Shadow Work--Day 6

How does a lover's shadow influence my shadow?

Pan tells me that my lover's shadow is in part about indulgence and drunken lust and that is very true.  My ex was all about indulgence and having a good time.  He was someone who didn't want to be responsible, but always wanted to have a good time and he always wanted me to be at his side.  It was as if he did not understand that I had responsibilities and when I had to be up early, I did not want to be out until 3 am partying.  When we were first together, I'd let him lead me down that garden path, but then I grew up and became...




The Elder who tells me that I realized I had responsibilities in life and that if I wanted to be successful, I had to fulfill those responsibilities and could not do that if I was out partying.  The Elder is also about tradition and ritual and studying and doing the work.  The Elder is about doing the work required for initiation and not just stepping up and getting it handed to us.  Oddly this card resonates with me for another reason as well as my ex always accused me of getting my degree handed to me and not working for it.  While it is true that my parents paid for my degree, it is also true that I worked hard for everything I had and I continue to work hard for my success.

Warrior Six tells me that my ex was all about the adulation and the accolades and not about doing the work and that's true.  I always wrote for the sheer joy of writing, but his focus on writing was selling and I didn't like to write just to sell.  I've realized that I write as a form of catharsis.  It is about putting my story down on paper.  Sometimes I'd turn my stories into fiction because it was less painful for fictional characters to deal with my pain than it was to acknowledge the pain as mine.  My ex is all about the victory lap and he's also all about using people to share their glory.  He was horrible to our kids, but he loved to brag about them.