The point of actively engaging your little monsters is to give them a home in your conscious personality rather than letting them rule your unconscious and fuel your persona.
Personality and persona are two different aspects of you. Personality is the unique package of experience, quirks, preferences, beliefs as well as both emotional and behavioral attitudes that make up you. Persona is the public face you show the world. Persona is essentially a mask. It's your personality filtered through how you want to appear to others, social expectations, societal norms and your wounding. Personality and persona aren't entirely separate, they overlap.
So what does integrating shadow as a conscious part of who you are look like? That idea may bring up fears about consciously acting out your monsters. In a sense this is what integration looks like, but not literally. Integrating shadow is about mindfully giving the shadow its due. That can be done through ritual, metaphor and vicarious experience.
Both personal and transpersonal shadow are needed and have their place. Most of us live in societies with both taboos and laws about not killing other people. Those laws and taboos help create a level of social expectation around what will happen when you and another person get into a heated argument. Even if the other person gets angry enough to want to kill you, chances are s/he won't do that.
Few of us would argue that this constraint, born of shadow, is a bad thing. The distortion occurs when you internalize the taboo against killing someone as taboo against feeling like you want to kill someone.
We've all heard at least one person say "I could never kill someone." Although that may be how the speaker feels, it isn't true. All of us are capable of killing, but barring extreme or life threatening circumstances, the majority of us choose not to. The statement "I could never kill someone" comes from taking on the taboo, judging it and disowning your ability to kill so completely that you believe you're incapable of doing so.
Integrating your shadow begins with naming and owning it. You are capable of killing. You and all the other seven billion people on this planet sometimes feel like doing that when you're angry. (Okay, maybe the Dalai Lama doesn't experience that, but the rest of us do.)
So now what? Murder is a common theme in movies, TV shows and video games. In modern society film, TV shows and video games have become a place for us to act out our shadows. If we're mindful, we can use those forms of media as ritual to vicariously experience acting out this piece of shadow.
In his book, Owning Your Shadow: Understanding the Dark Side of the Psyche, Robert Johnson talks about ritual as a way to give the shadow its due. The ritual you engage in or create doesn't have to complex or time consuming. It does need to be something you participate in mindfully. In the book, Johnson talks about a couple who uses taking out the trash as a way to acknowledge shadow. On trash day, whoever had the best week takes out the garbage.
The desire to kill someone is an extreme but pretty universal example of shadow that brings up a crucial point. We are equally attracted to and repelled by shadow. Accepting and consciously engaging that attraction is part of integration.
Evidence of our fascination with shadow is everywhere. We see it in how much space virtually every form of news media devotes to stories about criminal activity, disasters and the failings of public figures. Hollywood continues to churn our profitable horror movies year after year. The longest lines in amusement parks are often for the rides that let us experience stomach plunging fear.
The tradition of telling ghost stories around a fire or by candle light is still with us after thousands of years. Modern versions of this ritual include the urban legends circulated via chain emails and reality TV shows about ghost hunting. We even have a holiday devoted entirely to letting the shadow come out and play: Halloween.
Claiming your fascination with shadow is the beginning of holding darkness and light as a paradox where both are equally valued rather than forcing them to exist in opposition. When two equal forces meet, neither can overwhelm or destroy the other. The tension of this confluence births a new possibility of experiencing all of who you are: body, mind, soul, emotion, energy, darkness and divinity.
Part of my shadow integration is owning my love of skulls, bones and other scary bits. I was fortunate to work with a therapist who shared my love of bones. Finding out that she and her husband have a life sized human skeleton in their house confirmed for me that she and I were a good match.
One of my favorite tee shirts is printed with skulls of increasing size. I also have skull socks and underwear. Last year I was delighted to find a bracelet of impermanence beads (little skull beads) in a Tibetan shop in Minneapolis.
I don't wear any of this because I think I'm a bad ass or want to foster that image. (I am many things....bad ass isn't one of them.) The presence of death and destruction gives life a sense of urgency and adds to its value. My experiences of beauty, "ah-hah" moments, deep connection and contentment are precious because they are temporary. Wearing skulls and bones is way of giving my shadow its due and metaphorically carrying my death with me as a reminder of impermanence.
Integrating shadow is a life long process. Some days that looks like moment to moment practice of accepting rather than rejecting shadow as it arises. Other days I have more room to play and my shadow gets to pick the movie I watch.
What happens to us in life is less important than how we live with those experiences. A great deal of the power we have to create our own reality by forming conscious relationships to our experience comes from shadow. If that seems contradictory, think about how powerless you feel when one of your little monsters explodes outward and pushes you to behave in a way you later regret. Integrating your shadow lets you use that power creatively instead of wielding it as a weapon against yourself.
So what does integrating shadow as a conscious part of who you are look like? That idea may bring up fears about consciously acting out your monsters. In a sense this is what integration looks like, but not literally. Integrating shadow is about mindfully giving the shadow its due. That can be done through ritual, metaphor and vicarious experience.
Both personal and transpersonal shadow are needed and have their place. Most of us live in societies with both taboos and laws about not killing other people. Those laws and taboos help create a level of social expectation around what will happen when you and another person get into a heated argument. Even if the other person gets angry enough to want to kill you, chances are s/he won't do that.
Few of us would argue that this constraint, born of shadow, is a bad thing. The distortion occurs when you internalize the taboo against killing someone as taboo against feeling like you want to kill someone.
We've all heard at least one person say "I could never kill someone." Although that may be how the speaker feels, it isn't true. All of us are capable of killing, but barring extreme or life threatening circumstances, the majority of us choose not to. The statement "I could never kill someone" comes from taking on the taboo, judging it and disowning your ability to kill so completely that you believe you're incapable of doing so.
Integrating your shadow begins with naming and owning it. You are capable of killing. You and all the other seven billion people on this planet sometimes feel like doing that when you're angry. (Okay, maybe the Dalai Lama doesn't experience that, but the rest of us do.)
So now what? Murder is a common theme in movies, TV shows and video games. In modern society film, TV shows and video games have become a place for us to act out our shadows. If we're mindful, we can use those forms of media as ritual to vicariously experience acting out this piece of shadow.
In his book, Owning Your Shadow: Understanding the Dark Side of the Psyche, Robert Johnson talks about ritual as a way to give the shadow its due. The ritual you engage in or create doesn't have to complex or time consuming. It does need to be something you participate in mindfully. In the book, Johnson talks about a couple who uses taking out the trash as a way to acknowledge shadow. On trash day, whoever had the best week takes out the garbage.
The desire to kill someone is an extreme but pretty universal example of shadow that brings up a crucial point. We are equally attracted to and repelled by shadow. Accepting and consciously engaging that attraction is part of integration.
Evidence of our fascination with shadow is everywhere. We see it in how much space virtually every form of news media devotes to stories about criminal activity, disasters and the failings of public figures. Hollywood continues to churn our profitable horror movies year after year. The longest lines in amusement parks are often for the rides that let us experience stomach plunging fear.
The tradition of telling ghost stories around a fire or by candle light is still with us after thousands of years. Modern versions of this ritual include the urban legends circulated via chain emails and reality TV shows about ghost hunting. We even have a holiday devoted entirely to letting the shadow come out and play: Halloween.
Claiming your fascination with shadow is the beginning of holding darkness and light as a paradox where both are equally valued rather than forcing them to exist in opposition. When two equal forces meet, neither can overwhelm or destroy the other. The tension of this confluence births a new possibility of experiencing all of who you are: body, mind, soul, emotion, energy, darkness and divinity.
Part of my shadow integration is owning my love of skulls, bones and other scary bits. I was fortunate to work with a therapist who shared my love of bones. Finding out that she and her husband have a life sized human skeleton in their house confirmed for me that she and I were a good match.
One of my favorite tee shirts is printed with skulls of increasing size. I also have skull socks and underwear. Last year I was delighted to find a bracelet of impermanence beads (little skull beads) in a Tibetan shop in Minneapolis.
I don't wear any of this because I think I'm a bad ass or want to foster that image. (I am many things....bad ass isn't one of them.) The presence of death and destruction gives life a sense of urgency and adds to its value. My experiences of beauty, "ah-hah" moments, deep connection and contentment are precious because they are temporary. Wearing skulls and bones is way of giving my shadow its due and metaphorically carrying my death with me as a reminder of impermanence.
Integrating shadow is a life long process. Some days that looks like moment to moment practice of accepting rather than rejecting shadow as it arises. Other days I have more room to play and my shadow gets to pick the movie I watch.
What happens to us in life is less important than how we live with those experiences. A great deal of the power we have to create our own reality by forming conscious relationships to our experience comes from shadow. If that seems contradictory, think about how powerless you feel when one of your little monsters explodes outward and pushes you to behave in a way you later regret. Integrating your shadow lets you use that power creatively instead of wielding it as a weapon against yourself.
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