There are parts of us
we learn to leave behind—

the anger we were told was too much,
the sadness we learnt to hide,
the needs we were afraid to name,
the selves we softened
to belong.

We call them shadows
because we cannot always see them.

But they wait quietly
in the places we avoid,
in the patterns we repeat,
in the feelings that seem
to arrive without invitation.

Shadow work is not about
fighting these parts away.

It is about turning towards them
with curiosity instead of shame,
and asking,

What are you trying to tell me?
What did you need back then?
What do you need from me now?

Perhaps healing is not
becoming light enough
to have no shadows.

Perhaps it is learning
to hold all of ourselves—

the tender and the difficult,
the known and the hidden,
the parts we celebrate
and the parts we are still learning to love.

Integration is when
nothing within us
has to be left outside.

And slowly,
we become more whole
not by becoming someone else,
but by making room
for all that we are.

     --- Discoverer