Dancing With Our ShadowWritten by Judi Singleton
"The outer forms of our lives can change in an instant, but inner reorientation that brings us back into a vital relation to people and activity takes time. " ~ William Bridges Our dark side contains all events, stories, and things we wanted to hide about ourselves, from ourselves. Many things hidden in dark side are good things, postive things, that when we decided they were not so good we hid them. Perhaps you loved to draw like I did when I was a child and you traced things to color. One of your parents told you that was wrong so you stopped trying to draw, to use others ideas, and to use and enjoy color. So you hid it there in dark. Or your Mother was always saying "Don't raise your hand to me young lady," You were really little so you got idea you had power in your hands. Maybe you did have power in your hands healing power. So you hid that away too thinking your hands could hurt someone. These are just examples of what I found hidden in my dark side. Well, I found a lot of hurtful things too. I found child abuse. I had hidden it away and it was pouring out in my life, jumping out and making me act out without having any control over hidden emotions. I found a profound fear of death that I am still exploring trying to find out whose fear it is, obviously it is mine now but who instilled that fear there. Whose idea was it in first place. Somehow this helps me to find out it was never my idea in first place it was my mothers, a teacher, my grandmothers. Then I can say well that was never my idea in first place so I don't have to think it anymore. Jung said, "To confront a person with his own shadow is to confront him with his own light." I believe that by intergrating ourselves both negative and positive we become a whole person. As we allow our holiness to unfold we become more self loving and authentic. Debbie Ford says"The Shadow Process gives us access to loving all of ourselves. This deep and profound work teaches us how to love each and every aspect of our humanity. It enables us to embrace both darkness of our smallest self and brilliant light of our highest self. Making peace with our dark side is a sacred journey. It demands rigorous honesty, courage and a great deal of compassion. Embracing our shadow delivers us emotional wholeness and absolute freedom to be who we are. When we are filled with self-love and self-appreciation, we automatically attract miraculous experience of love and appreciation from others."
| | Change for Better...Written by Terry Dashner
A Change for Better…Terry Dashner……………Faith Fellowship Church PO Box 1586 Broken Arrow, OK 74013 It is said that insanity is doing same thing over and over again, each time expecting a different outcome. You and I know that reality says otherwise. If you expect a different result, you must change your current actions. Change is necessary. It is human; however, it’s not always easy. Here are basics: in order to change one’s behavior, one must change one’s thinking. And to change one’s thinking, one must change one’s input. You know—garbage in, garbage out. Or in this case, a man’s reality is measured in terms of what he perceives. In other words, think on good things and your behavior will follow. This is certainly a principle in Scripture. Think on these things… In fifth chapter of John, Jesus speaks to an invalid of 38 years and says, “Do you want to get well?” The invalid answers question curiously. He says that he has no one to help him into healing waters. Evidently he wanted healing, but his perception of how to get healed lacked a certain reality. Seems he was repeating same actions over and over again, each time hoping something different would happen. Did it? No. Change of outcome came when he responded to three things. These three things can change anyone. For one, he heard command of Jesus to walk. He acted on authority of His command and walked. This is important for change. One must hear Word of God and act on it to change for better. Hearing and merely hoping for better won’t do it. One must hear God speak and then immediately respond to it. This is referred to in Bible teaching as “hearing and receiving word.”
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