Everything has a shadow.
The thing is, you and me, we all have a shadow.
We don’t usually are aware of it. We are mostly focused on being ourselves. We don’t really think about who we are, consciously, or how or who it is best to be, we mostly go with the flow and adapt as we go along with the script of life, and we don’t really think about who is writing the script and if it would be actually a good idea to take control in that area.
It is not something people are usually thinking about.
Except from the situations when life just comes to a stop, or pause, and forces us to really look at ourselves, to really try to figure out who is in control, and who it should actually be.
Your life.
Who really gave you your life?
Did you just one day decide to exist?
How did you decide to do that? Did you choose the shape you would have, first?
How would your shadow look like once you start existing?
Long story short, you try to find out who you are by paying attention to the people around you when you are growing up, they usually shape your concept of self-identity. You learn behaviours, beliefs, thought patterns that are acceptable in your early tribe, so you get accepted and kept safe. Anything that happens in your home, good or bad, from an external criteria, will be associated with “being safe”, with “being accepted”. The last thing we want is to be rejected, we would not be able to fend for ourselves.
In astrology, the sun represents the self, the identity, the way we present ourselves to others, our ego. The form our shadow takes is directly related to the light our sun/ego projects onto us, to give us the 3D substance sensation/illusion.
We grow up and realize that there are other suns out there, there are bigger light sources than the one we used as a guide all our lives so far.
We realize our sun might have its own shadow. Its own things to reshape and work out.
Then, soon enough, the first identity crisis comes upon us and throws ourselves into the first personal abyss. Into our own first hole we need to get ourselves out of.
There is no outside help. No actual ladder. It is a drawing. A hint.
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Growing up, I tried so hard to be who everyone expected from me, I got so connected with the person who was giving the instructions regarding who I was and, unfortunately, who I would better not be, that I identified with the shadow and later on realized that I, as an individual, ceased to exist. The instructions were not making sense, I was trying to keep up, I was trying so hard to demonstrate that I was not the person that I shouldn’t be, so that I could get the validation that I was good, that I didn’t even realize that I was not really existing. I was not really becoming. I was only paying attention to the outside input.
When I realized that I wasn’t really receiving validation of any sort, despite the hard work I was putting in, and that I was actually starting to get rejected on the grounds of not really being “somehow”, of not having a self, I started to really get confused, and the whole system started to not make sense anymore.
It got me feeling really suspended. I started having mixed feelings about the authority of the sun person to emit instructions in the first place. I felt lost. I felt I was losing time. My time. My early years. All of them. The time I should have used to become something, or at least choose the direction for me to explore, to find out who I was.
Instead, I was just dragging this hole around. Everything I was putting in it seemed to disappear. I could have used that space to lay my roots. To spread my foundation. I started to feel robbed. Misguided. I had no direction, no reference for how lost I actually was. I only had this strong feeling I am very behind with everything and that I will never catch up. I felt like I was always outside of time, that everyone else seemed to always know what was the right way to do things, to be, to act. To speak. I always felt that I was not given the same wireframe, the same definitions of things. And that, somehow, even if the rules looked the same for everyone, on paper, my results will always look different.
Houses are always built perpendicular to the ground. That’s the rule, in every situation.
Lines. What do they matter? They all seem to belong to the same category.
A tree with flowers. Yes, but why does it matter where the flowers are?
There was no one to explain things to me, to bring me up to date with the accepted norms. No one I could tug on the sleeve to ask questions and get answers without being judged.
This made me feel incredibly isolated.
As if others were connected in a way that was completely foreign to me. Energy didn’t flow toward me. And the pain was that I had nothing to compare it to, no way to figure out if it was something I was doing wrong or if this was simply how I was born. Am I defective?
The truth is, I was overprotected from the outside world when I was a child.
My parents kept me inside more often because it was easier to keep me away from accidents or other dangers. So, I grew up watching the world through a window.
Inside, I wasn’t allowed to do much either. I read a lot, but I had to be careful about what I read—it needed approval. I didn’t even dare to draw. I was afraid of seeming superior to my siblings, who weren’t born with my talent for drawing. They had other, more practical talents.
When I was sent to Art School in 7th grade, it felt like a nightmare to me. Suddenly, I had to prove myself. I had to produce. To express myself. To show creativity. For the first time in my life, I had to create without rigid instructions from the outside. I had to show the world who I was. To have my own style, my own voice, my own becoming, which I had to present to the world.
I wanted to run away, but I couldn’t—I had to attend every class, get the best grades in all subjects. I had to perform on demand, like a circus monkey, justifying the investment, even though nothing had changed for me. I didn’t receive more pencils, special paper, or better-quality paints just because I was at Art School. I had to pretend that the lack of materials wasn’t a hindrance to the performance that was expected of me.
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