Bringing Light to Dark Places

Facing the shadow

Jun 17, 2024

Freud’s discovery of the unconscious changed the world forever. For the first time we came to understand that phenomena outside of conscious awareness influences our beliefs, our thoughts, our feelings, and our behaviors, and therefore how we see the world and how we perceive reality. Jung’s discovery of the collective unconscious with its archetypes altered our world even further. Not only did the unconscious influence reality, it organized it according to certain universal patterns, acting like a magnet attracting various and relevant experiences that influenced us to live out their emotional and behavioral stories.

Einstein’s famous discovery that E=MC2 or energy equals mass plus light squared, set in motion a series of scientific experiments that concluded, in the language of quantum physics, that at the most basic level everything is energy. Both the physical plane of matter and the more abstract plane of the mind are energy. Therefore, our thoughts, our emotions, our fantasies, and our behaviors are expressions of energy, each vibrating with information that attracts to it those experiences that match its energy. In other words, we create the world we are living in. This happens not only at the individual level but in families, communities and at the collective level as well.

It seems for the most part, these realities that we create happen unconsciously. It is as if we fall under the spell of some archetype or archetypal system and become seduced by it, becoming players in the drama that unfolds, unconsciously playing our part unaware that we are slowly dying, that our very life force is being drained or stolen from us, like the boiling frog story. Definitions for the boiling frog story is a widespread anecdote describing a frog slowly being boiled alive The premise is that if a frog is placed in boiling water it will jump out but if it is placed in cold water that is slowly heated it will not perceive the danger and will be cooked to death The story is often used as a metaphor for the inability or unwillingness of people to react to significant changes that occur gradually and thus become complicit in their own demise. According to contemporary biologists the premise of the story is not literally true. A frog submerged and gradually heated will jump out. However, some 19th-century experiments suggested that the underlying premise is true provided the heating is sufficiently gradual until something starts to go wrong. I suppose the differing explanations might serve as a metaphor for how unconscious an individual or group is. The more unconscious, the more susceptible to psychological, emotional, spiritual and even physical death we become . . . until, hopefully, something happens that wakes us up and we become aware of the discomfort and seduction. I remember one session in the midst of my Jungian analysis, the analyst looked straight at me and said, “you know, Sheldon, you can’t be seduced until you first seduce yourself. We all have a ‘seducer.’” Thus, the unconscious state of the slowly heating waters.

As long as the external container, that is the outer representation for an inner psychic experience is congruent with the internal and unconscious images, life goes well. But when the images emerging from the unconscious no longer mirror or “match the externalized form, a breakdown occurs, and we often find ourselves in a crisis. Such a breakdown is being experienced in many areas of life. One of those areas is God, religion and spirituality. For many of us the externalized forms of God and spirituality as set forth in the dogmas of many useful containers of religion in the past no longer mirror or are congruent with the images of the divine, God and spirituality that are now emerging from the unconscious. To some extent, this incongruence has always been present in certain individuals. However, in these more recent times, the incongruence is more widespread, pushing our culture and the world to the edge of a “spiritual crisis.”

Swiss psychiatrist, Carl Jung, postulated that a universal concept of spirituality exists, and that the human being has a primary driving spirituality that is just as instinctive as sex, aggression, and hunger. Jung asserted, “we moderns are faced with the necessity of re-discovering the life of the spirit. We must experience it”, says Jung, “in ourselves” for “it is the only way we break the spells that bind us to the cycle of biological events . . .” (Jung, 1933). Jung made these statements back in the 1930s. But his assertion seems pertinent for today.

Humans around the globe are waking up to the reality that we must change our attitudes toward the earth and all its inhabitants if we are going to survive. There are several paths that honor ecocentrism which considers all living and non-living elements as interconnected and deserving of moral consideration. Shamanism offers a framework for making such a shift. Shamanism holds that everything is alive and has a spirit or an energetic signature. Not only is everything alive, but everything is also connected and has its own form of consciousness whether that be a stone, a tree, an animal, an organ in the body of the earth herself. Not only is everything alive, conscious and connected, the universe responds to our most sacred intentions. Shamanism, especially Andean shamanism, which is the form of shamanism that I have studied and trained in, teaches sacred reciprocity with all things and the necessity of living in harmony and balance with each other and with nature. That is a return to the life of the spirit.

Returning back to the language of quantum physics that everything is energy including our thoughts, our emotions, our fantasies, and our behaviors, each vibrating with information that attracts to us those experiences that match the energy and that shamanic idea that the outer world mirror our inner map, we can change the outer world by changing our inner map or as Joe Dispenza says, by changing our energy. Dispenza says change your energy, change your personal reality. Change your personal reality, change the world. (Dispenza, Becoming Supernatural).

There are many therapies and spiritual practices that provide ways to heal our wounded places that often get projected onto others and the world and help us change our energies. We often project split off and unaccepted parts of ourselves onto others and see them as our enemies or some “unacceptable other” while denying those very aspects in ourselves. Shamanism and energy medicine is one of the ways we can face and own these parts of ourselves. Recently, a client found herself facing her shadow in a shamanic journey. I share it here as an example of shadow work. This piece of her journey is shared with permission.

The client reported her journey as follows:

“I am nothing...how long like this... Slowly, I start to rise out of the pile of shit. I am re-formed but feel empty, like only half my density is there. I am porous, there is too much space between my cells. I ask for light to fill me, to make me whole. I want to be light. I get a very clear ‘No’. Then I see another ‘me’ opposite of me. This is the me that is capable of hate and I recognize it as my shadow. I am filled with fear. I call Jaguar to be with me and she enters the cave.

‘You have to incorporate your shadow,’ says jaguar, ‘you must incorporate the you that hates into your body. It is a part of you.’

‘Can I just lock it up somewhere in my body?’ I ask. ‘Hide it? Secure it somewhere that it will be safe, hidden, and won’t do harm?’

‘Like before?’ says Jaguar.

“I get an image of the dark creature in the back of my head that had been extracted in class^[1] a few days before. I realized the folly of trying to hide it somewhere and lock it up since that is what created the hateful shadow in the first place.

Jaguar continues, ‘It has to be a part of all of you. You can’t hide it. This is the only way to be whole.’

“I call my Dolphin power animal as I feel I need more help. I am very frightened. So, Bear, Jaguar and Dolphin are all standing around me, and I look up and face my shadow.

‘You have to own it,’ says Jaguar, ‘own that you can hate and be hateful. You don’t have to always give it voice or power. You can choose if you see and recognize your shadow as part of who you are,’ says Jaguar.

“I realize I have to step into my hateful shadow. I step closer. I am afraid. I feel the encouragement of my power animals. I step forward and into my shadow, merging my body with the body of my shadow. I feel humbled that this is a part of me, but surprisingly I don’t feel shame.”

The shadow contains those parts of us that for one reason or another we disown or wish to keep out of sight; qualities we would rather not see in ourselves, such as controlling behavior, jealousy, or deceitfulness or in the case of this client, hate. The shadow refers to the dark, feared, unwanted, and often unknown parts of our personality, those qualities that could have become a part of us but didn’t fit into the ideal image we had for ourselves or the image that others—such as our parents, society, peer group, or religious training—had for us. As we develop, we tend to identify with those qualities that are acceptable in our family or in the environment in which we are raised and reject all those qualities that contradict or oppose this ideal self. However, these rejected qualities do not cease to exist. They become rejected and repressed and continue to live in the unconscious. This repressed and unwanted part of the client had made its appearance, longing to be accepted and healed. Shadow work is the task of becoming aware of our rejected and split off energies and finding a way to accept them with love and compassion and integrate them into our sense of self so that we don’t project them out on others making them the hated or unwanted others. We must learn to live with our shadow material with a sense of integrity and consciousness. The client didn’t know what to do with this shadow part, so she posed that question. She continued,

“How do I manage it? How do I not let it consume me?” I ask.

‘Tend your light. Feed your light’ I am told.

“I see the shining radiant white stone that The Grandmother had given me – ‘the stone of my knowing’. Once again, I see her placing it in my heart. The call back comes.^[2] I thank Bear, Jaguar and Dolphin, and I ask them to return with me as I will need their help as I learn to live with this part of myself. They agree to come with me, and we travel back. The Tree of Life is green again when we step out of it, and I thank it for its passage. I walk back into my heart.

“The new me that knows I am capable of hate and recognizes that this makes me fully human. And I know that I have light in my heart. I realize my hateful feelings are gone and I feel more whole.”

The client’s insight shows what successful shadow work looks like. In this process she has changed her energy around the issue of hate. We become aware of our own dark places and our capacities to be and to do what we often complain and criticize others for being and doing. We bring light to the dark and shadow places in us. As Carl Jung said, “One does not become enlightened by imagining figures of light, but by making the darkness conscious.”

That can be a challenge for all of us—to become aware of our own dark energies, our own shadow material and do the work of owning these places in us and withdrawing the projections so we don’t continue to contribute to those energies in the environment or as in my client’s situation, continue to project hate in the world, albeit unconsciously.

The shadow material can also be positive energies that we have rejected, idealized parts that we don’t think we can be, don’t have capacity for. We project this energy onto our heros and heroines, those we would like to be. We also need to face and own these energies as they often contain our gifts and talents that the world needs. Some call this the “golden shadow.”

We don’t want to believe that we do the very things we criticize others of or complain about or can’t be what we idealize. But if we listen carefully and ask Spirit to reveal to us how the particular dynamic plays out in our lives, it will be revealed. For example, I’ve always taken pride in my ability to be flexible, to accept other peoples’ differences without judgment, to flow with whatever was needed at the moment. One day I was pointing out how rigid and inflexible someone was when someone observing this conversation said to me, “Sheldon, you’re pretty rigid, you know.” I was shocked by his observation and said, “what do you mean?” He said, “you’re pretty rigid in thinking everybody should be flexible.” And he was exacly right. So the very thing I was complaining out was the very thing I was doing in my own way. That is the subleness of the shadow.

Philosopher, author and teacher, Ken Wilber and founder of the Integral Institute, has provided a 3-step approach to facing, owning and withdrawing our projections.

Owning Our Projections: An Exercise

3-2-1 Process

First choose a “difficult person” to whom you are attracted or repelled (e.g., romantic partner, boss, parent), or pick a dream image, a body sensation or a situation that creates a disturbance in your awareness. Keep in mind the disturbance may be a positive or negative one. Negative disturbances are often parts of us that we reject, don’t want to be while positive ones are what we might call the “golden shadow” those idealized parts that we don’t think we can be or have capcity for. Then follow the 3 steps of the process described below.

You can either talk through the process or use a journal to write it out. If talking, imagine the person or thing sitting across from you. If using a journal, simply write out each of the following steps.

3 — FACE IT

Describe the person, image, or sensation in vivid detail using 3rd-person pronouns (e.g., he, him, she, her, they, their, it, its). This is your opportunity to explore your experience fully, particularly what it is that bothers you. Don’t minimize the disturbance—take the opportunity to describe it as fully as possible.

2 — TALK TO IT

Enter into a dialogue with this object of awareness using 2nd-person pronouns (you and yours). This is your opportunity to enter into a relationship with the disturbance, so talk directly to the person, image, or sensation. You may ask questions such as “Who/what are you? Where do you come from? What do you want from me? What do you need to tell me? What gift are you bringing me?” Then allow the disturbance to respond back to you. Allow yourself to be surprised by what emerges in the dialogue.

1 — BE IT

Now, writing or speaking in first person, become the person, image, sensation or situation you have been exploring. Use the first-person pronouns (I, me, mine). See the world, including yourself, entirely from the perspective of that disturbance, and allow yourself to discover not only your commonalities, but also how you really are one and the same. Finally, make a statement of identification: “I am _____” or “_____ is me.” Now integrate this perspective into a larger you, feeling it as an integral part of your being. As you download this energy into your field, you change your energy. You own the energy so that it doesn’t get projected out onto the world unconsciously. Once we own these energies we have greater choice on how we will respond to these disturbances in the future.

Notes

[1] Sometimes energy becomes solidified in our LEF. This energy may be imprints of fear, anger, sadness, grief, etc. that have penetrated our energy field. We may have been carrying this energy around for years, having taken it on at vulnerable times. This energy can be released by extraction or pulling it out.

[2] During a shamanic journey, the drummer will often give notice that it is time to end the journey by striking the drum with a series of 4 to 7 beats followed by rapid drumming to call the journeyer back and end the journey.

The Psychotherapist and the Shaman

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