Shadow Work for Dummies VII
…. freedom from your own unconscious obsessions and
conditioned responses. Becoming an independent agent who's not an unwitting slave to your shadow is one of the most heroic feats you can accomplish.
Whew!! Is that a light ahead?
The tunnel has been long. Looooooooong! Many passages seemed to lead up and out, but they turned out to be dead ends. Many tunnels promised freedom, only to find that they looped back on themselves, bringing me back to the same place – and often over and over and over again.
Strong emotions go along with the journey – many tears, despair, and periods of hopelessness.
But like the Fellowship of the Ring in the mines of Moria, the only way out is through. If you know the story in “The Lord of the Rings,” the nine travelers once in the mine, had no choice. The entrance had been destroyed by a beast, and they faced the long, dark, unknown road ahead.
Often, our own journey through the darkness follows a similar scenario: we’re travelling along on our life-adventure – and something happens, sometimes suddenly. Sometimes gradually. In either case we find ourselves in a difficult spot – and when we turn around to go back to our dismay, we find that the way is blocked.
In my working days, I had a wonderful career, which I thoroughly loved. Near the height of my professional journey, I made a career move I thought would be right for me, financially and professionally. However, within a few weeks, I realized I had made a mistake. I tried to back out, but the way was closed.
For the next several years, I struggled as hard as I could to change things internally, to make organization fit my vision of what it could and should be. I had absolutely no success shifting the establishment culture.
I also tried – desperately! – to get out of there, to find another position. Despite having many important connections, nothing worked. At one point, unbelievably, a promised position suddenly evaporated due to a cataclysmic takeover attempt by a rival group, throwing the entire enterprise into chaos for months.
Thank God that the takeover attempt happened before I signed employment papers. If it happened after, I would have been out and unemployed.
The Universe had a clear message for me. The only way out of my self-created dilemma was to see it through to the other side. My circumstances (thankfully) didn’t include the dangers of the Balrog, but there were a lot of twists and turns and pitfalls in the tunnel. And uncertainty all along the way.
The light at the end finally came and with it, freedom, and an outcome that was much better than it otherwise might have been had I not made my ill-fated career move.
I called that job the “best worst mistake I ever made.” And it was not the only time I found myself in this place, professionally or in my personal life.
What leads me into the “valley of the shadow” (again and again) are my unconscious (but quite active) “obsessions and conditioned responses,” which 12-steppers know as “character defects.”
Pride, fear, lust, anger, greed, laziness, arrogance, being judgmental, envy and jealousy, to name but a few. These unlovely traits bring with them pain, shame, controversy, isolation, humiliation, afflictions (mental and physical) and a whole host of ills.
These character defects make themselves known when they are ready to be exposed and removed.
For most this is a lifelong process; rarely does someone get hit by a lightning bolt. Most have a slow process, where the worst of their issues are addressed first. Our awakening awareness knows too much now so we cannot ignore these issues or try to fool ourselves by saying, “They’re not that bad.”
(p. 100)
These are the parts of us that live in our shadow. That are our shadow, which we are mostly unaware of – until we find ourselves in the tunnel. Then we have to see it through – to do the shadow work that brings them to the light. Then we can consciously see them, embrace them, transform them, or let them go into the light.
The Light.
The Light is really the focus of all this emphasis on the shadow. The Light is the heart of the matter.
It’s the Light that – being cast – creates the shadow in the first place. The shadow is nothing really. It is merely a blockage in the light.
All this work in the shadow is for us to realize that we are Light – only Light.
I used to work with a therapist, Avis Burnett. Avis would do a combination of talk therapy, meditation visualization, working with angels and our higher energies, etc.
We would identify a blockage or a trauma inside of me – in my psychic, auric, physical, or mental fields and begin to name it, visualize it (shape, color, size, what it was made of, etc.). To explore its nature.
We would talk to it: What’s your name? When did you first appear? What are you doing here?
Often the answer to the last question was: To help John, to protect John, to guard or defend John. To keep John safe.
The blocks would appear to me in their guise. One was as jagged glass. One was as heavy, broken concrete with rebar jutting out.
Once we had a good idea of the blockage, Avis would always say the same thing at this point: Aren’t you good.
Bringing light to the darkness.
Then she would say something like: You’ve been here a long time, doing an amazing job keeping John safe. Such hard work. You must be tired. You must be ready to retire and go home…
Then we would do a guided mediation, visualizing the heavy blocking energy letting go and rising up into the Light.
My cynicism was always present, criticizing and doubting the efficacy of this therapy, but I know it brought me relief, freedom, and joy. Some 20 years later, I cherish the work I did with her and remember how well it worked for me.
As the shadow becomes absorbed into the Light, the Light that is Me begins to shine through. The dark clouds thin; the mist lifts a bit. The Light that was hidden under a bushel is now beginning to shine, giving light to everyone in the house.
Happy Sunday (Bon dimanche)
John
I am available to do Prosperity Now! individual or group sessions or general life-coaching, I Ching readings, dream interpretation or join us for our weekly Wednesday Course in Miracles group.
Please contact me at prosperitynowlifeofdreams@yahoo.com or sign up on my website: http://www.johnafrederick.com
Comments