Come to the dark side?

[hummingwolf]

Over in daisydumont's journal is a post about the Shadow, keeping it in the basement or letting it out for tea and cookies. I wrote as a comment: "I'm all in favor of talking with the beast (or beasts, since it's quite easy to have more than one), giving it a name and trying to come to terms with it. Unfortunately, my most prominent beast these days is an uncooperative one that wants to cower in the shadows and keep me chained with it. It's not very talkative. Mostly it just whimpers."

Some people have anger as part of their Shadow, a part of themselves they won't allow themselves to consciously acknowledge. I haven't had much trouble recognizing my anger, though I must admit to a bit of wrestling with it to keep it under control.

Other people have sadness as part of their Shadow, yet I've never had the option of not acknowledging mine (though it's true that my crying has always been frowned upon by the relatives). Still others won't allow themselves sexual feelings, but I've always been allowed to want sex even if the actual having is problematical. And some people aren't allowed to love themselves or have a high opinion of themselves, but that's no problem for me.

So what's my beast? I'm not allowed to need help. I'm supposed to be able to do anything and everything on my own. "You can do anything you want if you just put your mind to it and work hard enough." Not allowed to have to ask for help, though not at all sure where I got that idea. My brothers share the same attitude, so it must have come through in our upbringing somehow; yet I remember my father wondering why the heck I refused to ask for help when I needed it and why I was such a perfectionist in college who had to work so hard all the time, alone, without much of a social life at all.

Anyway, the part of myself I most consistently try to repress is the part that knows it's not possible to do everything all by myself. And every time it has the chance to come out--when I finally realized that I can't get a job, for instance--it has to make up for years of repression by telling me that not only can I not do everything by myself, but I can't do anything at all ever and will always be a useless pathetic lump who is never very important to anybody except as a burden and a parasite and a waste of space.

I'm really sick and tired of this damned whimpering Shadow of mine.

Comments

[daisydumont.livejournal.com]

i think that's so true about family patterns holding like that -- it runs in my mother's family not to think well of oneself. i came by that honest. a couple of years ago, i was getting acquainted with a cousin i'd barely met, and when i described my having been taught that it was *bad* to approve of oneself in any way, he said yeah, he'd seen his father struggle with that lesson all his life until his death. it was crippling to my uncle too.

i'm sure sorry this shadowy need to be self-reliant gets in the way of your getting the help you need, cb, and even more sorry that the shadow hectors you with such ugly words. you are important, and i'm not alone in thinking so. ((cb))

[skygypsy.livejournal.com]

*hug*

i had to go thru 2 hospitalizations, surgery, 2 unrelated medical leaves from work (dehabilatating depression), 3 years of attempting to find antidepressants which worked and didn't make me physically ill, and hospitalization for depression (ironically 1 week after return to work from a medical leave. my cat suddenly got fatally ill and i had to put him to sleep. part of me died that day. :( ) til i finally made peace with that shadow.

that little whimpery sucker can be a real bitch.

what's important towards making friends with your shadows, is realizing we all have them.

i really MUST send you The Power of Now, by hmm.. darn ah yes, Eckhart Nolle. FANTASTIC book for shadow work. (i've been thinking for weeks now i should send it to you)

i know you and your shadow will make it. together, you will figure out which direction the sun shines. you will find "up".

*smile*

i'm here for you sweetie.

i love you!
-pixie

[wig.livejournal.com]

I know that beastie.

[writty.livejournal.com]

What makes Shadow cower and/or whimper and/or make unreasonable demands, in my experience, is lying in ambush for it. It knows. And who would come bouncing out into the light if they knew the minute you got your hands on them, you were going to do your utmost to change them? Not me, not for a kickoff (as John Lennon used to say).

And so the aggravating, humbling paradox of it all: you can't get rid of anything until you fully own it, and you can't own anything until you genuinely let it go. Including, most especially, the Shadow. (I've found this to be true for bad habits and excess weight as well ....)

[hummingwolf.livejournal.com]

Thank you.

[hummingwolf.livejournal.com]

Oh, I know we all have our shadows. But right now, this one really doesn't want to be friends.

[hummingwolf.livejournal.com]

A lot of people seem to. It's good to recognize it for what it is, though.

[hummingwolf.livejournal.com]

The whimpering in this case seems to be an integral part of the Shadow. And I haven't been lying in wait for it--it's been lying in wait for me, for a very very long time apparently.

Re:

[writty.livejournal.com]

But it is you. No?

[hummingwolf.livejournal.com]

Yes, but I was pointing out Shadow-Me isn't and hasn't been cowering from Conscious-Me as your comment seemed to suggest. Rather, Shadow-Me is trying to get all of Me to cower in fear of everything, and it's really not being terribly helpful now that it's more out in the open.

[skygypsy.livejournal.com]

hm.

*thinks*

*rereads your original entry*

hm.
wonders: do you want to be friends with this shadow?