The purpose of this entry today is to investigate my shadow. The following paragraphs are my brief recollection about what I experienced, how I felt and my thinking on the situation. It is certainly not exhaustive, but I think this illustrates areas of my personality that need more light and inner work.
This is a bit rushed as I legitimately need to hit the road and run some logistics for my wife’s 50th birthday party this weekend and I am committed to making her birthday AMAZING!
I will certainly be back to analyze this concept in further depth beyond this session this morning. I am committed to more peace and kindness for myself and those around me.
“The shadow is the part of ourselves we really dislike and don’t want to acknowledge. It shows up in other individuals as a projection. The people provoke a strong reaction in us, it’s usually because we see ourselves in them, the part we don’t like about ourselves.”
For many months I have felt very low degrees of projection and resentment towards others. I would say it’s at an all-time low of resentment and anger in my life. It’s something that I have even been consciously aware of because living with more peace is certainly a better life. I feel good about it. And really do prefer it. However, I have not been without moments of deep resentment and anger towards very important people in my sphere.
In my day job it’s been a necessity to cultivate metacognition. As an elected official I am frequently accused of being responsible for things that oftentimes I have no authority regarding. I also have many people that I manage. My work requires a conscious awareness to be unbiased towards others. Thankfully, maintaining a calm and unjudgmental attitude and philosophy has become a consistent attribute and disposition in my approach and interactions.
But just when I thought I was on top of the world with my Zen like kindness… the Shadow. An eclipse. I am far from enlightened. I need more healing and to manifest more consistent kindness.
Most recently I played a central role in my brother’s wedding. I was the officiant of the wedding ceremony and spent several days assisting with site preparation and other logistics. My wife was also very instrumental in the wedding planning process and execution on several levels.
My shadow would appear, resulting in deep resentment and anger for my brother and his wife slightly during the ceremony and afterwards for many days. My shadow suggested I go down the rabbit hole and be drained of vital energy. Thus, I PROJECTED…
The key features of my internal thought dialogue toward the wedding couple: they have limited self-awareness to the bigger picture, we should have realized that they would play the victim role in taking responsibility, they have low integrity for not reaching out to myself and my wife to discuss the hurt. It is a demonstration of cowardice. There is a very low bar of gratitude for the time, energy and recognition of the financial commitment we contributed.
My internal drama unfolded over several days as I sought resolution to both administrative and financial aspects of “wrapping up the wedding” responsibilities.
My projections expanded in interleaved into my interactions with my mother. It reached a crescendo inside me about 5 days after the actual ceremony, such was my anger that I withheld affection to my mother. I could not even stand to hug her and hastily retreated from further interactions with her.
The key features of my internal thought dialogue: you are responsible for your sons (plural) emotional intelligence foundation and have failed miserably. You did not and are not taking a leadership role in resolving the situation. Your evasive maneuvering by not addressing the situation with transparency and consensus only makes the wedding situation worse AND up to this point you’ve set a very low bar for how our family interacts. The conflict and distress I’ve had to overcome regarding my own emotional and cognitive development is partially the result of my mother and stepfather’s baggage, lack of self-awareness.
Emotionally and physically – my body felt sick, I had difficulty sleeping, my heart rate was elevated, I felt “disgusted” toward all involved. This feeling of disgust. A body wash of clinched tenseness.
Thankfully, the “outward” expression to the wedding couple was minimal. Hopefully. It has largely happened inside of me. Unfortunately, I cannot say that’s true for my interactions with my mother. I have reached out to all parties with the following communication:
My apologies for any stress and hostility all of you have may have experienced from me regarding the wedding and wedding wrap up.
Note that regarding my wife… when I have “spoken for her” in a few instances. I should be careful about conveying what others are feeling.
In retrospect, I would have handled some things differently in regard to the entire wedding experience.
There is much for me to continue to reflect on. And I know I am still work in progress to being a better human expressing more kindness more often.
I love you all very much and I’m grateful that you accept and love me in my darker moments.
Thank you for that grace.
I will remain open to any quality improvement that you would like me to be aware of, in regard to our personal interactions together and to the bigger picture of our family’s future together as we move forward.
Interestingly, this cognitive and emotional physical drama was in stark contrast to everything else that was happening around me. It was a “situation”. The whole affair took on its own state of consciousness. I am grateful that my state did not appear to be bleeding into my other interactions. It feels a bit like a dream to me now. But there is follow-up work that needs to be done
This wraps my first example of shadow work as previously defined. More examples to follow in the come in weeks… My hope is that any hardship and stress I have projected onto those around me can be repaired.