Embracing our shadow selves involves the psychological labour of accepting our not-so-positive attributes
Performing the emotional work has helped me arrive at a more nuanced understanding of my own motivations. Representation pic
As I settle into my side of the bed, my legs wrapped around one segment of the pregnancy pillow my partner gifted me for Christmas, the other segment firmly securing my back, I begin to drift into sleep. These days it is not as simple as trailing off into my thoughts and then yielding to the dizziness of slumber. The occupant inside my womb loves to announce his presence at precisely this moment, when I am lying on my left side. The instant I place my hand upon the right side of my belly, just above my navel, I can sense the outline of a foot jabbing against my flesh. Sometimes the kick feels so pronounced I squeal a little out of surprise. It’s like this child has conflated my sleep time with play, which, I suppose, is a small hint of what my life will be after motherhood is established as fact. I do not, however, resent this intrusion. In fact I have come to cherish this unforeseen retreat into bodily consciousness, an unexpected consequence of pregnancy. There is a privacy to this whole process of gestation that makes one’s experience of it so utterly unique and personal, something about the individuality of each womb, and the cellular specificity of each growing foetus that differentiates pregnancy from other physiological circumstances. This comes as a delicious revelation to me, considering the many apprehensions I had about perceiving my body as potentially maternal.
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The notion of a life form growing inside me and gradually emerging into the world was one I simply couldn’t fathom for many years. As I relish the final seven weeks before the next phase begins, I have found myself thinking a lot about the oft-pedalled concept of safe spaces, especially because, as a host to a life form, I have had to make such a concerted effort to ensure an ideal uterine environment for my guest. The odd thing about my long-standing apprehensions about bearing a child was this feeling of slight envy I always carried within me whenever I witnessed the congenital bond between mother and child. I am speaking here about mothering in its varied manifestations, for there are many ways to become a mother, from adoption to surrogacy. Until I offered myself the chance to heal through therapy I was terrified of motherhood because I was afraid of my child inheriting my traumas. I suppose all my psychological labour of rediscovering my selfhood by bridging the schism between body and mind allowed me a chance of rehabilitation. I became my own safe space, which meant I was less dependent on the need for other safe spaces in order to articulate my consciousness.
I think of a personal safe space as one that is free of judgement, a site in which one can allow one’s cruellest thoughts to manifest uncensored and raw. By virtue of its function, this space must be a secular one and not attached to religious doctrine because all dogma is a form of control. Some therapists I follow on Instagram speak vociferously in defence of embracing the Jungian concept of the shadow self. It is meant to refer to aspects of one’s personality we don’t always want to acknowledge, or the unknown, the ‘dark side’. Through complex systems of validation and conditioning, we tend to internalise what constitutes acceptable and unacceptable thoughts, behaviours, and attitudes, and unknowingly or knowingly filter them within our conscious minds. I think we often even confuse our personhood with our feelings. My therapist once alerted me to the importance of making an important distinction between what one is feeling and what one is. For instance, in a moment of anxiety, you are a person experiencing anxiety. This doesn’t necessarily make you an anxious person.
But these subtleties only become obvious when one is able to access one’s shadow self, when one puts oneself in a position of some vulnerability, enough to acknowledge that one is experiencing an emotion that is generally catalogued as negative, such as envy, anger, disappointment, sadness. Embracing the shadow self involves leaning into these emotions, acknowledging how they manifest within you, and then mining it for information about the circumstance that is responsible for the emotion. This is how I have been understanding situations that ‘trigger’ me to behave in certain ways. Performing the emotional labour has helped me arrive at a more nuanced understanding of my own motivations. My hope is that I can create a similar safe space for my child so that they grow up without the scourge of shame and they regulate their behaviour from a more empowered space, and not from the fear of being punished or castigated for the emotions they will, doubtless, feel.
I wonder if such an accommodation, such a creation of a safe space for one’s selfhood, is invariably tied to what I increasingly refer to as a sacred head space, that site of churning that fuels creative energy. I also wonder if it is somehow linked to the increase in my mundane sensations of joy. I have found myself withdrawing from the world, retreating inward, delighting in physical and psychological forms of domesticity. The need to share that with the world in more ostentatious ways is diminishing. Instead I prefer more processual forms of articulation, like this column, in which I can more meditatively align my thoughts rather than post things for the sake of garnering likes or even to enhance my own readership. I no longer need proof that I am being read, or that my words might have an impact on anyone. What seems to matter most is simply nurturing this space as one that has a consciousness of its boundaries and is yet continually expanding to make room for the future.
Deliberating on the life and times of Everywoman, Rosalyn D’Mello is a reputable art critic and the author of A Handbook For My Lover. She tweets @RosaParx
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The views expressed in this column are the individual’s and don’t represent those of the paper.
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