Seeing My Own Shadow

I have had this companion for most of my life I am sure.  I will call it the Shadow.  I usually ignore it, pretend it doesn't exist or influence me in anyway.  However, I have realized I am in severe denial.  Lately I have felt my life to be in a rut, to put it mildly.  I have blamed and cursed almost everything in my life for creating these uncomfortable and unwanted feelings within myself.  Who doesn't want their life to be completely roses?  I finally realized that I had a problem with almost every major aspect of my life: marriage, money and career and the common denominator was me. So I finally asked myself-Sara, what are all these things pointing to?  What are they showing you?  In a few short words, I am quite effectively stopping myself from flowing with Life.  I am terrified of letting go and letting change happen, especially when I don't know if I will like the outcome.  Don't get me wrong, I keep telling myself I want something to change, anything, but....I sabotage myself over and over again and I have been so unaware of it.  Until now.  The Shadow, very discreetly has been trying to get my attention for a while.  A poke here, a little nudge there, until I can no longer ignore it's subtleties.  It has my attention now.  Although this shadow has caused me grief for awhile, I am thankful for it putting up with my denial.  It hasn't shown me a positive aspect of myself, but it has revealed to me a negative coping mechanism I have used time and again: defensiveness, anger, inflexibility etc, just to keep myself at distance from change and acknowledging my fear.  I now know I believe change will hurt.  Yet, this is so untrue.  Change has brought so many wonderful things into my life.  It is only when I have resisted change that it has hurt and truthfully I have only hurt myself by hurting others with my negative behaviour.  So today I thank the shadow.  I see the patterns I use when I know something is coming down the line, and I don't want to look at it.  I have put my glasses on and I have left the blinders behind.  Change is coming, it is inevitable, nothing in life stays the same.  I now step into a new paradigm, a positive, life affirming behaviour with this awareness lighting the way.  I am stepping out of the shadow (finally) into the sunshine.