Every Costume Tells a Story—What’s Yours Saying?

Happy Friday and Happy Halloween!

What Your Halloween Costume Is Trying to Tell You

Every October, we open our closets and imaginations to choose a costume. Some of us become witches or ghosts, others superheroes, villains, angels, or jesters. On the surface, it’s all play. But beneath the glitter and face paint, our Halloween choices can reveal more than we intend. Each costume is a clue—a quiet message from the deeper self whispering, “Look here. This is the part of you you’ve been ignoring.”
For one night, we embody what we usually hide. The brave, the mischievous, the seductive, the strange—all come out to dance. Halloween isn’t really about disguise; it’s about discovery.

The Naughty Witch at the Party
This year, I hosted a Halloween party wearing a bottle green dress and a tiny witch hat. I told everyone I was a “naughty witch,” and I meant it playfully. But later, I realized there was more beneath the laughter. The green dress reminded me of Wicked, the story of a misunderstood young woman who’s branded a villain.

At the time, I hadn’t made that connection consciously. But after the party, I saw it clearly. The character’s struggle—feeling unloved by her family—echoed something deep in me. Hosting the party while dressed as that “unloved” witch, surrounded by friends who cared for me, felt unexpectedly healing.

That’s the beauty of shadow work. It often unfolds quietly, through experience. We don’t always know why we’re drawn to a certain costume or archetype, but our choices are never random. They’re invitations from the soul, asking to be seen.

“We don’t always know why we’re drawn to a specific costume or archetype, but our choices are never random. They’re invitations from the soul, asking to be seen.”

The Ancient Roots of Halloween
Long before it became a night of candy and costumes, Halloween began as Samhain, the Celtic festival marking the end of the harvest and the beginning of winter, the “dark half” of the year. The Celts believed that on October 31st, the boundary between the living and the dead thinned, allowing spirits to cross over. People wore costumes to confuse those spirits, not to celebrate death, but to live peacefully alongside it.

Over centuries, Samhain merged with All Hallows’ Eve, the night before All Saints’ Day. Reverence became revelry. We traded bonfires for porch lights and offerings for candy, but the essence remained the same: a ritual of meeting the unseen, both around us and within us.

The Shadow That Wears the Costume
Carl Jung taught that every human being carries a shadow—the repressed, unacknowledged parts of ourselves. Most of us spend our lives avoiding them. But the truth is, the shadow isn’t an enemy. It’s a doorway to wholeness. What we refuse to see within ourselves controls us; what we dare to meet transforms us.

On Halloween, something unusual happens. Society gives us permission to play, to step into the forbidden or the absurd, and the shadow slips through that open door. The costumes we choose are rarely accidents. For a few hours, the soul speaks in symbols, and if we listen closely, we can hear what it’s been trying to say all year.

A Soulful Exercise: The Halloween Hug
You can use your costume—or any archetype you’ve felt drawn to—as a way to explore your own shadow. Try this simple practice.

1. Do the Self-Acknowledgment Hug. Wrap your arms around yourself and say:

“I love you, [your name]. We will always be together. We will always be safe. We are enough. We demand and expect better.”

Feel the warmth, the containment, and the safety.

1. Ask for a Word. Close your eyes and ask your deeper self: “What character or archetype would I like to be right now?” The answer might come as an image, a color, or a single word—like “witch,” “healer,” or “hero.”
2. Do a Word of the Day Cluster. Write your chosen word in the center of a page. Set a timer for one minute and quickly write down any words, feelings, or images that come up. Don’t censor yourself. Let the associations spill out.
3. Write a Short Story. Set a timer for one minute Using your cluster, write a brief story or scene about the character or archetype you chose. Let it flow freely for a few minutes. The story will reveal something your soul wants you to know.
4. Reflect. Notice what stood out. You don’t have to interpret it immediately. Insight often arrives later, the way it did for me after my party.

When the Costume Comes Off
Halloween is more than a night of dress-up. It’s a kind of soul retrieval. The costume lets us embody what we’ve been hiding and invites those forgotten parts home.

So the next time you pick out a costume, or find yourself drawn to a particular role in life, pause and ask:
What truth is this character helping me express?

Because the real magic of Halloween isn’t in the disguise, it’s in the discovery. For one night, the hidden self steps forward, unafraid. And if we’re listening, it just might tell us what we’ve been missing all along.

Redefining Success-A Webinar Recap

by Peppa Herrera

During the webinar held on October 22, after completing our deep breathing and the Self-Acknowledgement Hug, we closed our eyes and let an image come to mind that represented the feeling of success and how it lives not in our thoughts, but in our bodies.

The responses were delightfully varied: painting on a beach, standing in front of a film poster at a festival, attending a national Broadway performance in which a daughter was involved, and writing “The End” at the conclusion of a manuscript.  We explored this further through a simple yet powerful  exercise, where we wrote a word that represented our personal sense of accomplishment in a circle on the page and then completed a Word of the Day Cluster around that word. It wasn’t about goals or strategy; it was about sensing where meaning begins.  Completion, excellence, satisfaction, and transformation were all mentioned. how it lives not in our thoughts, but in our bodies.

From there, we moved into creative writing and a conversation about thriving versus surviving. Marilyn explained how repetition and pleasure can literally rewire the body, helping us shift from stress to joy. The stories people shared—about healing, trust, and presence—made the whole session feel alive and communal, like a group remembering what wholeness feels like.

Stories included:
The breeze tickles Susan’s face. She fills her water jars with ocean to wet and clean brushes. A purple balloon floats by, coming out of the sun-striped sky. She takes a full breath. The paint flows onto the paper, creating an unexpected, dreamlike vision. Her toes grab the warm sand, grounding her, as waves crash, splashing minute foam in the air. She is fully present. This is God’s gift.

There is nothing else. Life is this moment. My muscles are so relaxed that I become the air that I breathe in. Full satisfaction is visible when the past and the future blend together.

Jacelyn shared that her word that connected to her image of success was COMPLETION, and she commented,  “Lately it seems I have no control. There are too many distractions and outside forces, as well as the internal demands. I feel successful when taking the creative writing classes because I write complete stories out of nowhere, and they are good.” Later, Jacelyn shared this creative piece:

My biggest takeaway came at the end. I realized that true success isn’t something to reach; it’s something to embody. When I stop chasing balance and start feeling it, peace and justice stop being abstract—they become sensations I can live from. That’s where thriving truly begins.

Don’t Miss the Next Webinar (Meeting on Tuesday!)

The reflections and writing from the recent webinar were moving and profound. Please join me for the next Word of the Day/Beyond Happiness Webinar. If you’re looking for clarity, discovery, and a boost in creativity, you won’t want to miss this next meeting.

Bring your pen and paper, and join this warm community of writers, artists, and professionals—now on Tuesday! See you on November 4!

Here’s to your personal success,

Professor Marilyn Horowitz

Catch the Replay!

Host Hannah Murray and I had the opportunity to discuss my new release, Bad Girl Pie, on TRE-Talk Radio Europe, Spain’s only English-speaking talk radio network. Tune in for The Book Show here.

New Webinar Tuesday, November 4, 7:00 pm EST

Join us for our upcoming webinar where we’ll explore how calm and clarity aren’t luxuries—they’re essentials for better work, creativity, and decision-making. Using the Beyond Happiness Method and simple writing techniques, you’ll learn how to quiet the noise of daily life and reconnect with your inner steadiness.

Bring your pen and paper! You’ll leave with practical tools to help you feel centered, confident, and creatively free—no matter what tomorrow brings.

Register Here