shadowy parts of yourself. In my experience, it’s in shedding light on our darkness that we’re able to help it release its control over our lives. When we know and accept the ways we act when hurt, scared, or angry (i.e. “in shadow”), we can learn to identify when those behaviours are taking place. This is a magical window, because it’s here that we have the choice to continue acting in a patterned way, or to choose a new, more aligned behaviour. 

Healing Through Connection

The thing is, everyone has challenges that lay in shadow. Every single one of us. We spend a lot of time hiding those bits of us, but how much more liberating would it be if we didn’t hide that stuff? If you knew that your friends also go through periods of self-doubt? If you could see your coworkers also struggle with imposter syndrome? How much more humanized and connected would we feel if we knew that we weren’t alone in the things that cause us to feel “less than”?

There is so much healing that can come from this sort of sharing. There’s incredible power in vulnerably opening up with trusted people and having them hold you with care – a gentleness that’s often hard to give ourselves, especially for the parts of us that we don’t accept. While it’s possible to heal our wounds in isolation, it is so much more approachable to work through this stuff with others. Lots of our wounds are sustained in the context of relationships, so it only makes sense that healing is most beneficial when approached in communion with others. 

How I Can Help

I have worked to bring light to my own shadows for years, and this is still an ongoing quest. While there’s no designated end-point in the healing journey, I have watched myself transform over time with each of the shadows I illuminate. I’ve struggled with imposter syndrome, feelings of inadequacy, fears of abandonment, flight tendencies, worries that I’m “too much” – you name it, I’ve had it. And through gently approaching these concerns, in allowing myself the grace and space to feel these feelings and travel down to their roots, I’ve seen huge shifts in myself and the ways I engage with the world. Sure, it can still be hard for me to receive negative feedback, but now I’m able to feel that discomfort and keep on standing – rather than running for the hills like I used to. 

As an exercise in self-acceptance, I encourage you to reflect: What parts of yourself have you kept hidden in the shadows? Why do you feel these things need to be kept in the dark? How would your life change if these parts were allowed room to breathe, rather than being shunned as “bad”? 

While learning to appreciate ourselves is no easy feat in our world of isolation and perfectionism, I believe it is the antidote to what ails us. When we are able to gently shine light on our shadowy parts, we allow ourselves to heal, creating space for us to show up as authentically and uniquely as possible. We are all beautiful in our differences, but also united in our similarities. The world deserves the real you, just as you deserve to share your real self with the world.