For the longest time the concept of shadow work baffled me. The essence was even explained to me within Glennon Doyle's Love Warrior memoir, when she wanted to bolt from an insufferable hot yoga class and was encouraged to "stay on the mat" by her yoga instructor, but still the lesson hadn't yet resonated with me. It was only when I purchased a Shakti mat a few years ago that the realisation came flooding in, and all at once I got it.
You see, Glennon was in the midst of a huge life change and personal realisation, which she was finding uncomfortable in all manner of ways. One day, in her pursuit of personal growth and development she attended a hot yoga class, which was exactly as advertised: performing yoga poses in high temperatures. Glennon struggled to acclimatise to the heat and her equally hot emotions, and began to evaluate her exit options; which her yoga instructor had apparently observed. The instructor came over and encouraged Glennon to "... stay on the mat" which, somewhat reluctantly at first, she did until all at once she had acclimatised and began to feel the benefits of her resilience. This lesson left enough of an impression for Glennon to pass it on to her Love Warrior readership, and eventual podcast audience. As a reader of Love Warrior, I found the story inspiring of course, but only superficially it seems. The deeper lesson had not been recognised or absorbed, yet.
Now jump forward a couple of years and my Shakti mat had arrived. For the uninitiated, a Shakti mat is a range of acupressure mats, consisting of a cotton covered foam base, adorned with white plastic discs which are sculpted with acupressure spikes. Beginner's mats give you more spikes (i.e.: less body pressure per spike), through to the more intense mats with fewer spikes (i.e.: more body pressure per spike). Me being me bought the most intense version available, because if I'm going to do a thing I'm going to do it full tilt.
STAY ON THE MAT
Well, I can't say I wasn't warned. Oh boy. I decided to go all in and lay the mat on the floor right at the base of a sofa. The plan was to put my feet up on the sofa, so my back was as flat and pressed into the spikes as possible. Almost immediately, my central nervous system believed me to be in danger of dying, because the pain and discomfort was so intense. I knew it was never going to be a swirl through cotton Candyland but good lord! Exactly as Glennon had described hot yoga, I was now thinking "What fresh Hell is this?! Who pays to be tortured?!" Don't answer that, but for sure I was now questioning my sanity and ulterior motives. However, above the wailing inner monologue, all I could hear was "Stay on the mat. Stay on the mat." By now, every inch of me was pleading to get off the mat. My heart was racing. I was getting hot. I was having to breathe through the pain as I had done during childbirth, WTAF?! But I did as I was told and stayed on the mat. In all fairness, the vendor's website clearly states it can take up to 20 minutes for these natural and unharmful effects to calm down. So, what happened after 20 minutes?
BLISS! Pure, divine, unadulterated bliss! And I would never have gotten there had it not been for my endurance and resilience through the hard yards. So, what does this all have to do with demystifying shadow work?
DEMYSTIFYING SHADOW WORK
Let's begin by defining what a shadow is. A shadow is the dark area created when light is blocked by an object. Simple. We've all seen shadows. We've all seen our own shadows. Big whoop. But we must also remember that shadows follow us until light is shone upon them. So now we're going to get a little more esoteric, so strap in.
Think of a tough time in your life which elicited negative thoughts and feelings of, e.g.: grief, anger, guilt etc. By all means name the thoughts and feelings specific to you in that situation. For me, I'm going to use the example of when my once beloved husband crashed headlong into an unseemly midlife crisis, destroying everything we had built together for 24 years. As you can imagine, the negative thoughts and feelings were too huge and numerous to list here, but you get the gist. Now, I am not the first this has ever happened to, and I won't be the last. The difference I was determined to make started with a vow to myself not to fall into the same self-medicating traps I had known others to fall into, e.g.: using alcohol, pharmaceuticals, workaholism, or even suicide as an escape route.
Oh, I'm not judging. As my time on the mat - both literally and figuratively - taught me, when we're in pain (be it physical, mental, or emotional), our central nervous systems are programmed to make it stop, and to ensure our survival during periods of real or imagined jeopardy. We all do the best we can with what we have in the moment. All I was aiming for, was to come out of this a) alive, and b) as healthy as possible. I also had two young children at the time, who were watching and learning about life and love from me, so I had to model the best choices and behaviours I could muster in the moment. I'm not saying I did everything perfectly, of course I didn't, but the children were my reason for living and achieving the most I could; both out of myself and the prevailing circumstances.
So, how can we be demystifying shadow work, exactly? Simply by not taking the easy route out of every uncomfortable situation, and by identifying, respecting, honouring, and feeling our feelings. By understanding that all thoughts and feelings are temporary and transitory, which means they will pass and never last. In fact, all things must pass, and everything is temporary. Think of the Horseshoe Canyon, which is comprised of solid rock eroded by the passing of time and the gentle persistence of water. And to further murder this metaphor, steel rusts, concrete crumbles, and Superman is weakened by Kryptonite. Nothing is infallible. Except The West Wing. Fight me!
By staying on the mat, by feeling our feelings and not avoiding all pain at all costs, we can learn much about ourselves, most notably that we are powerful beyond measure and, as Glennon Doyle also teaches us: We Can Do Hard Things! Be honest and think back to your awful time. Can you now say that out of that awful came some form of awesome, akin to the pure, divine, unadulterated bliss we can achieve by staying on a Shakti mat for 20 minutes or more [no, this article is not sponsored by Shakti mats, but I do recommend you consider them]? If your answer is currently no, you perhaps still have a way still to go, but please know progress is on its way to you, but all progress is a process not an event, and may take some more time yet.
By understanding that our nervous system wants to ensure our survival, come what may, and will send up distress flares with little or no encouragement, we must learn to discern what warrants our immediate cease and desist because it's a legitimate threat to our survival (e.g.: removing our body parts from flames), and what doesn't (e.g.: allowing the process of grief - which is not linear and will peak and trough in waves - to unfold in its own time, with self-love and compassion) - because this is shadow work. Facing what we fear to feel.
By allowing, e.g.: the anger you feel towards a soon-to-be-very-ex-husband to pass though you, in a spirit of acceptance and patience and without acting on it reflexively, you allow it to burn itself out, leaving you feeling calm - and with that calm comes cognitive competence, and more astute judgement. Learning to calmly and astutely respond, rather than hot-headedly react is how I clawed back more than I lost when my life imploded. I also learnt how incredibly resourceful, innovative, resilient, spiritual, capable, and strong I am (because I had no agreeable choice) - the measure of which I would never have realised without having endured the hard yards to find out. This is why there is no "good" or "bad", there just "is". There is no emotional content in any circumstance, other than what we choose to imbue it with. Everything is what it is, until we paint it in a good/bad/happy/sad colour - but it is our choice of colour to be sure... if we don't run away and/or self-medicate ourselves into a state of comfortably numb first.
Shadows can be frightening illusions, but they cannot under any circumstance harm us, particularly if we acknowledge they're there and then shine some light (e.g.: love, compassion, self-care, understanding, and patience) onto them. Do your shadow work. Start today. And when undesirable thoughts/feelings come, let them come, and then feel them fizzle out eventually. Unless you have a medically diagnosed mental health condition, neither your thoughts or feelings can hurt you, if you just give them the time and space to express themselves. What's the worse that could happen, you cry? Okay. Blow snot bubbles? Okay. And then with the passing of enough time, like water patiently eroding rock... what? Those thoughts and feelings have been expressed and allowed to pass through you, like the transitory visitors they are; let what comes come, and what goes go. Lean in fearlessly and wait it out, and above all else stay on the mat, because you can do hard things!
For those with a medically diagnosed mental condition, please consult your medical professional before proceeding with any new courses of action.
Until the next time, keep doing the next right thing and bring the greatness to all you do. Details of my memoir, and how I clawed back more than I lost, are below, please just click the link.
Karan
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