Listening to the Shadow

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It’s just after midnight. My body battery was at 18 earlier—utterly drained. But now… I’m at 27. I haven’t done anything physically intense today. But emotionally? Yeah. I’ve been through a lot.

And oddly enough, I feel better now.
Not because something outside changed, but because I finally sat down with myself. No distractions. No noise. Just me.

It hit me that maybe this exhaustion I’ve been feeling for years isn’t just about poor sleep or stress—maybe it’s the voice of my shadow self. Not a villain. Not some saboteur. But the younger parts of me crying out to be heard.

“If I drain your energy… will you finally sit with me?”

It’s not manipulation. It’s a survival strategy. The most sensitive, unseen parts of me found the only way to get attention: shut down everything else until I finally stop and listen.

And here’s the strange thing: when I do, I start to feel whole. It’s quiet, but it’s real.
Not some dopamine rush from figuring something out. Not some insight to file away.
Just me, being with me.

I’ve been neglecting that for a long time—especially when parenting. I love my son more than anything, but I’ve also felt tension there. Resentment even. Because being with him often requires me to put myself aside. And that’s hard when there are parts of me that are begging not to be put aside anymore.

So I’m starting to understand something:

This isn’t manipulation.
This is a homecoming.

And maybe that’s enough for now. To know that, when I feel depleted… the answer isn’t always to push through.
Sometimes, the answer is to return—to myself.