Exercising the Shadow

So I want to write a post that's sort of more fun, and that will engage any followers out there in the process of examining their own shadow material. I have a couple things I do that help me see some of the details of my own shadow. One thing is to think of someone who drives you nuts, someone you really can't stand, and to imagine that person as the manifestation of your own shadow. This is fun, but difficult, because we always think, oh my god, I'm nothing like that asshole. I would never say that, do that, wear that, whatever it is. And that's the point, really. This person you cannot tolerate symbolizes the aspects of yourself you can't tolerate and will not allow.  

Doug had us do this exercise in a class. We were to bring in three images--one of our shadow, one of our romantic/sexual ideal, and one of wholeness.

I brought in the image of Britney Spears you see at the top of this post and had a remarkable breakthrough. As I researched her on the internet, I began to see how vulnerable she is to attack, and how badly she's treated. It's easy to begin to see her as the victim of her family, whom she has been supporting since she was a child. She's a kid who has way too much money, fame, and power, and almost no one she can actually trust. Her false self must be so big and so overpowering that the question of who she actually is may forever be a non-issue. I can't think of many things sadder than that. And she is now a victim of a culture that loves to hate her--beat her down, build her up, beat her down again. I ultimately got to the point where I felt loving and protective over her. I even defend her now when people talk badly about her. 

It's even more interesting to take on your least favorite family member. As James Yandell writes in the introduction to Erich Neumann's Depth Psychology and a New Ethic, "Perhaps even more difficult than acknowledging our wickedness, which at least has a certain glamour, is recognizing our ordinariness; the banality of our foundation as mortal animals can be painfully deflating." The way your mother talks with food in her mouth; your sister's intellectual rigidity; your father's porn habit. It's challenging work, "But there is gold in the muck," Yandell promises, "and as shadow integration proceeds, one reclaims substance, energy, and creative imagination that have been consigned to the sewer or the devil. One has the strength that comes from being in accord with reality rather than in desperate defense of a false self-idealization, and one recognizes the high cost and true poverty of the previous identification with the good" (Neumann, 1990, p. 5). Wow! Take that in!

In working with Britney Spears as my shadow self, I reclaimed the energy of my own adolescent sexual confusion, all the bad choices I made regarding, at that time, boys, and later, men. I found a connection with and compassion for my own devalued feminine sexuality, my own exploitation, my own false performance. It has been a huge relief to emerge in a way that not only do I not hate her, judge her, feel disgusted by her--I actually respect and relate to her. 

I'll take on Paris Hilton when I'm stronger. 

If anyone would be willing to post comments, even just letting me know who/what you're working with in this arena, I would love it.