Me and My Shadow

 

 Me and my shadow, strollin' down the avenue
--"Me and My Shadow," lyrics by Billy Rose

Shame, embarrassment, humiliation--these are the forces that divide the self into my ego--the part of myself that is recognized as self--and shadow--the part of myself that is seen as other. My ego is not consciously aware of shadow, but it sees shadow everywhere, all the time, outside myself, because my shadow is projected outward onto others. Shadow work is the development of awareness of and compassion for shadow, and eventually, the integration of shadow.

The popular fear regarding shadow is that deep inside, we're all axe murderers. It's the idea that my shadow is a dark cell imprisoning horrible monsters just waiting for the chance to leap out. But in reality, the shady prison holds sobbing children, spurned lovers, betrayed friendships.

 

All these imprisoned bits of self are guarded by complexes, habitual intense emotional reactions that defend my ego against shadow. Complexes are the real monsters, not the shadow itself. To keep from being overwhelmed and swept up by reactive emotions, meditation practice is a necessity. Simply becoming aware of complexes is a huge step. To work with shadow, I have to develop presence to the point where I can remain mindful while experiencing emotional eruptions. When a complex can be tolerated, then the pain underneath the fear and anger can be experienced.

 

Shadow work comes in many forms. Dreamwork, journaling, doing art, entering psychotherapy--these are just a few of the many ways to work with shadow. I'll look at several in the next few posts.

The Practice of Compassionate Presence

This post begins a series about spiritual practice. I’ve been meditating for nearly 50 years. I’ve attended several different types of retreats and programs and have incorporated bits and pieces from many of them into my practice. I’m also a husband, father, retired IT professional, and former editor. I can speak about practice from the context of everyday life, not from the point of view of some kind of enlightened master. I don’t claim that anything I say will be new or unique, but my perspective may be different from that of a spiritual teacher.

For me, spiritual practice has two aspects: the cultivation of presence or mindfulness, and the nurturing of compassion or open-heartedness. Compassionate presence, open-hearted mindfulness—this is the essence of spiritual practice. Both aspects support each other. Presence gives clarity and awareness. Without mindfulness, I’m at the mercy of my reactive patterns and mindless habits. But presence without compassion is brutality. Without compassion, I stand naked before my inner judge, with no hope of mercy.

Open-heartedness allows me to accept the pieces of myself that I have rejected, those parts of me that embarrass or disgust me and that I project outward onto others. The good news is that these bits of me also contain lost gifts. They are the doorway to my native wisdom. Without compassion, I risk falling into tyrannical cynicism. But compassion without mindfulness is ungrounded and potentially delusional.

Meditation is essential to the cultivation of mindfulness. Meditation nurtures the ability to be present with whatever arises without being overwhelmed. Shadow work is the wellspring of compassion. The shadow is the part of myself that I cannot recognize or accept. By working to become aware of and befriend my shadow, I develop compassion for myself and others.

Open-hearted mindfulness, compassionate presence--this is the focus of my practice. I'm a work in progress, not a finished product. I don't live each moment in complete mindfulness and total open-heartedness. But that's the direction I'm headed, I hope.

Meditation and Compassion

A meditation practice can be brutal. Meditation is all about being present with whatever arises. And since I've never been a saint, a perfected being right from birth, some of what arises during meditation is not pleasant. Unhappy memories, feelings of embarrassment and shame, anxieties about the future, anger, frustration--all these boil up at one time or another, along with the more mundane distractions, the shopping lists, the todo lists.

But it's not just while I'm on the cushion. Meditation has given me a small space between provocative stimuli and my habitual reactions, a gap that gives me a chance to catch myself before I react destructively. But that space also can be a harsh spotlight that shines on the uglier sides of my personality, the parts of me that want to lash out in self-righteous anger or that want to numb out with mindless entertainment or a drink or two.

Meditation provides me with a mirror, both while meditating and while going about daily life. I don't know very many people who look in a mirror and like everything they see. By itself, a meditation practice can become a harsh, tyrannical court of self-condemnation. That's why practices to develop compassion are a necessary complement to meditation practice.

In my experience, compassion means shadow work. All the parts of me that I don't own, that I project outward onto others--that's shadow. Shadow contains all those unpleasant bits of self that cause embarrassment, shame, guilt, everything I don't like. Shadow also contains treasures, hidden talents, secret passions. There are many ways to work with shadow--Jungian depth psychology, dreamwork, shamanic practice, and many types of Buddhist practice, for a few. All center around reintroducing the self to the parts that have been pushed aside.

Shadow work is self-expanding, heart-opening, empathy-developing. It's the essence of compassion. It allows me to sit with myself as I am, to embrace whatever arises, on the cushion or off. Open-hearted mindfulness, compassionate presence--this is the center of my practice. And "practice" is definitely the right word; I haven't mastered this yet, and may not ever. But sometimes, in the gap between stimulus and reaction, when I can stand there and be compassionately present, wisdom can miraculously appear. And that's when the wonderful, mysterious, healing magic happens, the magic of responding with wisdom, rather than reacting mindlessly.

That's what it's all about.

Befriending My Demon

Some time after my parents passed away, my family gathered at my parents' home, our childhood home, to divvy up their belongings. When we were finished with the more obvious items, we combed the house for anything else one of us might want. Searching a drawer in the basement, I came across the little guy in the picture. We were all surprised; no one remembered seeing him while we were growing up. Later, a little online searching would reveal that this bronze figure is a devil or satyr fireplace damper pull--it would dangle over the fire on a chain from the damper and glow red as it heated. But at the moment we saw him, no one had any idea what he was.

When I was little, the basement was a spooky place, especially in the dark--I couldn't run up the stairs fast enough. Sometimes I'd have nightmares about little demonic beings coming up from the basement. As I grew, my dream demons were replaced by an invisible, disembodied but menacing evil presence. When I married and started a family, I no longer felt personally endangered by the demonic presence, but I'd have nightmares in which it threatened my wife and children.

I had my first lucid dream when I was about 14, and from then on, I had spontaneous lucid dreams once or twice a month. I enjoyed becoming aware in my dreams. Lucid dreams were always vivid, feeling almost more real than waking life, and sometimes, I had amazing experiences. When I was in my 50s, one night I dreamed I was in an brightly lit white attic. Suddenly, I felt the invisible evil presence gather at the opposite end of the room. This time, the presence triggered lucidity. Realizing this was a dream and nothing bad could happen to me, I decided to accept whatever would happen.

As I stood there, the presence coalesced into the form of a teenage boy, someone I'd known, a pariah, not one of the cool kids. I remained present with my sense of dread, and I consciously relaxed. He walked across the room, stood in front of me, and reached out and hugged me. As he dissolved into me, the sense of evil dissipated, and I felt almost overwhelming compassion and acceptance.

As time passed, I could tell that the dream had changed my relationship with the demonic presence. I still would dream of it occasionally, but now, it felt lonely, eager to be accepted, as if it were a puppy. I wasn't afraid of it anymore, but instead, I felt affection for it. I sensed that it had been trying to protect me, probably from very intense subconscious material. In another dream, I went down to the basement again and felt the presence. But the dark, frightening basement of my boyhood had changed into a walk-out basement, with windows and a door to the outside, filled with light. The wall opposite the exterior was lined with filing cabinet drawers. I opened one, and I knew that all the material in every cabinet was now available to me.

So, years later, when I opened the drawer in my parents' basement and came across the damper devil, I felt an immediate sense of recognition. I asked if anyone else wanted him, and when no one spoke up, he was mine. Back home, I cleaned him up a bit and placed him on the bottom shelf of my meditation altar. I feel a deep, compassionate connection with him. He's a tangible reminder of the path we're all on, the journey to recover the parts of ourselves that we've lost.