#shadowworkchallenge

Day 15- Meditation: Embrace Your Shadow

►Meditate with your shadow poppet. Visualize it being encompassed by white, healing light. Direct as much love and acceptance towards it as you can possibly muster.

And so here we are, the final day of the Shadow work challenge. I want to thank  unmaskingthedivine for putting it together, it’s been a fabulous check in for me and my shadow :)  I also want to thank everyone else who has participated in this challenge. I salute your creativity, authenticity and bravery! Thanks everyone who left me comments - I’m so frustrated that I can’t find a way to respond/ or engage others in conversation - because everyone who has engaged with me has been ever so worthy of connection and communication. Again, big thanks!

As for the final aspect of this challenge, I decided to go with the brightest “shadow” image I have of my shadow’d self. I have to say I am not sure I accept the binary / duality /oppositional way shadow work and shadows are generally conceived of. As if we {in our unshadowed aspect} are “good cops” and our shadow {as something apart and distinct from “us”} are the “bad cops”. As though we {in our unshadowed aspect} are light, bright and “healthy” and our shadows are somehow less evolved, less healthy, less well ... bright. This lines up a bit with  Connie Zweig and Steve Wolf’s notion that     “Beneath the social mask we wear every day, we have a hidden shadow side: an impulsive, wounded, sad, or isolated part that we generally try to ignore.” I think it is just as possible to see our shadow selves as healthier versions of ourselves {from time to time}, less likely to conform or “sell out”  as  Clarissa Pinkola Estes suggests      “Compliance causes a shocking realization:To be ourselves causes us to be exiled by many others, and yet, to comply with what others want causes us to be exiled from ourselves.”

I‘ve done a lot of work with this idea - mostly through engaging in a sort of “discussion” with my shadow - I submitted a poem about this at some point through the challenge, but I’ve done a lot more of it than the one poem. It was very illuminating to hear/ consider how my shadow saw herself, how she saw me, and how she experienced the either / or split between us. Maybe I’m my shadow’s, shadow.

I like the idea of a shadow self being comprised of the collection of ‘choices not taken’ as per Thomas Moore, “The person we choose to be, … automatically creates a dark double — the person we choose not to be.”  I might take some exception to the word “dark” in this context, as it assumes that all the choices we don’t make are somehow lesser, darker choices - rather than just different choices. Certainly in the course of my shadow work there are many instances where the choices I have made were the darker choice, not the lighter - the choices based in compromise and conformity. I think my shadow would say I am plenty dark all on my own and not to dump all my shit onto her. I take that point to heart.

Day 7- Critical Analysis: Dissect an Unhealthy Habit

►Analyze a habit that serves as a distraction from yourself and/or impedes your well-being. Ask yourself when you developed this habit, what caused you to develop it, and how it affects your life. When you get an urge to partake in this habit, take a moment to note what feelings you are experiencing. You can trace those feelings back and try to understand what inevitably caused them, many times this stems from a childhood experience. Go ahead and indulge in this habit as you normally would. Then ask yourself how partaking in it alleviates you and why you feel you cannot be alleviated through other means.

Day 13- Artistic Expression: Forge Your Shadow   ►Create a poppet that represents your Shadow. While making it, project onto it all of the shadow aspects you have explored in the past twelve days, as well as any others.

“Be hole, be dust, be dream, be wind/Be night, be dark, be wish, be mind,/Now slip, now slide, now move unseen,/Above, beneath, betwixt, between.” ― Neil Gaiman, The Graveyard Book

Hmm well, I am sure this isn’t quite “as expected” however, not being a poppet sort of girl, I thought I would share some photographic ‘self-portraits’ I did to “capture” my shadow. I did indeed, project my shadow aspects into each of these images and I keep them close to hand, along with “shadow” poems and so forth.

To me, these are “integrative” photos - something about self-acceptance and not needing to “pretty” things up - but also, to capture that a shadow is not always dark and dire - sometimes it shines brightly and is beautiful. I suppose the other thing I was hoping to capture in these is the ephemeral nature of shadow - how shadow selves are a little fluid, a little shifty - a little hard to have sit still so you can “see” them. Sometimes we need to court our shadow and woo it into being.

Day 12- Critical Analysis: Assess Your Core Beliefs

►Analyze your fundamental beliefs. Ask yourself if these beliefs are reasonable and worth keeping or if your life would improve if you were to eliminate them.

Ahhhh this was so fun to make today- a story by gif...My beliefs ... they are tricky because they are evidenced beliefs - that is to say, I have had them put to the test  time and time again, and ya know ... it is what it is.

So what do I believe?

1. I believe people are flawed - they can sometimes be breathtakingly lovely - and they can also be bastard coated bastards with bastard filling. In fact, I think we can all be bastards - me too. I try not to be a bastard and I prefer other people who do the same.

2.I tend to be a realist. I lean toward assuming, not the worst exactly - but hmmm ... I am neutral. I expect nothing of people and I am no longer devastated when people are shitty.

3.  I believe the solution to this, to whatever degree, is to lower my expectations. I don’t expect people to be breathtakingly lovely {but when they are, man I am blown away and I love it}.

4. As per yesterday's post, I believe life would be a lot easier if I didn’t talk, if I could pretend to care about things I don’t care about, and not care so much about the things I genuinely do.

5. However, I can’t do that and I don’t want to. So I will carry on doing that thing that I do. Be me.

6. And at the end of the day, I believe that being just me, full stop, is a great weeding out tool. The people who are meant to be in my life stick around and they are AMAZING breathtakingly lovely people -- and the people who aren’t meant to be here, leave, generally pretty quickly - and I do hope the door doesn’t hit them on their ass on their way out of my life.

I’m okay with all these beliefs. They are tested by fire and they support me in being me.