Shadow Honor
What if you uncovered a buried treasure in the things you don't like about your behaviors?
Do you resist task lists, calendars, organizing, or making promises for future you? Do you find that every week gets filled with time slots that were off the books - or off the rails?
“Everyone carries a shadow, and the less it is embodied in the individual’s conscious life, the blacker and denser it is. At all counts, it forms an unconscious snag, thwarting our most well-meant intentions.” – Carl Jung
In starting your business (And yes if you “work” for someone else - I think of that as Your business) - there’s a lot of moving parts. You need to track prospects, clients, inventory, products, processes, team members, appointments, meetings, deliveries, & the list goes on. Even a conductor that holds multiple concepts in their brain in one moment would find it challenging to keep all the details moving forward and all the instruments of business playing in harmony.
If you’re good with details and stay organized - keep reading, because there are a lot of people that are like me and suck at it - and hopefully, this will give you a tool to at worst better understand their challenges and at best give you insights that help them get more done and live better lives.
There’re a lot of tools available to track and manage the details of life.
When they don’t work — It’s easy to take it personally, thinking of yourself as a lazy failure or some such nonsense.
One of the most powerful forces of humanity hides between your ears - And if a few connections were cut in that brain of yours - Your basic programming would emerge. Can you guess what your basic programming would act like? If you’re interested - explore some of the studies on brain injuries and the psychology surrounding the Id. (The base nature of human beings).
So what do you actually do when you are not on what you feel like you should be doing?
Sleeping? Hiding from other people?
Distracting? Playing Games, Doom Scrolling Social Media?
Stimulating? Pursuing immediate pleasures, food, drink, sex?
Numbing? Using a substance to take the edge off - a.k.a. Addiction?
Abusing? Using your power to manipulate, scare, and dominate a situation to make it the way you want?
Disassociating? Blaming others or circumstances for your feelings, forgetting your past, moving or adopting a new identity, defining the world as unreal (believing in inner voices), losing your sense of self…
The underlying drive for these impulses — stems from a biological urge to preserve your life. Sounds like some serious hardwired brain chemistry that would be difficult to overcome. So if you find it difficult to change the behaviors - That’s Normal! (not lazy).
“The shadow is needed now more than ever. We heal the world when we heal ourselves, and hope shines brightest when it illuminates the dark.” – Sasha Graham
What would happen if you gave your Shadow - this part of you that wants to keep you alive - a place of honor in your life? What could happen if you engaged your amazing creative, logical, inspiring mind to elevate the behavioral outputs of your shadow while honoring their root hardwiring?
“People will do anything no matter how absurd to avoid facing their own souls.” – Carl Jung
Make a list of things you do - when you are not doing things that line up with the person you want to be. Imagine feeling bad, low energy, angry, depressed, stressed, anxious, sick, tired, poor, frustrated, lonely, broken, rejected, laughed at, shamed, disrespected, threatened, and other feelings that trigger you. What would that version of yourself be doing?
Leave a few spaces between every action you might take when feeling bad. (Are you doing this right now? - way good!)
After you’ve made a list - (take 10 to 20 minutes or more to really dive deep into all the things your shadow self wants to do to protect you when it feels threatened):
Begin to explore an activity that would improve your ability to honor and protect your shadow.
Example: Doom Scrolling Social Media.Ask yourself: Why might your shadow be doing this? To avoid stress, to feel like people pay attention to you or care, to see that you’re not alone in your feelings…
What are three behaviors that might give your shadow more of what it wants - and still be more in line with the person you want to be?
Get Creative, Get Weird, and when you write out the options, check in with your feelings. Does it feel like this new behavior will reduce stress?
Test it out - Put several of these new activities into your schedule to reward your shadow for doing some of the things that normally stress you out - or to transition to new tasks.
“One does not become enlightened by imagining figures of light, but by making the darkness conscious.” – Carl Jung
A healthy Snack, A boring rest/meditation, reflective writing in a journal, calling a supportive friend, doing something creative, asking for help or finding a partner to do things with, hiking, getting exercise, sleeping - all might give you more energy and honor your shadow.
As a member of a social community - how you show up - creates culture. When you behave in ways that focus on enhancing your daily actions to be in line with the self you want to be - you lead by example. It’s like you’ve discovered a magic wand to transform people around you - because you’ve stolen their ability to trigger you and transformed triggers into opportunities to improve yourself.
“The best political, social, and spiritual work we can do is to withdraw the projection of our shadow onto others.” – Carl Jung
You’re invited to participate in the great transformation - where individuals like you decide to honor their shadows and collaborate with other like-minded people to engage in contributing to improving your world.
One potential new behavior you can add to this exercise is to invite a friend to do this with you, and to talk about how you can better honor your shadows. I hope you share this article with them as well to help you both be on the same page.
