You’ve mapped out the part of your heart that sits in the sun-warmed lands: the people you care about, the activities and things you enjoy doing. (See the last blog post if you have not begun your heart map yet.) Now it’s time for us to explore the Shadowlands.
What lies in the Shadowlands of your heart? Stuff that you don’t like to bring into the light. Painful memories or experiences that have stayed with you. Things that you have done or said that you are not proud of. Secrets.
You don’t have to put them on your heart map if you don’t want to. But this is a good time to look at them in private. It’s good to know where the treacherous terrain lies when you embark upon a journey.
On my heart map, I’ve represented a lot of my Shadowlands with pictures and symbols. A large tear represents my sad memories, which are mostly connected to loved ones I have lost. There is a bandaid for hurt feelings, a tall building for my fear of heights, and an ant for a strange phobia I have of dead ants. I didn’t even want to draw a dead ant on my heart map. Shudder! That’s why the ant in my picture is alive and looking up.
There is a padlock near the ant and the tall building. That’s for the secret memories that are locked in my heart. Now that I am older, there aren’t as many secret memories in there. I’ve learned that it helps to share them with someone you love and trust very, very much.
Some of the things that were locked in my heart were things I thought were unforgivable about myself. I’ve learned to forgive myself for a lot of them, so I’ll share one of them with you.
It’s the way I got my “dead ant” phobia.
We used to get a lot of ants in our house every summer. We had some big old black ants that used to march all over the kitchen, and my mom kept a can of RAID! insecticide in the cupboard to spray around the doorframe every night.
One evening, I saw a big ol’ ant crawling around on the kitchen table. I was mad at that ant for being in our space, and I decided that I’d teach it a lesson. I grabbed the can of RAID! and sprayed the ant right there in front of me.
Now, I’m getting the creeps just writing about this. I can feel my insides just tightening right up, and I’ve got a yucky feeling in the back of my throat. Because I remember watching that ant die.
It was a horrible thing to see, and I realized that I had caused a living creature to feel pain and to stop living and going about its normal business of just being an ant, doing what ants do. And I’ve felt guilty about that for the rest of my life.
But guilt is like a coin that has a good side and the bad side. On the bad side, my guilt over torturing that ant has given me a life-long phobia of dead ants. Something inside me wants to scream and run from the scene every time I see a dead ant—I can’t help it, that’s my gut reaction. I’ve been fighting the urge to throw my laptop on the floor and shriek and run away from it, just because I keep seeing the words “dead ant” on the screen. AAAAAAGH!!! (That feels just a little better now. Sorry!)
But the guilt I’ve felt about hurting that ant has also done something good. It’s made me a more compassionate person. I try hard to respect all living things. I might go to some extremes, but I don’t mind carrying any insects that come into our house outside again to freedom—even the wasps that seem to find their way in every spring. I realize that every living thing wants to keep living, and I try my best to help and not harm. I try to remember that when I deal with people, too. Everyone has feelings, even if they can’t express them. I try to look at everyone as an individual when I see them, and not just as another face. So, guilt can help you to become a better person.
You may have some feelings of guilt that have something to do with your brother’s or sister’s special needs. That’s normal. As a matter of fact, all brothers and sisters have complicated feelings towards each other, whether one is disabled or not. But sometimes having a sib with a disability makes things seem just a little more complicated at times.
We’ll touch on some of those complicated feelings in other blog posts. (I may even share some of my complicated feelings about my brother and sister.) But for now, making your map is a chance for you to look at EVERYTHING that’s in your heart—and a lot of that will have nothing to do with anyone else but you. That’s good! --because you are a whole person, made up of lots of different feelings and experiences, likes and dislikes, which are a combination of what you do with your family, with other people, and by yourself.
You are you, and your heart is your own. Everyone has bright sunny places in their heart, and everyone has Shadowlands. Knowing what’s in your own heart makes it easier to appreciate the wonderful person that you are. Draw your map, and keep it in a safe place. You’ll be pulling it out from time to time as you continue on your own special journey.
In my next post, we’ll talk a little more about the journey. See you soon!
