The key to shadow work is understanding that we are not expelling these negative or ‘bad’ aspects of ourselves, instead we are recognizing them and learning to live with them.
As I sit here on a Saturday prospect park day, I see a little baby boy learning how to walk. He falls down and looks back — his face and body preparing for a hard cry. But his dad swoops in and helps him get up, he smiles it off and waddling, he tries again. … Read moreLearning To Take The Clouds With Sunshine by Mayana Nell Torres
Growing up, my immigrant mother from Colombia, always stressed the importance of taking care of my skin. I, like her, had been graced with skin that was low maintenance and easy to work with. My mom really enforced the law of sunscreen in our household from a young age; rainy day? Sunscreen. Sitting inside all day? Sunscreen. I was raised with a tenement of skincare I hold holy to this day; sunscreen is essential.
For the next three days, I find myself having crying spells. Unprompted, heavy, crying spells, and every time I find myself doing one particular thing to soothe the pain. I wrap my arms around myself and squeeze. A pandemic is hard enough without the death of a close family member, especially when you feel like you’re on an episode of Black Mirror and you see all the mini fires surrounding you.
Like a lot of you, I am battling with the fact that school has relocated to the same place I’ve spent the last few months, home. Home has become a blessing, but I have caught myself having a bittersweet connection with it. We have had to rework our understanding of what home means to us and how we thought we were going to experience this fall.
“Hari Like Hardee’s” School Days “It is better to live your own destiny imperfectly than to live an imitation of somebody else’s life with perfection.” – Bhagavad Gita Reading my writings from my younger school days, it is quickly apparent what my interests were. My love for mystery, ancient cultures, and science fiction filled the … Read morePride and Shame: A Harikatha From Becoming My Identity (Part 2) by Hari Venkatachalam
Your tears will thank you later. My emotionality has become an identity with many names, like an HSP, empath, feeler, cry baby. In college, this sensitivity was playfully prodded among my friends. With others, it was cast in a more negative light. But with each year around the sun, I grow to understand that this … Read moreCry Baby Cry by Alexandra Lee
I remember scouring the internet for information to try and feel as prepared as possible awaiting the arrival of my baby. Nothing could prepare me for what happened. We went into the hospital under the impression everything was fine and left hearing that our city was going into lockdown, that we shouldn’t have any visitors … Read moreHaving A Baby During A Pandemic by messypot
Self Realization During Self Isolation I’ve always been a plus-sized girl. From as young as I can remember, I shopped at Fashion Bug, Rainbow, and the women’s sale section of Macy’s; and weight loss has been prevalent in my life since I was 14. Drastic loss and gain has happened due to EDs, lack of … Read moreSelf Realization During Self Isolation by Nancy Azcona
The doctor’s appointment lasts twenty minutes. That’s all. She barely even looks at me, probes me once or twice, hisses a sympathetic eesh, then absently announces the name of the problem I’ve been having for six years. When I was sixteen, they looked like pimples. At eighteen, my gynecologist told me that if I really … Read moreThe Partner of My Hormones by Megan Conley