Kay,The "shadow" is how I have always thought of the ego. A subversive element to it, more interested in maintaining itself than anything else. Distorting the reality of situations to suit its purpose and its survival.
Marilyn
Hhmmm... isn't that true for each part, ego and shadow? That unless consciously injected with compassion, each is only out for its own survival?
We're born knowing how to flee. How to fight. How to snatch a worm out of mama bird's beak before our siblings can. How to knock the other hummingbirds off the perch.
But calmness, compassion, contentment, mercy, forgiveness... the only way I know to develop those traits is by conscious practice.
That's where shadow work comes in. If we don't learn how to love ourselves first, with all our flaws, if we don't handle all the selfish little baby birds and menacing beasts that dwell in our own shadows compassionately --humorously, even -- then we can't cut anyone else any slack.
Jeremiah Abrams calls shadow work "the pursuit of an unhypocritical life." That's a hell of a good definition.
Hell of a task, too.
K
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