Let’s say you’ve hit the tip of the iceberg—you realize you have a Shadow, with a capital S. You’ve managed to become aware that you’re mostly unaware of what goes on in your mind. You’ve gotten uncomfortable with the thought that your ego marches out to defend itself from reality on a daily basis, and does not hesitate to blame others in order to maintain a good opinion of itself.
Congratulations! You have just gotten much further along the road to consciousness than most people have ever been or are ever going to get. And that was the easy part! Now what? What do you do about an ego defense system that’s mostly unconscious? That’s the hard part.
Getting to know your own shadow, taking responsibility for what you find in there, dealing honorably with what you find in there, is a lifelong task. We don’t ever get “done” with Shadow work, any more than we get “done” with growing up.
And while it’s only the tip of the tip of the iceberg, listening to yourself is a good place to start.
Yup. That’s right. Just LISTEN TO YOURSELF. Listen to your words and your thoughts. NOTICE what passes through your mind. Ha! ADMIT what passes through your mind is more like it… Who and what we mutter about matters. Who and what we mutter about says far more about us than it does about them.
Another useful tool for Shadow work is talking to yourself. Yup. Talking to yourself.
A good friend of mine has been plagued by a bad temper all his life. He can drop into anger as fast as you or I can drop into a chair. Which is harder on him than it would be on most folks, because he’s actually a very gentle heart. So a while back he decided to do something about it. He found a psychologist he liked to talk to. He started reading about the Human Shadow in general and thinking about his own Shadow in particular. And then he took a very important step. He gave this character in his personality a name: Short Fuse.
So now when my friend is driving and Short Fuse starts to rant and rave he says, “But didn’t you drive like that when you were a teenager?” or “Didn’t you cut someone off without meaning to, just yesterday?” And with the wind taken out of his sails like that, Short Fuse quickly drops behind.
Naming the characters who show up over and over again in your behavior, so you realize who they are and what they’re liable to be up to when they show up, takes away some of their power. Makes them easier to control. Got a Preacher in there, who likes to tell other people what to do? Or a Smart Guy, who knows everything? How about a Princess, who can get real pissy about performing simple chores? Do you have a Saint in your shadow, who does no wrong? Or how about a Whiner, or a Pouter? Do you see a Bully, or his opposite, a Tail Wagger, when you look in the mirror?
Whoever the habitual characters in your Shadow are, name them. Start talking back to them. Find out what they want, why they keep showing up–how they hurt you and how they help you. Invite them out of the shadows and into the light of consciousness.
We need all of these characters in our psyches. Each of them has a value and a use. Preachers care about making the world a better place. Princesses throw good parties. Smart guys invent things, and Tail Waggers keep the peace. What we don’t need is for any one of these characters to drive us–or anyone else–crazy. And we really don’t need for any one of these characters to get away with thinking they run our whole show.
Present responses are programmed by past experiences. We react to here-and-now stimuli with emotional complexes that were formed in childhood. And while there’s no way to keep a childhood complex from cropping up, again, we can learn to recognize that is has cropped up, again, and talk ourselves out of it.
So… step one is listening to yourself and step two is talking to yourself?
Yup. A sense of humor is required for Shadow work.