Opposites attract

Frederick Douglass "If there is no struggle, there is no progress."

Ideally, I'd like to make some progress every day, although that's not incredibly likely.
However, onward!

Getting back to the nitty gritty- What is a person's shadow?
I spoke to a mentor about this and I considered it to essentially be the opposite of something.
They recommended I write down all of the things I pride myself on and things I love about myself.
So maybe that will be easy...

Spontaneous
Creative
Intelligent
Caring
Open-minded
Etc. Etc. so on and so forth....

Then she said to write down the opposites of those words...
Premeditated
Unimaginative
Foolish
Cold
Closed-minded
All right! Sounds great!!

She said the key is to embrace all of those words- because if you are the first then you are also the second. You can't have one without the other. Yin and Yang and whatnot.
In my head I'm like- okay. I think I can do that....

Then she gave me a quote about loving the murderer in yourself... What?
Well shit... you obviously can't stop there.
The racist
The bigot
The lawyer
(heheheh)
The snob
The annoying little fuckwad
The pleaser
The list is endless...

Can I accept all of those parts? Because they're there whether I want them to be or not... whether I'm comfortable with them or not...

Can I accept that I can be beautiful and hideous like Ms. Beyonce here?

Point in case, maybe if she hadn't made such a big deal about the picture (accepted the ogre inside) it wouldn't be a meme now....

Nevermind. They would have done it anyway, let's be realistic.

I think something like this takes years to master... really... perhaps a lifetime.
Perhaps if for no other reason than the person you are changes, and you are forced to come to terms with those opposites.

Ugly portraits... ooooooooooh.....