Shadow Work is one of the most important inner work processes you can do for yourself and for others… There is so much darkness and hidden from our view… why wouldn’t you want to shine a light into those places?
I most often work with individuals to unearth and face the stories “below the surface” of their awareness. The ones that cause emotional reactivity, suffering, and cast a narrative veil over their personal and professional lives.
But the second part of this work is to help individuals see the stories of others. Not only the surface narratives at play, but the stories underneath the behavior and reactivity of the “other.” Because the same dynamics that make us human, make them human too.
We are not responsible for how others treat us or react to us. Though, with empathy and compassion, we can see that others also have fears, protective mechanisms, and misunderstandings like we do, and we can choose to not intentionally cause them harm.
Instead of seeing them as the enemy, we can strive to see them as simply other humans who haven’t yet seen their own old hidden stories that are blocking their view of us, the “other,” and creates the altered reality in their world; creates new narratives that prompt their need to dominate, disappear from us, or cause harm, intentionally or unintentionally. Their deeply held fear causes them to react.
We want them to understand us, don’t we? To care about how we are affected by their actions and words? To see how those events and interactions hit on our underlying fear of survival and cause us to either run away, lash out, or otherwise defend ourselves?
Well… they want that from us too.
Can we offer them the empathy, compassion, and benefit of the doubt and see beneath the surface of their angry actions and words to witness the vulnerability that lies hidden there?
Often, our answer is “no,” because we feel that it would then leave us more vulnerable to them. We are then left upset, offended, afraid, and in protective mode. I struggle with this too, sometimes. But understanding their underlying fear stories, does not condone or validate THEIR harmful actions.
Understanding our underlying fear stories does not condone or validate OUR harmful actions.
If everyone continues operating from a fear of vulnerability, a desperate fear that if they don’t control or become the aggressor, they will cease to exist, then we will all cease to exist.
We will all cease to exist.
If even one person reading this is willing to flip the script and see themselves and each other beneath the surface of the stories… then we have a chance.
A chance to see through the shadowy haze of the stories of the world.
A chance to see things more authentically, more clearly, more empathetically, with compassion for the humanness of all.
A chance at transcendence.
A chance to know yourself.
A chance to know your Self.
Minding the Story 