Shadow Work: What I Found When I Stopped Searching for Myself in Others' Comments
I've spent years noting every comment I heard about myself. But mainly the negative ones. Because that's where, they said, "you must look and change." Until one day I realized: that's not the way.
Your strengths and weaknesses aren't what others dictate. Sometimes they're right, but mostly these are value judgments that say more about them than you.
Someone who admires you will call you amazing because it reflects what they notice — or what they lack in themselves. Someone will offer "negative feedback to help you" when really, you were simply shining or taking up space they desired. So they question your being to feel more at ease.
Clearly we need connection and we learn from our reciprocal relationships. But we should never surrender the "truth" of who we are to someone else's opinion.
Your opinion of yourself holds the same validity. It can be just as wrong as theirs. And it remains your truth.
The shadow work process is difficult because it forces you to examine your own beliefs. What you've accepted without question. What you've stopped valuing within yourself because it was necessary to survive in your environment.
And realizing your life could have been different if you'd had other tools... hurts. The guilt that surfaces makes it harder to cross the portal toward acceptance: you are who you are now because of all you've lived. Yet simultaneously, what you've lived doesn't define you.
You have new tools to decide to do things differently and rebuild yourself from within.
The only way: through love for all your parts, your history, your present, and your future.
Remaining stuck blaming our past self keeps us stagnant and victimized. Leaving the present in others' hands distances us from ourselves.
And the future is written in every small step toward truly knowing ourselves. Without masks. With fear and courage.
What do you think? When did you stop searching for yourself in others' eyes and start looking from within? The first time you do it, it hurts. The second time, too. But each time it feels more like coming home.
This piece is part of a series on returning to our own voice. If it resonates, share it with someone who's also tired of searching for themselves in others' eyes.
Shadow work concept based on Carl Jung's work: