I want to be empty. To let all of this life pass through me without holding on: ideas, memories, pain and love. I want to understand my past, and open it up like the windows of a home, letting fresh cold air blow through the corners of my soul.

I’m digging in search of the source of my light, for I long to know what makes me me. But we’re more than just light. Like the dark side of the moon, there’s a shadowed side to each of us.

“The shadow consists of all the qualities people try to deny about themselves and repress,” writes the deeply inspiring contemporary writer, Robert Greene, in The Laws of Human Nature.

“This repression is so deep and effective that people are generally unaware of their shadow; it operates unconsciously.”

Why am I interested in the shadow?

Because I want to know myself truly, for only those who know themselves can decide who they’ll become. What’s primarily sparked my curiosity is my ambition to heal.

I’ve spent the majority of my twenties in chronic back pain after suffering an injury when I was twenty-one. And while I’m doing the work physically to heal through the Back Breakthrough Blueprint — the first route out of back pain that has given me any degree of sincere hope — I wonder if there’s an emotional dimension to the pain I need to confront as well, that there’s more to work through, forgive, and perhaps let shine.

Buried within us is a deeper nature embedded in the experiences of childhood, for that, says Greene, is where the shadow derives. When I think back on my childhood, I have so much to be grateful for. But it wasn’t perfect by any means, for no childhood is.

There’s so much to unpack, and I don’t expect change to come all at once. This is a lifelong process, and it’s beautiful because of that. Little by little, I strive to become a more cohesive being, not only bright as day or dark as night, but evolving like the seasons, genuine in every shade, integrating all I’ve ever been to become all I’m meant to be.

As we get older we often try to forget who we were, believing that with time, the hurt will fade, our identity will shift, and the past will be no more part of us than last year’s storms are to the earth.

But the storms have left their mark, and while the skies have cleared, the earth will always know the touch of lightning. We’re nothing more than the kid we were, changed by passing time, experiences, pain, love. But that kid is still here. Maybe they’re still angry or have more to say. Maybe they wanted attention and are seeking it now. In all likelihood, they probably just want to play again.

“Most of us succeed in becoming a positive social animal, but at a price,” writes Greene. “We end up missing the intensity that we experienced in childhood, the full gamut of emotions, and even the creativity that came with this wilder energy. We secretly yearn to recapture it in some way.”

I know I just want to play like a kid again. I want to unleash this energy physically, yet my body limits me. The pain won’t be forever, for it feels like there’s a breakthrough on the way, physically and emotionally.

“Look to your dreams as the most direct and clear view of your shadow,” writes Greene. “Only there will you find the kinds of behavior you have carefully avoided in conscious life. The shadow is talking to you in various ways. Don’t look for symbols or hidden meanings. Pay attention instead to the emotional tone and overall feelings that they inspire, holding on to them throughout the day.”

To analyze my dreams, I’ve been free-form journaling first thing in the morning. If you want to try as well, leave your journal by your bed. Write about your dreams when you wake up, and whatever else comes up. Don’t worry about grammar or anything, just put what’s in your brain on the page.

We usually wake up from a dream, shake our head with maybe a whoa, then go about our day. For the first time I’m digging into them, and can see the concrete themes on the page. Nearly all of them having something to do with my childhood.

I’ve also started meditating. I limit both activities to between thirty minutes and an hour total so I don’t get overwhelmed, feeling like I have to go through these practices every day. We get to. So it’s better to do a little than nothing at all.

With most meditations, we’re told to empty the mind and focus on the breath. I’ve been doing a meditation I learned from the legendary entrepreneur, Naval Ravikant, where we do the opposite. We let our mind wander like a dog in a park.

It’s refreshing, for we rarely allow ourselves time to do nothing but think. We’re always doing something else, thinking aimlessly on top of that activity. It feels cleansing to start the day this way, unloading instead of consuming.

Ravikant likens this form of meditation to clearing your email inbox. After enough sessions, your inbox will be empty. You’ll have worked through all the junk on your mind, and some deeper stuff will inevitably arise.

I’ve started these meditations by talking to little Vinny, my inner kid. I see myself at eight, nine, ten-years-old, and I ask him questions. He’s hanging around, acting cute, and instead of concrete answers, what’s been coming up is more like scenes, memories, themes.

I ask if he was hurt, and what I can forgive. I ask for advice. One day this week, I imagined him talking to eighty-year-old Vinny. An entire life between them, and here I am, the physical embodiment of their connection. The imagination is an amazing thing.

I also put myself in the shoes of my thirteen-year-old self and imagined talking to the Vinny of today. I tried to imagine what I would see when looking at the present-day me. Would thirteen-year-old me be proud when speaking to present-day me? Would he like the things I’ve done, or the person I’ve become?

And what would I tell him? How could I prepare him for what’s filled the last fifteen years? So much joy — experiences to savor for a lifetime. Yet endless days, too, of feeling completely broken. There’s no way to prepare. So what I’d say is this:

There’s going to be so much love in your life, I tell my thirteen-year-old self (thirteen-years-old because it’s a part of childhood I remember quite vividly).

There’s going to be adventure and friendship, and you’re going to find something you love to do more than anything. You’re going to dedicate yourself to it, and it’s going to give your life direction. Can you imagine now what that thing might be? I ask. There’s no way I would have been able to, which is an absolutely wild thought.

There’s going to be things you just can’t understand. Things that will hurt, that will test you, that will break you; your journey of overcoming will make you into a warrior — emotionally, physically, mentally. That very hurt will take you back to here, the place where our story begins, to the child who just wants to play, and will again, at that.

And maybe thirteen-year-old me is in cahoots with forty-year-old me, and he pops into the scene, smiling. Hold on, he says before present-day me can speak. I can’t tell you if you — I — whatever, still have back pain. But I can tell you this. You kids ain’t seen nothing yet. Nothin’.

Poof.

Me, thirteen-year-old Vinny, and heck, the little guy’s in there too, look at each other. Well, I say, if we can’t imagine what’s to come, might as well enjoy the ride, every step of the way.