Calling Back the Exiled Parts of Me (50 Days of Shadow Work)

Dear community,

You know when a truth hits you so hard you almost can't tell if it's a breakdown or a breakthrough?

I had one of those moments today.

I was in a session with Coach Inga (the coach that helps me learn the skills to be in harmonious relationships, without betraying myself) this morning, feeling grumpy, contradictory, on the edge of a temper tantrum. In other words — deeply in my Shadow (I will explain in more detail the concept of Shadow, as first contemplated by C.G. Jung) .

And then something landed really hard: I’ve been projecting all my disowned, unpleasant parts onto my husband. For years. All the feelings I’ve deemed unacceptable, unlovable, even grotesque — he gets them. Not because he deserves them, but because I couldn't bear to face them in myself.

It’s hard to write this and it is also freeing.

There’s a part of me — many parts actually — that I’ve never properly acknowledged. Because for the longest time, it was simply not safe to have them. Tantrums? Unacceptable. Being mean or unpleasant? You’ll be abandoned. Don’t do your homework? You’ll end up poor, a failure, an outcast. Follow your own energy? You’ll die alone, broke, and unloved.

So I exiled them. Locked them away somewhere deep, and performed the version of me that seemed more acceptable: Pleasant. Smart. Helpful. Productive. Kind.

But today, somehow, something in me snapped. I saw the cost of wearing all the masks. I saw the lie I’ve been living. Not always. But enough to make me grieve all the time I've spent pretending.

My Father’s Name Was Ovidiu

Isn’t it strange how life leaves us symbols everywhere? My father’s name was Ovidiu — named after the Roman poet Ovid, who was famously exiled to the edge of the Roman Empire by Emperor Augustus. The reason? Carmen et error — “a poem and a mistake.”

A poem — too erotic, too honest (Ars Amatoria). And a mistake — something unnamed, political, perhaps just being in the wrong place with the wrong truth at the wrong time.

Ovid spent the rest of his life on the margins of the Empire, writing sorrowful letters and begging to come back home.

It hit me: I’ve been Ovid my whole life — casting out all the parts of myself that didn’t align with the rules of acceptability I grew up with. All my poems and mistakes. All the messy, inconvenient, contradictory, shadowy things I was told would make me unlovable. Unworthy. Unsafe.

Should I Take Them Back?

One by one?

• The part that’s grumpy in the morning and doesn’t want to speak to anyone.

• The part that is judgmental — of people, of chaos, of rushing.

• The part that is lazy. Or slow.

• The part that believes it knows best.

• The part that believes it’s here to save the world (and the part that secretly resents that).

• The angry part. The rude part. The vengeful part.

• The one who wants to throw a tantrum, who wants someone to finally witness it.

• The people-pleaser.

• The perfectionist.

• The critic.

• The part that gives everything to the world and saves nothing for the person closest to me.

• The part that’s disgusted by my own body — the smells, the burps, the secretions and excretions and the messy humanness of it all.

• The wanderer — the part that chases novelty and learns little.

• The sensitive one — especially to smell. (No wonder my nose was always clogged as a kid.)

There are so many more.

So, I’m Doing a 50-Day Dharmathon (if you're curious what a Dharmathon is, please ask me)

Fifty days. One part a day. I’ll call each one back, one at a time, sit with it, hear it, and — if I can — love it. Or at least be curious about it.

Because I believe that this internal cast of characters are not mistakes. They’re not shameful. They’re not evil. They’re just… exiled. And they want to come home.

Understanding the Shadow

Carl Jung defined the Shadow as everything the ego refuses to acknowledge about itself — the unconscious, the dark, the disowned. Not evil, just unintegrated. Primitive. Repressed. And when ignored, it gets projected outward. It shows up in our relationships, our judgments, our quick reactions. It becomes the lens through which we see others — especially those we love.

And now I see it: I have been projecting all of my exiles onto the person who knows me and loves me the most in the whole world. The Shadow is me, multiplied and externalized.

It’s not lost on me that the poet in exile spent his last years writing Tristia — sorrow — from the Black Sea, asking to be welcomed back. That’s what the Shadow is asking of me now. That’s what these parts want:

To come home.

If any of this resonates — if you’ve ever felt like a walking performance of what your childhood told you was acceptable — I invite you to join me. You don’t need a 50-day plan. Maybe it’s just one part. One conversation. One shadow you stop blaming others for, and start welcoming back.

Let’s bring them home.

(Please message me if you feel called by your exiles. I can help and I also know people who can help.)

(The picture is of The Black Sea in a storm- the Black Sea being the place where Ovid was exiled)