Saturday, November 23, 2024

Reflections On a Next Vital Step: Long Overdue Shadow Work

 

Shadow Work As Pathway To Healing 
and Transforming Ourselves, 
Our Political and Economic Systems, 
Our Nation, and Our World

We all have different bottoms.  For me, it was 9-11. That was when I hit a new bottom and knew in my deepest being that I needed to look deeply into what I did not know about our nation. The tipping point came when George W. Bush declared that we were attacked because "they hate us for our freedoms" — and then went on to proclaim that we needed to go shopping and we needed to prepare to go to war.

But why?? Who is "they"? And I just knew that war was not the answer. And I also knew that the horrors that occurred on that September day in 2001 were not because anyone hated our freedoms. But I had absolutely no idea why 9-11 happened. And I had to find out. I'd been compelled to uncover many hard and painful truths that have thrown me into disillusionment again and again. It was only sometime later that I realized that disillusionment is an antidote to our illusions. What a valuable lesson that is. 

For decades now I've known that the pathway to deeper truths is not meant to just be a pleasant stroll in the park. No. It requires intention, courage, tenacity, support, vulnerability, openness, resilience, and a profound ongoing commitment to truth. It can take a lot to allow the world as we thought we knew it to fall out from under us leaving us in unchartered territory and facing  information that counters so much of what we've been told and believed. At least this has certainly been my experience.

Over the years, it has been incredibly humbling to learn how deeply I had absorbed so much that simply was not true. And as I read and researched, transformed my resources of information, discerned who I could trust and who I could not, went to hear a diversity of knowledgeable and wise speakers, and lined my bookshelves with numerous invaluable books, I was gradually being empowered to lift layer after layer of the fog that I'd unknowingly been in throughout my lifetime. Loosening the grip that my indoctrination and the toxicities that I've absorbed from our unhealthy culture has been life changing and profound. And that is real freedom.

So, yes — and altogether for well over half of my lifetime now — I've been recovering. Recovering from illusions and indoctrination and ignorance. Recovering from the lack of empathic awareness that is embedded in privilege. (I am white and grew up in the wealthy Detroit suburb of Grosse Pointe, Michigan.) Recovering from ancestral and cultural trauma. Recovering from multiple addictions, anxiety and depression, and fibromyalgia. Recovering from image management and perfectionism, black and white thinking, and shame and fear and disconnection. Recovering from beliefs I've absorbed from our American mainstream media, from narratives that one political party is good and the other bad, from misogyny and patriarchy, and from American exceptionalism and the illusion of the American dream. And more...

And what have I been recovering through all these years of shadow work? My Self. And my capacity to see you and experience this ever growing connectedness with all of life. Coming from a place of such deep disassociation and fear and trauma, this has indeed been a profound journey.

And the more that I've been able to go to dark places within myself, and listen and learn and unburden, the more that I have been empowered to bring this same courage and curiosity and deeper passion for compassion, for truth and understanding, for healing and transformation into all that my life touches — the dynamics and needs within my family and other relationships, the dynamics and needs of the families and children I have worked with professionally, and the dynamics and needs within my community and our nation and our Earth Mother. Consciousness feeds on itself and, if we nurture it, grows and expands in an ongoing way. 

It is shadow work that uncovers so much that would otherwise lie hidden from our awareness, dormant and unattended, and abandoned and festering within us individually and collectively as families, communities, and nations. It is also since the earliest days of colonialism, slavery, and the genocide of Indigenous Peoples that our nation has accumulated a vast unhealed history — a history which continues to profoundly impact us all today, causing great harm to our country and its citizens, to other nations and other beings, and to the Earth herself.

bell hooks calls what has infected us for hundreds of years imperialist white-supremacist capitalist patriarchy. This is the dark underbelly of what has needed our attention for so very long.

* * * * *

Photos are by Molly
In These Dark Times, Will More and More 
of Us Engage in the Shadow Work 
Which Empowers Us to Grow 
Stronger Our Light?

Today I am wondering if this encroaching era of neoliberal fascism will act as a new bottom for increasing numbers of us? In the midst of the "anti-woke" messages pervasive in our culture, will more and more of us embody the courage to awaken even more deeply into our authentic Selves? Will be shaken into a greater passion for pursuing the truth, for engaging in the shadow work which heals and transforms us, for acting out of wisdom and kindness and compassion, and for standing in strong protection of all who are vulnerable and under assault? 

It is my belief that we are all needed, and especially those of us who live with some degree of privilege. And what will our roles be? 

As I have written and spoken to many times before, it has long been my belief — and my personal experience — that we humans all fall somewhere on a continuum. Patterns of ignorance, separation, and fear are often found on the one end while consciousness, compassion, and love are on the other. However awakened we are, or connected with our deeper Self, will determine where we fall on this continuum. At least this is my personal experience and what I have compassionately witnessed in countless others. 

And while being "woke" is criticized by many in our culture, I believe that that criticism arises out of fear and pain. Fear of change. Fear of loss. Fear of being left behind without any way out of our pain and suffering. And, yet, what is "woke" anyway other than assuming our place, no matter how large or small, in working on behalf of human rights and justice and seeking to alleviate the suffering and pain within ourselves and other humans and all beings? 

Evolving in consciousness for me has been deeply related to cultivating greater depths of kindness and caring, curiosity and courage, compassion and the heartfelt awareness that your suffering and your joy is also mine. My experience of being "woke" is related to seeing the larger picture and embodying a dedication to continuously seeking to understand beyond what I can grasp today. It is peeling back the layers of unknowing — a process which empowers us to see beyond the vista where we not sit. Again and again and again.

Uncovering our places of not knowing is certainly a lifelong process. In our culture it can often be a radical experience to be rooted in truth, wisdom, compassion, and love. As e.e. cummings has wisely said, "It takes courage to grow up and become who you truly are." So true. So true.

And this is where shadow work is so deeply needed, empowering, and transformative. And this is also where we can build empathic communities of caring and solidarity where we can do shadow work together, as I have for many years now, and nourish the safe and supportive environments that are needed for us to grow and evolve together. And as we grow stronger and clearer and more passionate about kindness, we will be making the needed difference for ourselves and each other and what we love and cherish in our hurting beautiful world.

* * * * *


Shadow Work On Behalf of Ourselves,
Our Nation and Other Nations, 
and Life On Earth

I will end with thoughts and resources related to what has led us to this time of great collapse that we find ourselves in today. We did not get here overnight. This new era that many are calling neoliberal fascism under the Trump regime is incredibly frightening and has been a long time coming. There have been those who have been warning us for decades. And those voices are rarely or never heard on corporate funded mainstream media. And I'm not just talking about FOX. I'm also talking about MSMBC, CNN, NPR/PBS, and all media which receives funding from resources connected with Wall Street and the Big Banks, the military industrial complex and the fossil fuel industry, the pharmaceutical and insurance industries, the prison and animal agricultural industries, and other wealthy interests.

What we have not been deeply informed about is exactly what is asking for our attention, our courage, our engagement in shadow work and passionate quest for truth, transformation, and radical change. 

While there are those who voted for and are celebrating the election of Donald Trump, those among them who are not wealthy are in for a traumatic time ahead when what has been promised will not happen.

For those of us who voted for Kamala Harris, this past election has thrown us into deep trauma. And it is human to want to find who is to blame. This is where courage comes in. And shadow work and a profound commitment to truth (the words I first heard spoken by Chris Hedges many years ago).

What I have been discovering are many layers of what has brought us to the peril we all face today. Yes, misogyny and racism have certainly played a role. Yes, the corporate funded MSM has kept millions uninformed, propagandized, and polarized. And, yes, the Republican Party has become a fascist Party which has successfully pulled into the MAGA cult vulnerable hurting human beings. 

And the Democratic Party has also played a significant role in the massive collapse we are now in. That said, there can only be a rebirth and the possibility of creating the peaceful, caring, sustainable, compassionate and just world that we all yearn for if we first individually and collectively understand how we got here in the first place.

It is my belief that the shadow work related to the Democratic Party is one aspect of what is essential. We cannot heal and transform what we deny or don't clearly understand and see. And, of course, the larger picture beneath the neoliberalism that has infected nearly the whole of the Democratic Party for close to 50 years is what bell hooks shines bright light on — the imperialist white-supremacist capitalist patriarchy.

The shadow side of the Democratic Party is one important part — which also connects with all the others — that I believe we must recognize and act together to address and radically change.

So I invite you to look into some of the resource that I will now share below, not with any intention to blame, but rather to understand more deeply where we are at and what the shadow work is before us. These are just a few glimpses into what has brought us to where we are at today:
  • This Is Neoliberalism: Introducing the Invisible Ideology (Part 1)

Shared here are again just glimpses into the vastness of a much larger picture than racism or misogyny or the one man who will now horrifyingly be the American President once again. We need to understand that the tragedies that are ushering in this new era of many horrors and heartbreaks is much larger than any one man or any one political party. And we need to understand that there are millions of Americans and people worldwide who have been suffering under great injustice, inequality, violence, and oppression for a very, very long time. And this is what we must, in my perspective, see and understand and act to change, radically change. Because we truly are all connected, all related, all family, all in this together.
 
* * * * *


Holding a Vision for a
Transformed Nation and World

In closing, I am called to add this piece by C. J. Polychroniou 
― who over many years has gifted us with numerous interviews with Noam Chomsky ― entitled "Defeating Trump With a People's Agenda": https://www.commondreams.org/opinion/how-to-defeat-trump. One vital part of shadow work is also unearthing the long buried strengths, potentials, visions, and wisdom that we humans carry within ourSelves and bringing them to fruition. Just imagine a nation and a world where a People's Agenda prevailed. Just imagine. 


As important as it is to repeatedly shine bright light on the problem, it is equally as vital to again and again illuminate the solution and work together to birth what is possible as we grow in solidarity, consciousness, and commitment to what is in the highest good of us all.

Another world is possible.
Bless us all, no exceptions,
🙏💗🙏
Molly

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