I have spent a significant amount of time in my life battling an unknown enemy. This villain spends her days lurking in every corner of my being, silently monitoring every thought, emotion, and aspiration and selectively determining where she can do the most damage with the least effort.
Her name is Katie, and she is my darkness, my trauma and pain, my addictions and failures, my anger and rage. She is a mechanism of hurt and pain and is shrouded in anxiety, fear, and shame. She is Katie, and she is me.
Now, to be perfectly clear, this is not how I would describe myself in an interview or how I hope that my friends describe me when others ask what I am like. Obviously, most days, I do my best to pretend that she does not exist. Most days I pretend that she is someone that I may know, but can’t be sure. Some days I pretend like I have no idea who she is. Kate is the person on my resume, and only that person. But the truth is, that the harder I try to ignore my relation, the more persistent she is and the impact of her shattering truths become harder to withstand. So after 40 years of denying her existence, I have decided that it is time to learn a little bit more about her, why she is filled with self-hatred and anger, in hopes that maybe we can start living together in peace.
The shadow journey is one that can be incorporated into any kind of therapeutic modality, but can also be used in a daily spiritual practice as well. To put it quite simply, if a therapist is doing their job well, there is an element of shadow work in any therapeutic setting. Therapy is intended to allow for a comfortable space to explore the darkest parts of our being, which is the foundation where the shadow journey begins.
What is critical to understand is that the “work” in shadow work is not the therapists role…it is ours (Or not mine in my social worker hat). So to move through our stuck mindsets and harmful self-image, it is blood, sweat, tears, sledgehammer, table saw, wood glue, nail gun, sandpaper…you get it. It’s work. It’s incredibly difficult work that seems like having a 24 hour a day job. And if I’m completely honest, as a social worker, I had never done my own shadow work in one specific area: Anything pre-military was off-limits, and that boundary was intentional. I don’t want to remember how I felt before the military, because it was BAD. I mean, really bad. 28 years of feeling no self-value. 28 years of wanting to be dead every single day. 28 years of hiding my true self from my relatives because “Jesus”. 28 years of thinking I was a complete loser that could never pull it together, or that I was a bad child, or that I was never going to really know what it felt like to be loved and accepted. I have never wanted to revisit that time in my life and I have really tried to avoid it for as long as emotionally possible. That being said, she can’t be ignored any longer. She has grown louder, stronger, and more demanding everyday. So along with my long-time therapist and my partner in healing (my wife), myself and my shadow will be along for quite a ride these next 12 weeks.
Follow along and we can all get to know this shadow kiddo that needs some serious attention.
Strength in Empathy 