Watching Shadows Dance

I welcome you into this container, where vulnerability is met with courage, and everything that is, belongs.

Together we sit as if around a fire. If we turn so that our backs are warmed by the hearth, we see that we each cast long shadows upon the land.

These shadows blend into one another and the larger dark surround. We make these impressions just by being here. There’s no intention or judgement about it. It is, simply, what is. Yet we don’t see our shadows when we only face the light.

For the last three seasons, I’ve been deeply engaged in shadow work / play. For me, this is the process of allowing unconscious content to become conscious, without judgement or agenda. I approach it like watching shadows dance, aiming to see what is there for me.

The process can be humbling before it’s freeing. Bearing witness to difficult truths can be like that. Sometimes this process gives me glimpses of qualities of self that I’d prefer were not true. Other times I examine decisions I’ve made that impacted or hurt others.

As I allow myself to be with difficult or self-confronting ideas, I notice benefits, too. 

• Shadow work has helped me feel more whole. It is strangely enlivening to recognize my fallibility and occasional terribleness. The honesty helps me stay right-sized.

• Through shadow work I feel a greater sense of agency. Accepting and integrating the impacts I’ve had in the past, wakes me up to my capacity. I live; and my life touches others. It is not possible to avoid impact, therefore I’m not innocent.

• I feel more prepared to proceed with care while accepting risk. Shadow work helps me act more consciously, to proceed with greater care and intention. It also better equips me to accept the risks of taking decisive action in the future.

• It grounds my practice of non-judgment and compassion for others. When I’m honest about my own defaults (not defects, rather, default and conditioned patterns) and unconscious tactics (often formed for survival), I can sit with others in love and curiosity.

Clients sometimes do this work in systemic coaching engagements. Occasionally I’ll suggest an exercise I call, “I did a thing.” This is particularly potent for situations that are mental magnets, drawing attention again and again, like a tongue fiddling with a toothache. I’ve included instructions for this exercise below.

Exercises like “I did a thing,” help expand our awareness. We can gently explore desires, beliefs, and loyalties beyond conscious awareness. Surfacing this content with support, we can learn to dance with it. Of course, we’ll never fully see our unconscious or understand all it’s doing for us. However, glimpsing limiting patterns can ground our values and help unfold our potential.  

I sense this individual work helps the collective. I can’t help but wonder, in what ways are our unexamined individual shadows blending and contributing to a collective shadow? What are we unconsciously doing with or to one another, when our shadows dance in the larger surround?

We can only attend to what is ours to mend. My sense is that work like this serves my growth, supports my family system, and better enables me to act in the world. If we each find the courage and support to do what is ours to do, what might be possible?

Instructions for the exercise: “I did a thing”

• Make a container. I like to light a candle and set a timer.

• Start with your usual story, you know, the one where you’re innocent. Lean into all the ways you’re good and righteous, and your intentions are pure. “They just don’t get it.”

• Next, try telling the story from another’s perspective. What else could be true? How might another person feel unseen or even harmed by the same situation? Can you feel compassion for what it might be like to affected by you?

• Take an honest inventory of your role. “I did this…” “When this happened, I assumed…” “I reacted poorly when…” Lean into the ways just maybe you’re not so innocent, after all.

• Assess your culpability and agency. Are there impulses or patterns there that aren’t reflective of your values? Are there other moments that feel powerful and aligned? Can you be with those parts of self, story, or situation? Accept, integrate?

• Clean it up or let it go. Notice if you’d like to make amends in person or simply in heart. Trust that heart-to-heart is a start. Welcome in examples of strength and clarity, too. All human beings are messy and beautiful at the same time. This is life.

fire and grace,

Amelia