Hi Barb, it sounds like you're having some truly deep realisations and gaining greatly from them...

after decades of running away but actually just running deeper into my own distortions, i can see now that changing the outcome doesn't change anything.

Absolutely! So how can we actually gain by an active exploration into our shadowside?

doing it this way has got me involving my shadow side now, having dialogue with it instead of rejecting it and pushing it away. teaching myself how to be whole?

In the Openhand approach seek to recognise this one fundamental truth (that is simple to say, but tough to put into practice):

every distortion we express from the shadowside is a distortion of truth. And so don't simply drop the distortion or run away from it - don't supress, deny or distract from it. Instead turn right into it and allow it to express, whilst carefully watching yourself in it - illuminate it. Can you first let go of the attachment of needing the moment to go a certain way? It certainly doesn't serve you to stay attached to that. And then, what's the new expression of being that wants to come through instead? Once you lose your investment in the moment, you're more liberated to simply be authentic, whatever the outcome.

It's not easy, but it is deeply transformative, and the Universe is working tirelessly to reveal these new gifts in people.

Open 👌