Saint Thérèse of Lisieux, the Little Flower
The essence of shadow work is turning around and facing the darkness, which can seem infinite. It means facing the fear and fully embracing it. In doing so, we find that the shadow is… just a shadow. Something insubstantial, harmless and easily dispelled when a light is shone on it.
So, if it’s so easy, what’s all the fuss? After all, you say it’s just shadow. Who’s afraid of their own shadow? Timid rabbits and cowards.
Yet shadow work is very difficult. It doesn’t just seem challenging. It is immensely challenging. It takes effort, persistence, faith, support, willingness and the use of many other spiritual tools that we already possess or need to acquire to embark on and complete the quest. It takes courage.
Given that it is so difficult – and for most of us also terrifying – would anyone willingly choose to enter into the “valley of the shadow”? Why in hell (pun intended) would they?
Well, most do not. They arrive at the entrance of the shadow escorted by unwelcome (and often drastic) changes in their circumstances, situations and events that may appear random (and unlucky) but which in fact are designed by the Universe to help us wake up.
At that point one has several choices, as I mentioned last week. We can react as if we are experiencing a physical, financial or relationship problem. Then we likely will try and change outward circumstances. What I call the “mid-life crisis” approach.
Or we can (try and) avoid the circumstances and the mounting evidence that something is amiss, and put our head in the sand, pretend nothing unusual is happening.
Both of these approaches lead to disastrous results, and they most certainly do not let us avoid the looming shadow. For when the Universe truly calls us to wake up, as much as one would like to pretend they do not hear the trumpet sound, the call will only get louder (aka more painful).
The only way out is through – and that requires approaching the deepening gloom and facing it head-on. Entering into a phase of life often called, “The Dark Night of the Soul.”
Few people have had to endure the journeys experienced by saints like Mother Theresa of Calcutta and Saint Thérèse of Lisieux. Their stories are replete with decades-long struggles with darkness.
Mother Teresa: Come Be My Light, is a collection of letters she wrote to her closest confidantes, recounting her intense conflict with darkness. Taking her name to honor Thérèse of Lisieux, she was called to work with the poorest of the poor. Despite her intense devotion to Christ and to her work, she lived in the soul’s darkness with only short periods of respite, for nearly 50 years!
Few people knew of this aspect of her life, of her sufferings, of doubt, of feelings of being a fraud, of pain and deep loss of faith.
In America Magazine, the Jesuit Review, James Martin, S.J. writes:
Mother Teresa understood how odd her situation was: the woman acclaimed as a living saint struggled with her faith. Though she sometimes admitted feeling like a hypocrite, as she notes in one letter, she decided that a public admission of her struggles would direct focus on herself, rather than on Jesus. Consequently, she suffered her spiritual trials largely alone.
Saint Thérèse of Lisieux (one of the spiritual guides whom I personally count on) died at age 24. She also was tried interminably and suffered spiritual darkness during her short life.
In her book, The Story of a Soul, in the chapter entitled, “The Night of the Soul” she writes:
…. during the Paschal days, so full of light, our Lord made me understand that there really are in truth souls bereft of Faith and Hope, who, through abuse of grace, lose these precious treasures, the only source of pure and lasting joy. He allowed my soul to be overwhelmed with darkness, and the thought of Heaven, which had consoled me from my earliest childhood, now became a subject of conflict and torture. This trial did not last merely for days or weeks; I have been suffering for months, and I still await deliverance. I wish I could express what I feel, but it is beyond me. One must have passed through this dark tunnel to understand its blackness.
Therese was gravely ill from tuberculosis in her final years. Kathleen Beckman writes in, St. Therese: Faith Endures In the Dark:
Therese’s spiritual trials during this time were more intense than the physical. She wrote, “God allowed my soul to be enveloped in complete darkness.” It was only sheer faith and unflagging hope that carried her to the end. She had thirsted to save souls, and now God demanded that she live by faith alone. When everything else was gone, love alone remained. Once her nurse found her awake after midnight, she explained that she could not sleep. The nurse asked what she said to God during the long, wakeful hours. Therese replied, “I do not say anything, Sister, I just love Him.”
(Modern Saints, 229)
These are but two extreme examples of the life-changing crisis’s that we all will face at least once in our lifetimes.
So what's in store for us “lesser mortals”? Take heart! As you can see you are in good company. You will have all manner of help and support as you journey. There is definitely priceless treasure awaiting you along the way.
And at the other end, there will be Light. It is not a tunnel of perpetual blackness, although it can seem that way end at times. And metaphysically, there must be darkness in order for the light (of understanding) to shine. As Charles Fillmore writes:
Understanding comes from above and descends first into the subconscious mind.
It is the opening response to the command “Let there be light”. (Metaphysical Bible Interpretation)
So be of good cheer, because there is help along the way. Perhaps the most important help we will receive is that of the events and circumstances themselves. Seeing them as malevolent forces come to hurt us is natural, but unhelpful and metaphysically wrong.
These events: the divorce, the job loss, the illness, the tragedy, the depression, whatever the immediate occurrences, are in reality coming to us to help us. Hard to believe I know, especially in the midst of them.
On his website and in his blog posts, Robert Moss, shamanic dreamer and prolific teacher recounts a wide number of instances in people’s waking and dreaming lives, where monsters, animals, problems and dire circumstances arrive. Robert teaches how these phenomena can be turned into valuable allies or give us valuable information when we turn and face them, demand an answer from them.
Or let them devour us, as was the case of the little boy eaten by a T-Rex.
In another blog post He writes:
You are facing a killer wave, rushing at you like a moving mountain of water. You are fleeing from it, but you can't escape and it crashes over you, pushing the air from your lungs and you surface from sleep terrified and gasping for breath.
This is a rather widespread experience in sleep dreams. I've heard versions of it from hundreds of dreamers. What's going on here?
You could be dreaming of something that will blow up in your life with the emotional force of a rogue wave, even a tsunami. The dream may be a prompt to look at the kind of situations in your regular like that threaten to overwhelm you, and how you can better cope when those situations arise. This may lead you to shape a survival strategy that is simple as this:
- Remember to breathe
- Let the storm wash over you
- Put yourself in a protective bubble
These harbingers in our dream world, or the people, places and events that show up in our waking dream (aka “real” life) must be taken for what they are: guideposts, warnings, premonitions, messages or evidence that we must pay attention, change direction, seek help and/or deepen our spiritual practice.
If we don’t have a spiritual practice, then we might want to start….
Shadow work is not really for dummies, nor for the faint of heart. But we all will be called to it one day, one way or another.
Next week: Embrace Your Shadow
Bon dimanche,
John
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