SHARPEN
The parts of yourself you refuse to look at run the show
Carl Jung called it "The Shadow": every part of you that didn't make the official story. He spent a career showing that what gets cut from the script still shows up on the screen.
- Denial is a management style, and a bad one. The trait you won't admit to doesn't wait for permission. It shows up in your tone, your excuses, and the same fight you keep having for reasons you can't name.
- You meet your shadow in others first. The training partner who irritates you beyond all proportion is usually carrying something you own and won't claim.
- The tell is intensity. A flaw you've accepted in yourself gets a shrug when you see it in someone else. A flaw you've disowned gets a sermon. Watch what you can't shut up about.
- Acknowledging is not becoming. Admitting you have a temper or an ego doesn't feed it. Naming the thing is how you take the script back.
Start with the accusation that would insult you most. That's where the show is being run.
SOFTEN
The self you fought at twenty is the self you forgive at forty.
Jung split life into two halves. The first builds the persona, the self you can defend in public. The second (if you let it) makes peace with everything the persona left out. His warning was that the afternoon of life cannot run on the morning's program.
- Every exiled trait had a job. The stubbornness that embarrassed you got you through something. The guardedness you're ashamed of once kept you safe. You can retire a strategy without prosecuting it. Gratitude and goodbye can happen in the same breath.
- Self-hatred is expensive. Every trait you refuse to forgive needs a guard posted on it, and the guard works around the clock. Twenty years of guard duty is energy that never reached your training, your work, or your people.
- Forgiveness is not approval. You can forgive the ambition that once made you ruthless without inviting it back. Forgiving a trait just means you can look at it long enough to learn what it was for.
What got you here won't get you there. What can you forgive and accept to release your grip on the past?
ON THE MAT
Your shadow trains with you. It shows up in which rounds you want and which rounds you find a reason to sit out.
- This week, after each roll note whether your normal game showed up or something else did. Coasting on the newer student. A little performance when the coach walks by.
- Pick the partner who changes you the most and name the change. Pace, ego, fear, pity. One word is enough.
- Roll with that partner again this week. Try to bring the same energy and focus you bring to everyone else.
Whoever changes how you roll is changing how you act off the mat too, in meetings and at dinner tables. The mat just makes it easier to catch.
OFF THE MAT
A paradox to sit with this week:
You can't be whole and flawless at the same time.
For the journal: What do I criticize in others that I've never once admitted in myself?
DEEP READING
Until next week...
Train hard. Breathe easy. Walk the path.
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