Apprenticeship with the Shadow of Loss by Deborah Morris Coryell ________________________________
Could any of us watching Peter Pan struggling with his shadow -- to find his shadow, to keep his shadow and, ultimately, to "bind" his shadow to him -- have known that the shadow carries powerful psychological implications? We might have noticed that Peter seemed different once his shadow was firmly attached. He was still delightful and charming but slightly subdued and not quite so self-centered and irresponsible. A bit more... dare we say, grown up?
Shadow depends upon light -- whether it be the light of the sun, the light of creation, or the light of love. Try as we might to separate them, we can't. Light and shadow form a unit. Similarly, at an emotional level, what is stored in the shadow is necessary to make ourselves whole. We can't simply tip-toe past it and hope we'll come out all right. Peter Pan, after all, began to die without his shadow!
As Peter could tell us, the shadow is vague, elusive, and hard to pin down. It not only contains parts of us critical to our wholeness, (and therefore to our healing), it also contains immense energy. What we don't want to know; what we struggle to avoid, resist, deny, and disown carries a disproportionate amount of force. The unconscious mind, where the shadow lives, is like the iceberg under the surface of the ocean, as opposed to the conscious mind which is the tip (of the iceberg) which we can see. It was what was hidden beneath the surface that sank the unsinkable Titanic in mere minutes.
What is hidden in the shadow looms large, menacing, and sinister. When we turn on the light we are often relieved to discover it was an old hat or a coat hastily thrown over the bed post. Sometimes, when we turn on the light, we are thrilled to find in the shadow something we believed was lost, or worse, stolen.
Hidden in the shadow of loss is the power of the love we continue to carry for the person, place, or moment in time we fear is lost to us. When my dear father died, an event I had been preparing for all my life, an amazing quiet descended. In the emptiness of loss, a calm and peace as I had known only in deep meditation or prayer enveloped me. The voice on the other end of the phone, at 5:20 am, quietly told me my father had died. The light of my life had gone out. I waited in the darkness hearing his last words to me: "I've loved you more than life."
Life had not been kind to my dad. Though my brothers and I were raised into lives of relative financial ease, my father was a laborer. He drove a delivery truck for 30 years at night through harsh bitter winters, and hot miserable summers. He was lonely and ill for all the years of his retirement. Yes, his love for me had been greater than his love for life and, for me, he was everything. He was mother, father, sister, brother, grandfather, the whole family. Constant and unconditional in his love, I needed him like air or water. When he asked me if I was ready for him to die, I assured him that I was OK. My heart beat wildly. What was I saying? Then I remembered, I wanted to help him on his way. Go in peace.
Six weeks later he died. As I prepared myself to fly to New York for his funeral and then to Philadelphia to sit shiva, I continued to be surrounded by this other-worldly quiet. It was as if I were waiting for something. And then something came and landed in that open hole in my heart that had, for 44 years, contained my father. All the love, respect, appreciation, and admiration that I had given to this remarkable man -- this simple, ordinary man -- started coming back to me. As I flew across the sky in a jumbo jet, imagining our paths might be crossing (!), it was as if his emotional bank accounts were being emptied. He no longer needed anything. All of the deposits we had made, plus interest, were being delivered to me as his beneficiary. All the love, honor, and respect I had given to him were coming back to me. I had never thought or read or heard such a thought. Yet, here it was, happening to me, filling me up in that place that would have otherwise been forever filled with the pain of loss.
That was the beginning of my apprenticeship to the shadow of grief and loss. That experience, which has continued to shape me in the face of many subsequent losses, taught me that we need to stay open and present in the face of grief and allow the emptiness to be. If we fill it with our pain, there won't be room for anything else. Yes, the pain is there. The loss is real. Yet, there is the possibility of something else, there is the nascent possibility of receiving back everything we have invested in that friendship, love, job, marriage, home, or child.
I learned that the pain of grief is also not having a place to put the love, the creativity, the passion we had given to our beloved. Hidden in the shadow of loss is the power, the sheer physical energy, to create something out of that love. The Talmud tells us that a person's life does not begin until after they die! How can that be? Because, during our lifetime, the impact we have on life is a result of our physical presence. But after we die, if our existence continues to be felt, we have attained eternal life!
Grieving can be one of the most difficult and rewarding experiences we will ever encounter. Loss challenges all of our fiercely held beliefs that if we just don't think about "it", "it" won't happen. The inevitable, perhaps even anticipated, result is that when "it" (the unthinkable) does happen, we will give ourselves and each other permission to collapse in the face of our disbelief. In "falling apart", we separate from each other. Together, we can acknowledge the reality that there are forces operating beyond our control. Together, we honor the vulnerability every single one of us carries whether we are poor or rich, beautiful or hideous, charming or misfits. Together, we all meet in a place called grief. And that grief, honestly engaged, will connect us all to the very nature of life. Life is loss and loss is life's shadow.
When we shine light in the shadows, the shadows disappear and we can see what has been lurking there: our anger, covering our fear of chaos and the unknown; our laziness, unwilling to be held accountable for our behavior; our self-indulgence that wants to hold on to the way it was "supposed to be". Even those parts of us that are promiscuous in our suffering and loss insist: "I earned this misery and no one is going to take it away".
From the shadows of the unconscious, the collapse around grief is what psychologists would call a "secondary gain". We are allowed and even expected to be out of control; we can indulge our rages and emotional excesses. We don't have to "behave". Our emotions have carte-blanche and there are no expectations we have to meet. The danger, however, in keeping to the shadow, is the danger of falling too far into any one of those trapdoors. The danger is that to prove our love we will respond to the expectations others have of us; if we are not "crazed" with grief, did we not love?
So we wind up feeding the shadow instead of nourishing ourselves. The pain itself validates us. Our suffering makes loss a tragedy and we are seduced by the drama of that tragedy as individuals and as a culture. Anything that perpetuates that drama -- anger, blame, guilt -- is embraced. What we do not allow ourselves to embrace is the possibility that if we are not so singularly focused on the tragedies of loss, we might stumble onto the teaching, the wisdom, the initiation into the mystery of life that loss can be.
Einstein offered up one of the keys to that mystery by teaching us that energy can never be destroyed. It just changes form. Since every single thing on the face of this earth is some kind of energy, nothing can ever ultimately be destroyed. Perhaps the challenge to the shadow of grief might be to stand in the face of the onslaught of what could be overwhelming forces of destruction and find the forces of creation. What new form has this energy taken? How can I now interact with him, her, it? The greatest challenge to our grief might be to recreate ourselves in the face of the death of who we no longer are.
one must be ever aware of the shadows human cast...
There is no darkness
save that which is made by ignorance and delusion.
Men turn their backs on the Great Light,
and then walk in their own shadows, crying out that it is dark
We must work with the aspect of us
which dwells in delusion
How may we guide ourselves back into the one True light?
There must be a holistic and integral approach
to embrace all that Is
in order to heal our collective humanity
which perpetually suffers from the sickness
of a self imposed illusion of separation
One of the greatest causes of our unhappiness, stress, anger, in fact just about every bad feeling is lack of acceptance. We want things to be different. We don't want them to be the way they are because we don't like them the way they are.
If you want to have any sense of peace and joy in your life then you must learn acceptance. The thing that causes resistance to acceptance is that the meaning is mostly misunderstood to mean tolerance and if I accept it it means I think that it is OK. This is not the case at all. Acceptance does not mean tolerance and it does not mean that you think it is OK (unless of course, it is OK). No. In this sense acceptance is the understanding that things are the way they are and cannot be any different because they are the result of things that were and we can't change the past.
Accepting that things are the way they are does not mean that you have to tolerate it that they continue this way. Accepting that things are the way they are does not mean that you approve of what happened to make them this way. Accepting that things are the way that they are does not mean that it is not necessary to hold people accountable for their actions. What acceptance does is it frees you from the emotional burden caused by wanting the present to be different and allows you to use all your energy on creating the future the way you want it to be.
There are many things in everyone's life that shouldn't have happened. They did. Accept it. You cannot "unhappen" it. What you can do is to take steps to ensure that it doesn't happen again.
There are many things in everyone's life that should have happened. They didn't. Accept it. You cannot go back and "happen" them. What you can do is take steps to do the things you know you should do.
"But I don't like it" you cry. The issue is not whether you like it or not The issue is will you have the emotional maturity to accept it because only when you accept it can you move on and fix it.
~ Johan V Campbell ~
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The Shadow Process by Debbie Ford ______________________________
The Shadow Process gives us access to loving all of ourselves. This deep and profound work teaches us how to love each and every aspect of our humanity. It enables us to embrace both the darkness of our smallest self and the brilliant light of our highest self. Making peace with our dark side is a sacred journey. It demands rigorous honesty, courage and a great deal of compassion. Embracing our shadow delivers us emotional wholeness and the absolute freedom to be who we are. When we are filled with self-love and self-appreciation, we automatically attract the miraculous experience of love and appreciation from others.
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What is the Shadow? ______________________________
The shadow contains all the parts of ourselves that we try to hide, deny or suppress. It is the keeper of all the aspects of ourselves that we dislike and the qualities that we judge as unacceptable. The shadow wears many faces: angry, critical, fearful, lazy, controlling, selfish, weak, pathetic… These are the faces we don’t want to show the world and the faces we don’t want to show ourselves. Most of us expend huge amounts of energy trying to get rid of or control these unwanted aspects of ourselves. We hope that by hiding or fixing our "bad qualities" we will have the peace, success and happiness we desire. Most of us are convinced that we are flawed and inadequate so we become masters of disguise, and go to great lengths to hide our bad qualities from those around us – even from ourselves.
The result of turning our backs on our dark side? A life that slips by only half lived. Dreams that are never realized, or worse, that lay buried under years of resignation and shame. Until we make peace with our shadow we will continue to be at war with ourselves. And our outer world will mirror our inner struggle. What we resist persists – and we will create and attract from others that which we most dislike in ourselves. Until we feel authentic compassion for each and every aspect of ourselves, we will continue to draw forth people and events that will mirror the negative feelings we have about ourselves. Until we take back our power and forgive ourselves for being human we will attract people who push our buttons and reactivate our emotional wounds. And until we find the courage to love ourselves completely, we will never truly be able to experience the love from those around us. We don’t need to guess how we really feel about ourselves at the deepest level. All we have to do is look at how the outer world treats us. If we’re not getting the respect, love and appreciation we desire from the outer world, it’s more than likely we aren’t giving these things to ourselves. This is the benevolence of the Universe in action. The whole world is a mirror of our own consciousness, and when we make peace with the disowned aspects of ourselves, we make peace with the world.
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Embracing The Shadow ______________________________
The process of embracing our shadow side calls us to uncover the gifts and receive the wisdom hidden within each and every aspect of ourselves, particularly the ones that we are ashamed of or embarrassed by. Rather than viewing our weakness, our smallness, our insecurities or our rage as enemies or as obstacles to moving forward in our lives, this process guides us to embrace our so-called defects as the powerful teachers that they are. The Shadow Process is founded on the understanding that every quality, every emotion and every experience comes bearing great gifts. Once we learn how to uncover these gifts we become the powerful masters of our lives. We develop the ability to transform thoughts, beliefs or situations that once held us back into fuel for our spiritual evolution and the manifestation of our dreams. Embracing our shadow allows us to reclaim the power we once gave away. When we are at peace within ourselves, our self-esteem no longer depends on the approval of others. Our own sense of self-worth is no longer at the mercy of how other people feel about us. When we receive the gifts of our dark side, something truly miraculous occurs. Our wounds are transformed into wisdom and the parts of us we once believed to be our deepest flaws are revealed as our greatest assets.
Embracing our shadows is the ultimate act of self-love. There is no greater love than the one that allows us to shine a light on the aspects of ourselves that we have judged and made wrong. Embracing our dark side gives us a new found freedom to be with the darkness in others. For when I can love all of me, I will love all of you. Shadow work is the path of the heart warrior. It takes us to a new place where we can open our hearts to all of ourselves and all of humanity.
Shadow work is not about perfection; it’s about integration. It is the path of reclaiming each and every aspect of ourselves and discovering how that aspect can serve us. It requires us to look at our lives from the perspective that we have been given everything we need to fulfill our hearts’ desires. And the greatest of these gifts lies hidden in our shadow. If we look for the gift of our weakness, we may find that it has actually given us strength or that it has allowed us to be supported by others. The gift of our fear might be our determination or our ability to set good boundaries. The gift of an upsetting situation is that it could lead us to read a life-changing book. The gifts of our pain are here for us to receive, but first we must be willing to look for them.
Each of us must make the conscious choice to step out of the belief that we are victims of our lives and open up to the possibility that we have created our particular circumstances for a reason. We must commit to looking at our lives as though each and every quality, person and circumstance has been drawn to us in order to give us specific insights and wisdom. This requires us to examine each aspect of ourselves and our lives and ask, "Why would I need this? How could this be a catalyst for me to grow and evolve? How could this quality or situation serve me in creating the life I desire?" Transformation requires nothing more than having a shift in perception. It is choosing to look at our lives in a way that empowers us rather than disempowers us. At its core, this process requires us to make the choice to see ourselves though the eyes of the Divine.
I believe that the shadow is the greatest gift that God could give us. It is the teacher, the trainer and the guide that supports us in uncovering our true magnificence. The shadow is not a problem to be solved or an enemy to be conquered, but a fertile field to be cultivated. Dig your hands into its rich soil and you will discover the potent seeds of the person you most desire to be. Our most hated, feared or shamed qualities are the ones that hold the key to living the life of our dreams. What the Shadow Process provides is a way to love what we have feared, to decode the messages we receive from within and to unleash the power that is hidden within you.
Thanks for the support! We're a part-time paranormal-oriented network directed towards discovery through individuals like you and spiritual union and acceptance between our fellow man. On our network you can post forum discussions, blogs, photos, videos, and even chat live with other members & visitors of the network. Keep your faith, keep your strength, and may there be greatness in all that you do! Check us out at http://nawsknet.ning.com.
Thanks for the support! We're a part-time paranormal-oriented network directed towards discovery through individuals like you and spiritual union and acceptance between our fellow man. On our network you can post forum discussions, blogs, photos, videos, and even chat live with other members & visitors of the network. Keep your faith, keep your strength, and may there be greatness in all that you do! Check us out at http://nawsknet.ning.com.
Are YOu ready for Meldrum action Shadow Worker? We are Rocking the FUCK ON in Michelle's honor! Meldrum plays the Whisky Sept. 15 - Spread the word! September 12 – UB’s, Mesa, AZ September 15 – Whisky A Go Go*, Hollywood, CA See YOu in the Pit! <3's- Meldrum
..NOX∞LVX
