Light Isn't Always Good, and Shadow Isn't Always Bad
We’ve been taught to fear the dark.
Not just literal darkness, but metaphorical shadow, the grief, the trauma, the hunger, the rage. Everything tucked away in the attic of our psyche, locked behind cultural, religious, or familial walls is hidden for a reason right? We’re told that light equals good, that light is godly and that light is safe. And anything that lives in shadow? Evil. Bad. Wrong.
But that binary isn’t truth. It’s programming.
Light is not always benevolent. Shadow is not always harmful. To reduce the entire emotional and spiritual spectrum to “good” or “bad” is to erase the soul’s complexity and ultimately, our ability to heal.
Wholeness Requires Both
Yin and yang. Masculine and feminine. Day and night. Rage and grace.
Wholeness doesn’t mean existing only in the light. It means integrating every piece of you, especially the parts that were banished. Especially the ones that don’t play nice.
Children are praised for being compliant, quiet, polite. But where is the praise for emotional honesty? For anger expressed healthily? For curiosity, sensuality, need?
We bury what’s been rejected. We learn to abandon ourselves in the name of belonging.
But buried does not mean gone. It means shadowed. And what is shadowed holds power.
What Shadow Work Really Means
Shadow work isn’t just a hashtag. It’s the gritty, soul-level process of unearthing what you were taught to hide.
This often comes through what mystics term the dark night of the soul—a collapse of everything you thought you were, followed by a rebirth of who you actually are. You don't go around the pain. You go through it. Straight into the messy abyss.
Once the wound is visible, light can be used not as judgment, but as clarity. To see. To hold. To ask: Is this still mine? Do I want to keep carrying it? Is it serving myself and ultimately the collective by continuing to hold on to it?
Shame: The Real Villain
Shame is what keeps shadow locked away.
According to Brené Brown (2012), “Shame is the intensely painful feeling or experience of believing that we are flawed and therefore unworthy of love and belonging.” It tells us we are bad, not that we’ve done something bad, but that we are bad.
Shame disconnects us from the truth of who we are. It tells us to stay quiet. It tells us to comply. It punishes us for feeling things that are inherently human.
My Story: From Sexual Shame to Sexual Sovereignty
I wasn’t taught what a period was. When it arrived, I thought I was dying. I then felt ashamed and was both mocked and congratulated for becoming a woman; as if I had any say.
I was sexually abused at eight years old and told to stay silent and as an adult my own mother was still trying to say that the abuse was somehow mutual or consensual or that I was always a very boy crazy and promiscuous child. I grew up ashamed of my desire, my body, and my femininity. I was taught that pleasure was dirty and silence was noble.
I was told that it was not normal and was unreasonable to spend up to an hour in the bathroom trying to make sure that my acne was covered, my hair was styled nicely, that I was clean, teeth brushed, legs shaved, etc. As an adult, I still take an hour to shower, blow dry my hair, curl it, do my makeup, and all the things. I was made to feel as though spending so much time on myself was vain, unnecessary and excessive. And yet my mother always looked perfectly coifed; she still does. Maybe it came easier to her. Maybe she wasn’t as bullied for the rashed face, the thick course hair, for having four eyes or for having hairy legs in the gym locker room, but I was. This set up me up for absolute shame surrounding my own body.
I didn’t start actually believing I was beautiful until I was almost fifty years old. And even then, when I chose to wear a bikini over my slightly plumb, but perfectly accepted body, my mother still chose to try and shame me for daring to wear a bikini I bought with my own money, in my own pool, in my own backyard.
I didn’t reclaim sex as sacred until I was nearing fifty. I had moments of pleasure, but never full indulgence until at about this same point and time. Through tantric exploration and conscious kink, I finally met myself as a sovereign being—not a sinner, not a victim, but a woman with agency. A woman with fire. A woman with joy. A woman capable of pleasing a much younger man.
What some might deem unholy, redeemed me.
Feminine Rage Is Holy
In my poetry, I rage.
I allow myself to be angry—at betrayal, at abandonment, at myself. This rage isn’t mindless. It’s alchemical. I don’t bypass it. I use it.
But I’ve been told I shouldn’t. That my writing is “too raw.” That naming names is vindictive. That I’m exposing what society prefers to keep hidden. That I am disloyal to those who raised me, or were in close relationship ties to me.
But No. I’m illuminating what has always been there. And yes—it’s uncomfortable. But discomfort is not the same as danger.
Silencing the Story Silences the Science
When we suppress personal stories, we suppress collective understanding.
We can’t study abuse patterns, coercive relationships, or disorganized attachment if we keep forcing people into silence. According to Bowlby (1988), our early attachment experiences become our blueprint for all future relationships. If insecure attachment is rampant—and it is—we have to stop pretending it’s rare.
The data is buried beneath shame. And if we want to raise securely attached individuals, we have to face where the system broke. That includes facing ourselves.
Parents, We Need to Talk
Accountability is uncomfortable. Especially for those who raised us.
But it doesn’t end with them. We’re parents now, too. And the hard truth? Most of us didn’t do our best—we did what we knew. And sometimes what we knew was damaging.
I didn’t begin my real healing until my children were teenagers. That means some of them, depending on birth order, temperament, or soul path, have suffered under my care. That is one of the most bitter slices of humble pie one has to consume. I actually caused damage, real emotional damage to another human being; one that I claimed to love deeply.
I can’t change that. But I can apologize. I can evolve.
We are the generational curse breakers. And yes—it is a curse. A curse placed on us by churches, colonialism, patriarchy, fear. But it does not have to stay. We carry the power to end it.
There is no soul beyond hope. There is no soul beyond healing. This is the very work we came here to do.
The Pendulum Must Swing Before It Settles
Progress always looks extreme when you're still attached to the past.
Women were told they’d gone “too far” for asking to vote. Black Americans were told to “be patient” when fighting segregation. Queer folks are still being told that their very existence is controversial. Immigrants are being deported and society is running amuck with both the voice of the far right and the voices of the far left, never meeting in the center.
This backlash is predictable though. It’s a signal that the collective must eventually swing that pendulum toward truth. . And yes, it swings wide. It overcorrects. That’s normal. That’s how healing works.
Eventually, it lands in balance. Not compromise, but balance. Where shadow and light sit side by side.
What Was Once Forbidden Is Now Sacred
Things that were once labeled as evil, such as LGBTQ identification, interracial marriages, mental illness, cannabis, polyamory, divorce, female pleasure, tattoos, men being emotional and being selfish, are now all being rewritten.
That which was once called light, such as obedience, suppression of emotion, staying married, hustling, hyper independence, people pleasing and being a law abiding citizen at all costs and without any question, are now being pulled into the arena of hesitance.
Shadow Is the Sacred Doorway
When we embrace our shadow, we begin to access our actual power.
We stop pretending. We stop bypassing. We name what’s there. We let it express. And we alchemize it; not by denying it, but by feeling it fully.
Let yourself cry, rage, howl, shake. Let yourself write the thing. Say the name. Burn the bridge. Do it with intention. Do it with discernment. Do it because the version of you who has healed is waiting on the other side of your honesty.
Even the things we fear, like Artificial Intelligence, aren’t inherently dangerous. They only become dangerous when we project shadow onto them, when we disown our power and outsource it. Just like anything else, AI can be conscious or unconscious. Tool or weapon. Mirror or monster.
How we use it is up to us.
In conclusion, we really need to engage with personal discernment. Does it really truly matter what society has to say, or even the law for that matter, if what is being said feels dangerously close to self abandonment?
Be ahead of your time. Be the one who speaks out from conviction on what you believe, even if the rest of the world isn’t ready to hear it. You get to decide what is light and what is shadow and how you find balance in accepting and embracing both.
Final Mirror Questions
What shadow part of yourself are you ready to love instead of hide?
Where in your life are you ready to call yourself to account, not from shame—but from sovereignty?
Who do you become when you are no longer afraid of the dark?
Bibliography
Bowlby, J. (1988). A secure base: Parent-child attachment and healthy human development. Basic Books.
Brown, B. (2012). Daring greatly: How the courage to be vulnerable transforms the way we live, love, parent, and lead. Gotham Books.