Learning to work with my shadow

El Ratoncito is what Mom used to call him, that little mouse that eats away at my insides. It’s been years since she identified him, years since I started accessing Spirit and growing in my own right. He’s still around. I don’t recognize him until it’s too late to curb my response, and that response is sometimes more than I can humanly handle.

Does anyone else have this problem?

I survive by watching and feeling. If something feels right, I accept that as communication from my Higher Self or God/Source. But that little mouse sitting somewhere in my soul watches and waits, reacting only when he feels the time is right to reveal a truth I’ve been hiding.

I try to understand, but it’s impossible. I’ve talked it out with my friends, written about it in my journals, even visited counselors, but the little mouse won’t reveal himself until the time is right.

I wonder who he is and what his function could possibly be.

He is my inner truth. I wonder if he represents one of my roommates, those four parts of me that make up the entire human. I’ve written about it before. Freud called them Id, Ego, and Superego. Erik Medhus calls them the four roommates – Mind, Spirit, Body, and Soul. (http://www.channelingerik.com/the-four-roommates/)

The latest Ratoncito incident revealed a disagreement between Spirit and … I guess … Body… or maybe Mind. Geez, I can’t figure it out. Spirit is willing and loving whatever gets thrown in my way. Body steps over and around and has learned to accept and make the best of things. Mind, however… Maybe Ratoncito is Mind.

Then I remember El Juglador’s recent comment: “To be critical, without hope, is cynicism. To be hopeful without cynicism is to be naïve.” And I remember the shadow he spoke of.

Yes. My Ratoncito is part of this thing. It hides within my memories and experiences, connecting them with emotions in order to help me remember. He is my shadow. He is Mind. He is that part of me that I usually try to run from because of the connections that remind me of the pain associated with my experiences.

Most days, my little mouse is locked in his cage, running around aimlessly on his wheel and paying attention to what goes on in my life. I think he’s running aimlessly, but he’s noticing. He knows. And when the time is right, he attacks.

I consider it an attack because I don’t like to feel helpless. I usually put up a wall to protect my heart from pain. That little mouse feels it for me, and sometimes he needs to share.

I guess it’s not bad to remember the emotions. I guess it’s okay to let myself feel the tears and the pain, the shadows of my existence. To do that, to allow the four roommates to share and to be whole, is the goal of our human existence, isn’t it? Shouldn’t we be able to recognize, enjoy, and conquer the duality of this human experience?

I think so.

To begin with, I think I’ll give him a name.

Ladies and gentlemen, I’d like to introduce you to Claude the Mouse. …

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