Monsters in the Closet.... Real? or Not?
"Monsters in the Closet" were part of my childhood experience as I had frequent nightmares. I could only sleep if I had a nightlight in my bedroom because darkness was a scary world, a world that hides all types of dangerous characters. My vivid imagination would create silhouette figures in the dark and for me they were like real people sneaking around and about to attack.
I know I am not the only child that suffered from nightmares and like all kids I out grew my nightmares...
or did I?
Several years ago I created a workshop called "Powering up Your Amazing Life Story", in which I encourage and invite participants to heal and embrace the totality of their life experiences.
In creating the workshop I had to walk my talk and thus experienced all the exercises I was creating for the participants. So as I did the exercises it had me looking back at my scary nightmare experiences and the many difficult experiences in my life. It made me realized there were some hidden treasures to be uncovered behind of these experiences so un-expectantly I embarked in a self-discovery journey.
As I took this self-discovery journey, to my delight and surprise, I found hidden behind my childhood nightmares experience, those so-called "Monsters in the Closet" had some priceless hidden treasures for me to uncovered.
The first treasure I found was that my core faith in prayers and my deep believe that there is a higher power called God/Divine Source/Creator really came from my mother and not from my Catholic upbringing. That in those terrifying nights when I would wake up from those awful nightmares and my mother would come into my room to comfort me, she instilled in me the power of faith. She came into my room sit beside me in my bed then she would hug me and would calm telling me how the nightmares would go away if we prayed the Lord's Prayer. I remember that I took those words to be literally the truth and so I would pray with such devotion and faith that by the time I finish the Lord's Prayer not only did I feel safe and loved but soon after I would fall asleep. This uncovering behind this childhood memory was such a priceless gift-- Wow! It made me see how such a simple loving act could impact a human being.
My second and more profound treasure that I discovered was that those "Monsters in the Closet" have been with me throughout my whole life. Even though I don't suffer from nightmares like when I was a small child, the "Monster in the Closet" have been a companion of mine all my life. The "Monsters in the Closet" from my childhood became what is known as the Shadow or Archetype Characters or Voices in my head (as seen in the Disney animated movie Inside Out).
The good news is that "Monster in the Closet" have been uncovered, embraced, healed and joyfully added to my delightful cast of inner voices that makes me enjoy each and every moment of my life with a wondrous attitude. I know there will be more discoveries to be made as I continue to uncover the hidden treasures of my past experiences but now I look forward to them as a child without fear of the adventure, without fear of exploring the unknown. So you see "Monsters in the Closet" were transformed into to my allies and a great resource as my inner voices came together as one team.
