Because of Dianita

I have a friend, Dianita, who is a therapist/social worker. We meet for supper every once in a while at Thai Deli.

Sometimes she shows me her professional side. She did something with me a little while ago that has to do with the shadow side of ourselves. Shadow Side!!! Oh, no!

At first I thought Shadow Side must indeed be something dark and evil, some awful skeletons in the closet, deep dark secrets that would put us in prison or drop us off the side of the Earth. Dianita said no, it’s not like that at all. It’s anything we would prefer that no one know and that we don’t want to know either.

I have the idea she means anything that might tarnish the perfect shiny ego image of ourselves that we like to pretend we have! Shadow Side would well apply to tiny things. I think the point is that most of us have these shadows, and they’re not so terrible as we have thought. Looking at them and revealing them doesn’t cause thunderclaps and lightning or anything world-shaking at all!

It is because of Dianita that I was able to make my revelation in the previous entry, Mirror, Mirror on the Wall. Actually, it stunned me when I discovered that the wicked stepmother wasn’t someone else, as I always had thought, but turned out to be a part of me! I didn't like that discovery. I much preferred to be Cinderella or Sleeping Beauty!

Dianita actually did a fun exercise with me. When I sat in my chair, I was Gloria. When she had me move to another chair, I was this disenfranchised part of myself, and I had to speak up for this shadow piece of me.

Well, I always liked to role-play.

At some point, this shadow piece of me got up and left the restaurant! She was tired of me too!

There seems to be a queue of these phantoms waiting and wanting to go up on the screen next. Oh, no, is there no end to them?!!!

Dianita, do I have to take a look at each one, one at a time, or, can you please tell me that there is a magic way to send them all away in one fell swoop?