Embracing and Healing Our Individual and Collective Shadow

Eleanor Payon and myself, June 2009 - Birmingham, Michigan

Ellie is a psychotherapist and the author of "The Wizard of Oz and Other Narcissists:

Coping with the One-Way Relationship in Work, Love, and Family"

Over the past 30 years of being increasingly rooted into a path of healing and awakening, I have come to learn the intimate relationship between wounds and gifts, grief and gratitude, joy and sorrow, humility and strength, separation and interbeing, fear and courage, cruelty and compassion, loss and love. I never imagined when first cracking open the doorway to my deeply wounded and fortified heart that I would be led on this incredible journey which would teach me the gifts of the alchemist: how to turn the darkest experiences of my life into blessing.

One significant part of my path has been in the form of "shadow work." (There are many resources regarding shadow work. Among them are: http://www.soulfulliving.com/july02features.htm and http://www.theworkofthesoul.com/shadowwork.htm.) I still clearly remember in 1984 when one of my early therapists told me I would need to "embrace my shadow." I had no  idea what in the world he was talking about. Simultaneous with that thought were two parallel inner reactions - "I sure as hell don't want to do That!," and a deep inner spiritual knowing that this is exactly the turn my life needed to take.

Clarissa Pinkola Estes, author of Women Who Run With the Wolves, wrote that if we waited until we were not afraid to embrace our fears and the changes we most need to make that we would wait forever. She wisely counseled that sometimes we just have to pinch our nose and jump and trust that we will not die. And so I did. Jump. Terrified, so terrified, but I jumped anyway into the unknown of a whole new life that awaited. The old world was one that needed to go.

E. e. cummings writes that "it takes courage to grow up and become who you really are." Intertwined with this is this additional nugget of wisdom from Clarissa Pinkola Estes - that among the most important decisions any of us will ever make is whether or not to be bitter. Author, mythologist, storyteller Michael Meade has also reflected on the question that awaits us on the other side when we die: Did we become ourselves? Buddhist teachings reflect that within all beings is the beauty of our true nature. All life is imbued with the Sacred.

Yet, so many of us are asleep to this. I say this with the deep humility of one who has been very wounded, disassociated, caught up in addictions, judgments, unhealthy relationships, and other symptoms of being disconnected from my essence and the Sacred essence which permeates and connects all.

Our world is asking of each of us that we continue to grow and expand in the ways that we pinch our noses and jump. Jump into healing, awakening, seeing with new eyes, aligning our lives with our values, living authentically, clarifying our intentions, and discovering what the fierce compassionate actions are that we can take individually and collectively. Surely we all can grow in mindfulness of our judgments, in listening with our hearts, in consciousness of doing no harm, in allowing our hearts to break open to clear space for more love.

Yet, there is much to be revealed, embraced, healed, transformed in us individually and collectively. We all have a role to play, an important part of working toward a more caring world, one which increasingly cares for all. And part of this must be to recognize and give voice to the pain in our own hearts, families, communities, nation, and planet which shows up in the painful and frightening symptoms of children killing children, addictions of all kinds, extreme poverty, the worship of consumerism, depression, anxiety, personality disorders, suicide, species extinction, domestic violence and child abuse, vast redistribution of wealth upward, the destruction of the environment, the politics of polarization, global warming, the crushing of indigenous peoples, over population, rape, racism, war and terrorism, the war on terrorism and on everything else, and on and on. There can be no solution for problems denied, no healing for wounds split off and projected outward onto everything and everyone else - all to distract from the true roots of so much pain and violence, fear and separation, and the wisdom of how to recognize and feed the true need.

Suffering denied ends up being dumped onto the next generation and the next and the next, along with our children today and/or our spouse, co-worker, neighbor, and anyone else we perceive as different, Other, or somehow a threat to the stories we are attached to believing. These are the stories, the belief systems, the shadows and blind spots that keep us stuck in separation from what most needs attending in our own hearts.

There are, of course, many causes of the crisis humankind is now urgently faced with. Among them is one of the great illnesses of our times - narcissism. Narcissist Personality Disorder is especially common to American culture and is frequently found in families, love relationships, the work place, those in positions of political and corporate power, and more. This illness is characterized by an intense need for power and control, a heightened sense of entitlement and grandiosity, pervasive projecting and scapegoating, and an extreme lack of capacity for empathy and compassion. Think of the roots of our nation's founding which relied on slavery and the genocide of indigenous peoples, all the way to the present day vigorous insistence of "American Exceptionalism," and you can begin to grasp the historical roots of narcissism in American culture and its present day manifestations. This reveals why it is that so many Americans lead lives of "rugged individualism" coupled with a pervasive disconnect from their own deepest suffering and that of others. This is fertile ground for blaming poverty on the poor, for the politics of polarization, for the immoral redistribution of wealth upward, for Alzheimer's, for children shooting children. As Michael Meade states, "Any nation which disrespects its youth and disregards its elders is in big trouble."

Resources on Narcissistic Personality Disorder: 
- Book: "The Wizard of Oz and Other Narcissists: Coping with the One-Way Relationship in Work, Love, and Family" by dear friend and soulful sister Eleanor Payson - http://www.amazon.com/Wizard-Oz-Other-Narcissists-Relationship/dp/0972072837
- Article: "Narcissistic Personality Disorder" - http://www.webmd.com/mental-health/narcissistic-personality-disorder
- Article: "Narcissist Personality Disorder is Not Harmless Behavior" - http://communities.washingtontimes.com/neighborhood/living-inside-out-loud/2012/nov/3/narcissistic-personality-disorder-not-harmless-beh/
- Article: "How to Spot a Narcissist"- http://blog.theartofchange.com/persuasion/dealing-with-difficult-people/how-to-spot-a-narcissist#

With humility I share my awareness that this is but just one small glimpse into a much larger picture. May we each work to expand the ways in which we illuminate hurting and healing within ourselves, our families, our communities, our nation, and this Sacred Earth we share. May we increasingly embrace our individual and collective suffering now. And in doing so, may we discover our true joy. We are all connected. Another world is possible. May peace begin with me. And may we all learn to walk the path of the peacemaker.  Blessed be. 

 ♥ Molly

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One does not become enlightened by imagining figures of light,

but by making the darkness conscious.

~ Carl Jung

Action creates its own courage and courage is as contagious
as fear. You must do the thing you think you cannot do.

~ Eleanor Roosevelt

The period of greatest gain in knowledge and experience is the

most difficult period of one's life.

~ The Dalai Lama

Your task is not to seek for love, but merely to seek and find

all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it.

~ Rumi

The more we love, the more real we become.

~ Stephen Levine