Facing our shadow is an inevitable part of the spiritual path.

We can do much of our inner work by focusing on the light, oneness, awakened consciousness, and higher dimensions. Or by being in the present moment.

But if we want to LIVE in the present moment and embody higher consciousness on a daily basis, we also need to see and take care of the parts of us that are not awake and not yet integrated into the wholeness of who we are.

We must see and care for the parts we have closed off and neglected. The aspects we may fear and even look at as bad or scary. The ones that don’t fit our picture of a good or spiritual person.

Those sides exist in all of us-we all have parts that are cut off from wholeness until we have uncovered and integrated them again.

And we must see and integrate both our shadow and our light to go beyond the realm of opposites and live as whole and awake human beings (which is the “goal” of humanity’s awakening).

It may feel uncomfortable and scary at times, and it can be. But by running from and suppressing the dark, we move away from what could free us.

We can’t let go of what is hidden or suppressed. So, the fear of and the unwillingness to look at and care for those closed-off places keep them there.

People also run from the darkness differently, and we must become aware of how we run.

Some, for example, don’t run from their darkness in the usual sense. They do the opposite, and instead of suppressing it, they indulge in it.

But acknowledging our dark aspects has nothing to do with indulging in the darkness, fascination with the shadows, or becoming stuck in it. That’s yet another escape, another way to NOT deal with our shadow.

Freeing ourselves is not about denying and suppressing, and it’s not about indulging. It’s about meeting, feeling, seeing, and experiencing what is showing itself without looking away or becoming stuck. And following what we are experiencing all the way back to its root, to its deepest cause, which is the place where we become free.

So, we go to the root of what we are experiencing–the place where it all started, where we became cut off in the first place.

That’s where we find liberation.