Now as you keep your eyes closed,
I'm going to transition into the matters of the heart.
Today we're going to do a look,
A deep look inside our shadows.
Our shadow is the place within each of us that contains what we don't know,
Don't like or deny about ourselves.
Calling it our shadow is fitting because of its lack of illumination.
What it's storing is being kept in the dark to whatever degree.
Wherever you go,
Our shadow goes with us,
Whether we are aware of it or not.
Our shadow holds our unattended and not yet illuminated conditioning,
All the programmed ways we act,
Think,
Feel,
And choose without knowing why.
It also contains all that we've disowned,
Pushed aside,
Or otherwise rejected in ourselves.
Whatever in us about which we insist,
That's not me,
Whatever in us we're out of touch with or keeping out of sight,
Such as the roots of our unresolved wounding.
Now these things that are hidden away in our shadows could include your fear,
Especially in the form of core level anxiety,
Your anger,
Including anger that's been converted into aggression,
Your shame,
Particularly when we associate it with humiliation and rejection,
Your empathy,
Especially what you equate it to with being too soft,
Your less than flattering intentions such as being good in order to stay in control,
Your resistance,
Especially when you know something is muted or muscled,
The child in you,
Particularly when you're avoiding or minimizing your childhood wounding,
Your inner saboteur featuring you playing victim to self-repeating behaviors,
The non-sexual factors driving your sexuality such as wanting to be wanted,
Your grief,
Especially in its raw depths and unsullied intensity,
Your bigness and your beauty,
The ennobling qualities you've learned to suppress.
The quickest way to get a sense of what's in your shadow is to identify something that you don't like about yourself,
Perhaps a quality you wish you didn't have and therefore tend to push away and ignore as best as you can.
Initially,
We'll probably only see the presenting surface of this quality,
Such as an out of proportion insecurity or irritability,
Not realizing that this is but the tip of the proverbial iceberg.
However,
Once you realize there's more to this dislike quality of yourself than you're being,
You're likely going to feel more open to exploring it and its origins.
And the more you explore,
The more likely you are to realize that the quality that you've disowned is in fact the quality that can be helpful to you.
I'm going to read you through a practice of bringing your shadow elements more into the open.
I'm going to read out a few statements and I want you to finish the incomplete sentence as spontaneously,
Out loud.
Don't think too much about it.
Don't repeat the part that I'm going to read.
Just complete the sentence where I've left off.
Number one,
Something in me I often feel aversion towards is.
Number two,
The emotion I'm least comfortable expressing is.
Number three,
What I have a hard time admitting an argument is.
Number four,
What I'm most hesitant to express in a relationship is.
Five,
What I least want others to know about me is.
Six,
I don't like admitting that I am.
Seven,
When I feel shame,
What I usually do is.
Eight,
What I most readily judge others for is.
And the final ninth question,
I tend to give away my power when.
Your responses point to things that are probably in your shadow,
Whether partially or fully.
Don't be too concerned about clarity here.
What matters is that you're turning towards your shadow.
You're accessing some curiosity about what may be in it.
Looking inside is a process of ongoing discovery.
Treat it as such.
In order to know your shadow,
You need to learn how to skillfully relate,
Not just intellectually,
But also emotionally,
Somatically and spiritually to the qualities and behaviors housed in it.
No matter how ugly or unsavory they may seem to you.
It may be helpful here to personify a particular element as a guest that you invited into your living room.
Perhaps a difficult or unpleasant guest and perhaps one you invited reluctantly,
But a guest nonetheless taking a seat in front of you.
Your guest may be your anger,
Your shame,
Fear,
A part of your body,
Your aversion towards a certain class of people,
Your unwillingness to take responsibility in a particular area of your life.
Whatever you'd rather not face in yourself,
Whatever you haven't faced in yourself,
Whatever's in you that you're trying to keep out of sight.
Whatever in yourself you're trying to keep in the dark doesn't go away just because you don't see it,
Hear it or feel it.
In fact,
The more you push it away or ignore it,
The stronger and more rooted it becomes insinuating its way into your everyday life.
The longer you cage an animal,
Especially in the dark,
An easy to forget cage,
The worse it may behave once it's let out or gets out.
And this is not the animal's fault.
The same applies to your shadow elements.
The further and more forcibly you push them into the dark,
The more monstrous or alien they will seem.
Your anger,
When it's been long repressed,
Muted,
Muscled,
Locked up in the darkness,
It will likely show up in a far from healthy form once it breaks out of its confinement.
It doesn't mean that anger itself is bad or unwholesome thing.
It's over containment and mistreatment is the problem.
Meeting and exploring your anger or any other emotion in a compassionately contained well-lit space allows you to see it more clearly,
Deepening your capacity to express it in ways that serve your wellbeing and the wellbeing of others.
There's no true escape from your shadow elements for they're a part of you,
No matter how removed from you they may be.
The idea of the shadow has been around for a while in various forms,
But it remains on the fringe of the mainstream culture as does the idea of shadow work.
However,
Exploring our shadow doesn't have to be a arcane or limiting or solely intellectual consideration.
We need to see,
Feel,
And know it deeply without bypassing its visceral reality and its industrial strength impact on your choice making and your destiny.
We need to explore it not generically,
But specifically in personal way.
Turning towards our shadow,
However slightly is a shift from abstraction to direct experience.
It's also a shift from the comfortably familiar to the edgily unfamiliar,
The unknown,
The hidden forces that are driving us.
Turning towards your shadow is the significant first step of a courage deepening,
Self-affirming adventure that asks much of you and gives back more than can be imagined.
Working sincerely and in depth with your shadow is a powerfully liberating labor affecting every area of your life,
Furthering your capacity to become intimate with everything,
Everything that you are.
Nothing gets stranded in the dark.
Nothing gets left out.
The more that you ignore your shadow,
Both personally and collectively,
The more it dominates and operates you,
Sometimes with disastrous consequences.
Our increasingly perilous time calls for us to wake up to our shadow,
To face and know our shadow very well,
To work with it in enough depth so that it can no longer run us.
Staying oblivious to your shadow,
As is especially common in political and corporate arenas,
Simply reinforces your dysfunction,
Regardless of your achievements.
Bringing your shadow elements out of the dark and working with them may seem optional at first,
But eventually doing so becomes,
If you do so,
Wholeheartedly.
It's not only a foundational invitation,
But also a sacred demand,
A necessary journey packed with uncommonly deep healing and awakening.
It takes courage to face your shadow and work with it,
But the very act of doing so deepens your courage.
I want you to notice for yourself how you feel right now.
Please pull out your notebook and pen,
And I'm going to repeat those nine exercises,
Nine questions to bring your shadow elements out more into the open.
And you're welcome to write those down for you to reflect and respond to those nine statements.
Number one,
Something in me I often feel aversion towards is.
The emotion I'm least comfortable expressing is.
Number three,
What I have a hard time admitting in an argument is.
Four,
What I'm most hesitant to express in a relationship is.
Five,
What I least want others to know about me is.
Six,
I don't like admitting that I am.
Seven,
When I feel shame,
What I usually do is.
Eight,
What I most readily judge others for is.
And the final ninth,
I tend to give away my power when.
Now I want you all to please go ahead and share what was the most relevant,
What touched you,
Spoke to you deeply in this last 45 minutes we've been together.
I want you to go ahead and post that in the comments section.
