Reclaiming your story through your shadow

The mystery of life is one that I’m not sure we’ll ever be able to unravel, even though some of us may never feel truly at rest until we have a distinct reason for why we are here. The same goes for the mystery of mental health and why we deal with it. The soul and what it means to have one. Life, and what it means to live one.

Struggling with mental health for most of my life, I’ve been a victim to this. A victim of the misunderstanding of not only myself but the world around me because how I related to it seemed different, even though I never had anything else to compare it to. It was like a veil was shrouded over my vision. Every hour was 3am. I sleepwalked throughout what most call “the best years of your life”. I don’t even remember most of it.

Growing up with poor mental health is a very isolating experience. It’s like regressing while you watch everyone else evolve and bloom. Spiraling inwardly; while you’re sitting in English taking notes. It’s hard enough trying to figure out who you are. Add in the voices of self-doubt, confusion, intrusive thoughts, fears, phobias and childhood traumas, and trying to figure out which one is actually you. Getting up every morning thinking that one of those cruel voices is your soul – and presenting yourself confidently to the world as your own worst enemy. Oh, and loving yourself regardless.

We can make ourselves into shadow monsters. We can hate ourselves for who we are – or who we think we are. Actually, it’s a delusion. In psychology, the subconscious mind is responsible for creating our reality. It’s a projector of our own internal world that creates the outer. Thus, it’s a reflection of our own mental health and wellbeing, which manifests our waking life.

Unfortunately, subconscious trauma can eclipse your life when we go through tough situations; from the loss of a loved one to unresolved pain and heartache. This shadow is created when you get shut down and realize it’s not safe for you to share your emotions. When you raise your hand in class and get laughed at; learning that you can’t trust yourself to speak up anymore. These negative experiences write the script running in the background of your mind, creating your perceptions of the world and your beliefs about yourself and others. Your life reflects those traumas – and so do you.

See, when I went through the darkest night of all, I actually found the light. The death of my grandmother was the greatest pain I had ever experienced, but it led me to delve into psychology. And when you uncover the hidden mechanics of how your psyche has reacted to those difficult moments in your life, it helps you to detach these defense mechanisms from your self-identity. When everything else had fallen apart, I could finally see myself clearly for what I was. I realized that I hated the skin I was in, not because I hated who I was but because I had become someone that I knew I was never supposed to be.

I was a manifestation of everything that had held me back in life, and out of trying to avoid them they had possessed me like some sort of demon. The more energy you put into something the more likely it is to manifest; even if it’s just trying to push something out of your mind. I hated the way everyone perceived me but it was how I had dealt with my traumas, and it had started to become me. In trying so hard to suppress my own darkness I allowed it to create my waking life, and it manifested a nightmare.

Our darkness marks the subtleties in ourselves that make us unique. Our shadow is the foundation of who we are because it’s what forces us to face the darkest parts of ourselves, so that we can shed the light on who we truly are. It designs our unique path of self-discovery, and when this is only subconscious it can wreak havoc because we can feel like we aren’t in control of our own thoughts, our mind, our life and ourselves.

The subconscious mind communicates with us in strange ways: dreams, signs and synchronicities. It’s the things that have a deeper meaning in life; something you have to figure out for yourself. And it’s our wounds that build the foundation for these messages to be presented to us in our realities as guidance from our higher selves.

We don’t always see the signs around us, offering us a spot where we can rest under the light of our own souls. In my opinion, the key to who you really are lies in what you want to do. It’s hidden in those regrets; in the people who you admire most because they are a reflection of your greatest potential. The secret to our freedom is hidden in the places our fears forbid us to go, and that includes our own shadows.

This realization awakens a boundless Fantasia of hopes and dreams for the future that are a reflection of our most authentic selves, as well as an opportunity to take our power back. A place where maybe, we can finally decode the mystery of why we are here in the first place.

This newly uncovered journey gifts us our own unique story; maybe that’s why we’re here after all – to live it. Our shadow offers us a chance to go back to where it all began and recreate ourselves from the very beginning; to find our voice, to rewrite our story from the very first page – and start again. And hopefully, love ourselves a little more this time around.

So, if you’re reading this and you’re struggling; don’t worry. Actually, it can be a gift. I don’t believe that any of us are here just to suffer, but I do believe that the only way to discover who we truly are is to integrate our darkness with our own light. And that is only possible if we have that ache inside our souls that tells us that something is wrong with who we’re becoming.

And that, my friend, is mental health. It’s not a personality trait, nor a life sentence or a destiny. It’s a sign; a sign that this is not who you were meant to be.

This life is your story.

And the soul is but a dream…

A dream of you living this nightmare, because it needed a happy ending.