🐈

most people who talk about eating shadow aren't actually eating their shadow but expressing their shadow. which is the opposite. a non-woo analogy is that "eating your shadow" is watching a wild dog eat shit, dig holes, and jump on people and go "hold up! that's MY dog!!!"

expressing shadow on the other hand is just letting the dog go wild and going "it's somewhere in the park" or even "dog?? I don't own a dog!"

there's nothing wrong w/ expressing shadow just like there's nothing wrong with taking a dog to the dog park to work out energy. but it is NOT stand-in for proper discipline and being all mean and having to say "NO!"

to give credit though, most who are in the habit of expressing their shadow have a clearer idea of where their shadow is. however their expression is usually the childlike "I'll show you mine if you show me yours"

"oh WOW, your Life is so WILD and CRAZY and so full of ENERGY and UNCONTROLLABLE" "oh YEAH so is yours!! i guess we both can't take responsibility for ourselves because our innate energies are SOOOO powerful"

using more magical symbols, you could say that because shadow is "yin", it necessarily requires "yang" to balance it in secular terms this maps to "the masculine is better at enforcing discipline"