We don't always get what we want, and I've started to accept that there aren’t always win-win scenarios when making major life decisions.

Different parts of you want different things, and that creates layers of conscious and unconscious internal conflict.

Your hours are limited, your parts are mixed, and not every part of you will be satisfied with every daily decision.

For example:

One part of you might want to be outside and offline for an entire week, but another part of you knows you need to be near your phone for work.

One part of you might want to spend more time with friends or loved ones, but another part knows that you're improving your finances and it would be wise to work more hours.

Or maybe there is part of you which wants to stop early and take the evening off, but another part knows you won't get back on the laptop if you unplug now.

I understand these kinds of internal conflicts because it's how my last ten months have felt.

During the spring, summer and autumn of 2023 there were entire weeks where my healthy natural impulses were staged against my practical creative intentions.

I needed to endure things my body didn’t appreciate, and it felt like an internal civil war on the difficult days.

I remember walking into this library on course filming days and systematically blacking out the natural sunbeams with blankets and curtains so that I could spend the day staring into harsh studio lighting while recording new lectures.

I filmed just over 200 videos in 2023 with both YouTube and The Shadow Work Library course curriculum combined, and it’s the best work of my life - my course students have been giving me excellent feedback about their experience inside.

But last year nonetheless taught me that massive online growth comes with massive offline sacrifice, and not all things can be balanced so easily.

I'm ambitious and I'm proud of what l've created with my course and with this YouTube channel, but too many playful parts have been repressed and ignored in the last year.

The start of 2024 was more artificial lights, but l've promised to spend more time barefoot this spring, and we all know that you should never break a promise to your Inner Child.

Jordan 🌲

P. S. Tap the link below and join me inside the library if you want to benefit from my last four years of obsessive research - It’s the best shadow work course on the internet.

https://courses.jordanthornton.com/shadow-work-library/

READ THIS: I created the Shadow Work Library as an academic-style experience, which is why the curriculum features only the very best books as the bibliographic backbone of the 9 intensive modules. The curriculum is intense, and students have told me that it feels like a mini masters degree, which is exactly what I was aiming for.

This course is unapologetically academic but it's also deeply therapeutic - tap the link above if you love reading niche psychology books and want to join me in studying the forgotten inner world masters. Now might be the best time of year for some serious upgrades across the full-spectrum of your past, present and future.