POLYANNA GLASSES
I am going to state my case in this Blog because mostly nowadays what I hear about is that it is the positive 
aspect of life that is to be focused on. Or simply put – wear your ‘Pollyanna glasses’.
Hope, Trust and Faith
Let me say here, I do think it is really important to be open to breathing into endless possibilities. This enables us all to be aware of hope, trust and faith in how life can be for us and move beyond the mundane or reality of what is actually happening. So I am not disagreeing with the use of this way of being or thinking. After all, research has shown that ‘energy does follow thought’ and this has been held down through the ages.
Yes AND?
What I am saying is – yes, it is so – AND always focussing on the positive can also be the avoidance of your inner pain and uncomfortable feelings (or the shadow aspect of us) that some consider are wrong and bad and so you must rise above them! The parts of us you think the world won’t like – your moaning, your jealousy, your anger, your competitive side and your neediness…………… Each of us will have parts we don’t want others to see (including perhaps the spiritual parts as well).
In my opinion, it is important to look at what is inside, at our reality and the bigger picture. If you push the feelings away, it can take too much energy to keep them down and you can become tired and exhausted and not know why. The problem is that they leak out anyway – if not in the present then on some future occasion unexpectedly.
‘I Don’t Care – The Act of Divine Indifference’
In my second book, ‘I Don’t Care – The Act of Divine Indifference’, I talk about this build up of energy. My focus is on the swallowing down of all those times you have felt you had to say YES to people or events in our life or not focused on what you wanted to do. Or you knew you weren’t being stretched enough. This energy you push down, (I called mine – the caged tiger– as it pads up and down going nowhere, lies dozing because it is exhausted or else it roars and roars endlessly but doesn’t come out of its cage – even if the door is opened!), is all the feelings, usually shame, fear, anger and underneath that pain, that have been swallowed down by ‘rising above’ them or staying positive.
It becomes harder and harder to allow this beautiful life-force – this energy – out as you become so scared of it – it is so powerful. You’d rather become impotent and exhausted and moan and groan at all and sundry than get to know and express it.
So, in my opinion, although it is great to be focused on the affirmations, positive thinking and all the other spiritual aspects of life right now, it is also important not to avoid what is called ‘the shadow aspect’.
Both-And
That is why I am saying, ‘I Don’t Care’ as I am now listening to my own Inner Wise Woman who says you also have to include in your anger, your pain and your tears as well as your beauty, your joy, your creativity, your laughter and your fun. It is always both-and for me. You can’t have one without the other! (remember that old song?)
You are both-and (the Light and Dark, Male and Female, Ying and Yang) so while it is important to bring in and allow your positiveness , you have to allow your shadow too. There are gifts (gold) contained in the darkness (the dross) and when you shut it away, you lose those gifts.
Never ‘there’
When you include both then you are more whole and the cycle keeps going on throughout life. You are never there wherever that is! This cycle is not linear – it’s a spiral. You move forward and then you have to go back to integrate your learning about yourself and life. Don’t worry it is evolution and normal! What do we say two steps forward and three back!!
In my opinion, our search is to re-connect with ourselves and to be as whole as we can be to express more of us as we grow and develop.
Embracing Your Shadow
So my work is about facing and embracing your shadow – the parts you want to hide away – and then you can be in touch with your own inner wisdom. Nowadays, in my work with women, it is about the re-connection with your Heart, your Soul, your Essence, the Divine, the Transpersonal Self again. Or you can simply say your Spirituality which I see as my natural connection with the wonder and energy of life. It is my impulse to be with, and also explore it from my own and others’ experience.
And then as you move towards this alignment with yourself, you will be more comfortable in your own shoes and face the world on your own terms. You will be able to acknowledge (at least in my case) ‘I am difficult at times and that doesn’t mean I’m a bad person’. You will be at home in yourself with your vulnerability and strengths and can look in the mirror and say that ‘I love all of you’.
Finally as Carl Jung says, ‘Knowing your own darkness is the best method for dealing with the darknesses of other people.’
