The Secret of the Shadow Read Online Free PDF

guessed that all my pain and darkness, all my selfishness and my never-ending desire to make a difference in the world, were being carefully blended together so that I would be able to step into the highest version of myself. But the perfect recipe for my life was waiting to be discovered. I learned to trust in the powers that be and came to the hum-bling realization that no one really knows what experiences we need in order that we may give our greatest gift.
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    In doing what was necessary to heal my issues with my ex-husband, I was unknowingly gathering wisdom and essential ingredients to add to my recipe. Preparing to write my second book, Spiritual Divorce, forced me to grow and expand and take responsibility for my reality, no matter what my ex-husband—or anyone else, for that matter—was doing. It forced me to take the high road and ask, “How am I going to grow from this? How can I use this to make me my most Divine self?” Of course I had other options: I could have hated my pain; I could have felt sorry for myself because I had a lot of pain. Instead I chose to look for the gold, the jewels, and say, “Aah, why would I need this? What can I extract from this situation? What can I now contribute that I couldn’t have if I had never had this experience?” I have lived the perfect life to do the work I do.
    Because I couldn’t support others in healing their pain and creating the life of their dreams if I hadn’t first done this for myself.
    A D i v i n e B u f f e t
    Imagine flipping through your favorite cookbook and seeing several recipes for passionate, fulfilled, abundant, extraordinary human beings. Intrigued, you quickly turn to the indicated pages to learn what ingredients would make up such masterpieces, and on the first page you see:
    Mix together fourteen traumas, four heartbreaks, a mother who loved too much, a father who was emotionally unavailable, and one cheating husband. Blend in the 29
    T h e S e c r e t o f t h e S h a d o w opportunity to be a single mother with two children. Add four extra doses of selfishness, a shadow belief that says,
    “I’m not good enough,” and an ego that screams, “I’m going to prove to everyone that I am good enough,” and voilà! You have forty-two-year-old Lynda, a perfectly satisfied chief financial officer of a $17 million company!
    Or try this one:
    Combine divorced parents with twin brothers who badger you on a daily basis. Mix in four years of a bad marriage and one very successful business, six years of depression, and one immune deficiency disease. Add a noisy internal dialogue to remind you that there is definitely something wrong with you. Garnish with a deep inner knowing that things will work out if you suffer long enough. Add a passionate love of music and the arts, bake at high intensity for forty-three years, and presto! You have Jeffrey, a song-writer and producer of a children’s TV show that teaches kids how to be kind to each other.
    Or how about a taste of :
    Start with two parents with high expectations and a need to control your every move. Add a heaping dose of inadequacy, twelve years of striving to be the perfect student, sixteen amazing victories, and sixteen experiences of deep emptiness. Add two suicide attempts and four opportuni-30
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    ties to be brought to your knees. Sprinkle in a love for math and science and a knack for empathizing with people’s problems. Add an unshakable faith in God and stir in one serving of self-realization. Chill for thirty-two years. Meet Pam, a pediatric psychologist with a holistic approach.
    It’s fairly easy to see how your positive attributes contribute to your unique recipe. You can probably appreciate how your talents, your natural abilities, and your childhood dreams have added to your life and to the person you’ve become. But the traumatic events in your life—the experiences that left wounds within you—
    are an