Shaow play: excavating the gold

      I ended last week's post talking about making a list of your little monsters and pairing them with the complimentary characteristic. Both are part of you. I didn't talk about what actually happens when you take inventory. In theory, taking a shadow inventory is no different than a store owner taking inventory of his stock.
     In practice, the difference is how it feels to take inventory. For the store owner counting cans of peas isn't likely to set off a flood of self-judgement or memories he'd rather avoid. Taking a shadow inventory is pretty much guaranteed to bring you face-to-face with your shadow's uber guardian...judgement.
     Judgement is both part of shadow and its supreme gatekeeper. When you disown a piece of self into shadow, you do so because you've judged it to be bad, wrong, inappropriate or unacceptable. Once that characteristic is part of shadow, your ongoing judgement keeps it there and prevents you from examining it. These judgements show up as self-criticism and fears about what others will think.
     The fear of what other people will think if they know you can be petty, jealous or so angry you want to kill someone is rooted in the judgements you've taken on from friends, family, peers and society at large. Here again you butt up against your lizard brain survival instinct. You need the tribe to survive, so you unconsciously align yourself with the tribe's idea of what is and is not acceptable.
     But the tribe is made of individuals who form smaller groups based on shared values. Your lizard brain only deals in black and white so it doesn't take this distinction into account. Unless you go back and reexamine the judgements you've taken on, you will default to aligning yourself with mass consciousness because it has the loudest voice.
    To excavate the gold in shadow, you need to actively engage the little monsters. As the uber protector of shadow, judgement wants to do its job by capturing your attentions so completely that you don't get any further.
    The judgement monster wants to be heard. Engaging the judgement means listening from a distance as though you're overhearing a conversation from the next room, rather than giving it your full frontal attention as you would a trusted friend.
    Shadow monsters loom large in the darkness of the unconscious. When they are brought into consciousness, they lose their ability to shape shift. Actively engaging the monsters is all about bringing them into consciousness so you can really see what they look like.
    The biggest pitfall in engaging judgement is its ability to hold your attention hostage. From the hostage position you'll believe you're actively engaging your shadow when you're really wallowing and recycling your judgements about your shadow over and over.
    If this sounds like you need to gear up for a battle, let that one go. The ultimate goal of a battle is destruction. Your shadow cannot be destroyed. This is not about annihilating anything. In fact the urge to destroy or annihilate is coming from your shadow and meeting it with equal force will only serve to feed it.
    As you make your list you may be surprised at the ferocity the little monsters you've disowned for years have. Why do the monsters grow when they're rejected? Why doesn't the gold also grow when it's disowned?
    I chewed on those questions for years. After doing a lot of reading, observing my own experience and talking to others who work with shadow, the answer came in a shamanic journey. When I understood what was happening, it was one of those "duh!" moments.
     The dark corners of my unconscious are the ideal environment my little monsters need to thrive. Each time I disown a monster, I send it right back to its favorite place. This is a powerful example of "what you resist persists." In contrast, the shadow gold needs conscious attention to grow. When I reject the gold, I push it into an environment where it can only stay dormant.
     The monsters thrive in unconscious darkness and lose power when brought to consciousness.The shadow gold lays dormant in the dark and grows with mindful attention.
   Acceptance is the antidote to judgement, the complimentary characteristic that balances it. That's the gold. Accepting shadow is one of the most powerful choices a human being can make. That choice opens us to being more compassionate and accepting in the world. Accepting your shadow is an act of self-compassion.
     Acceptance begins with looking the little monsters in the eye and owning them. Yes, this will bring up your judgement. As you listen to what the judgement says, at some point that voice will begin to repeat itself. When the judgement begins saying the same thing over and over, it has no new information to offer.
    This is fine line between active engagement and being held hostage. If you continue to listen to the monsters repetitive litany, your attention will feed it. Rather than rejecting the monster, redirect your attention. Take a walk. Make a gratitude list. Thank the Universe for something. Focus on the times you've practiced acceptance and how that felt. This will feed the gold.
    When the monsters voice becomes too loud and overwhelming, question it. Is this  really true? Why do I believe this about myself? Why do I believe anything this monster says?
    Acceptance of shadow is not about liking it, doing a little happy dance when you meet it or making it emotionally nuetral. You'll probably still feel sad or frustrated when you find yourself acting out your monsters. That's just part of being human.
     Acceptance is acknowledging what is. It's about naming and owning the little monsters without rationalizing, justifying, making excuses or projecting them onto someone else. The moment when you see the little monsters for what they are is the moment when they begin to shrink and you can excavate the gold.

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Shadow play: finding the gold

      So how do we get to the gold in the shadow? The path to the gold runs through the swamp. Shadow gold is the treasure guarded by the monsters of our own creation.

      Shadow work is soul work: challenging, evocative and illuminating. Many people spend their entire lives avoiding shadow work because it's too terrifying. Most people make their initial foray into shadow only when they can no longer avoid it. The tipping point is the apex where the pain of staying the same is greater than the fear of being different.
    In my own excavations, what I've discovered inside myself has scared me far more than anything I've experienced in the world. Making the journey into shadow has absolutely been worth it each time. Every excursion opens me to being more authentic and brings me closer to who I want to be.
    The shadow gold can be frightening too because it speaks to a new depth of meaning and bigger purpose. The idea of leaving behind the life you know to step into something larger is an edgy prospect.
     The first step to excavating the gold in your shadow is looking at what you've disowned. What characteristics, forms of expression and pieces of Self do you habitually reject?
    Some of the answers to this question lie in what triggers you, what irritates you in others and in the places where your behaviour is frequently misunderstood. A few weeks ago when I posted about triggers, I wrote about how triggering is an internal process. The external person, situation or event that sets off the trigger is merely a catalyst. The trigger itself is a package of emotions, wounding, experience and reactions that live inside you.
     The places where you are often triggered and most prone to overreacting are the ones where your shadow is stepping up to say "hi." The extent to which your reaction feels beyond your control and leads you to behave in ways you later regret is a measure of how strong that shadow piece is.
   Here's where things get tricky. Shadow, like most other aspects of being human, is multi-layered. If you've identified a trigger that you react to with anger and you've unpacked the trigger...that's the tip of the perpetual iceberg.
   Triggers are points of vulnerability. Shying away from vulnerability is human nature. Our lizard brain survival instinct equates vulnerability with threat. Most of the time your immediate reaction to being triggered is to pull up some emotion that counteracts feeling vulnerable like anger, indignation, etc.
   So the initial reactive emotion is essentially a defense. The more powerful your anger is, the more completely it will overcome any sense of vulnerability. The places where your anger is disproportionate to the situation are the places where you actually feel the most vulnerable. While the anger is part of your shadow, it's also protecting you from connecting with a deeper shadow piece that's much scarier, your vulnerability. The gold is found by unpacking the vulnerability that the anger monster is guarding.
   The things that irritate you in other people are another valuable clue to what's in your shadow. We've all heard the saying "if you spot it, you've got it." Often when you're irritated with someone else, you're actually frustrated with the part of yourself the other person is mirroring back to you. But what about the times when "if you spot it, you got it" doesn’t seem to fit?
     I can get pretty irritated with people who need to talk constantly, but that's not who I am. I value silence. I find that connection often deepens in shared silence. So what do constant talkers mirror that irritates me?
   Constant talking pulls at my attention. It’s a form of having my focus pulled to something that feels trivial and I'd rather not deal with. I often feel the same irritation and impatience at life maintenance tasks like laundry and cleaning. Mirroring isn’t always obvious or direct.
     Another clue to what's in your shadow comes from the places where your behaviour is often misunderstood. If your intention is X, but when you act on that intention people interpret your behaviour as being about Y...part of your intention was probably fueled by shadow.
   For example, say you like helping other people; you regularly offer to help friends. When a friend refuses your offer, you respond by insisting that it's no problem, you're glad to do it, etc. Your intention was to be helpful. However your friend perceives everything beyond the initial offer of help as you being pushy. What's going on here?
   If you look at why you wanted to help, you'll probably find your motivation wasn't as clear as you thought it was. If you're not feeling so good about yourself, was helping a friend a way to prove to yourself that you still have value? Was the offer of help more about looking for a way to connect because you miss your friend? Is this friend someone you feel you owe and helping is a way to even out your internal balance sheet?
   If all this sounds like a way to dig up the swamp, you're right. You can try accessing the shadow gold directly by looking at the compliments you habitually push away. Most people have a harder time owning their strengths than their flaws and shortcomings. The flaws and shortcomings are the monsters guarding the gold. Slogging through the swamp allows you to meet the monsters and move them aside.
   Once you have an idea of what's hiding in your shadow, write it down. For each little monster you've listed, write the complimentary or "opposite" characteristic next to it. Polarity is inherent in nature. Nothing one-sided can exist here. For every little monster you've listed, you also possess the corresponding strength. It may be underdeveloped or so buried that it seems inaccessible or unreal, but it's there. That's the gold. The gold is as much a part of you as the little monsters are.
   So now what? You've gotten a glimpse of the gold, how do you excavate it? That's next week's topic.

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