Group Discussion: You and Your Shadow - Who Leads the Dance?

The shadow self is the part of us that we reject. We put into it all the qualities we believe are undesirable including our animalistic drives, sexuality, and “negative” traits like anger or passive-aggressive sulks. In my experience the shadow often also includes positive qualities like curiosity, creativity, courage, compassion and desire for learning. If a child is ridiculed or somehow takes on the association of a painful experience in expressing these qualities, these aspects will be relegated to the shadow.

Dealing with our shadow head-on is not easy, but it’s going to surface every so often anyway, like when we feel rejected or betrayed, or if we feel we made a mess of a project or relationship. And when it does the pain can drive us to seek comfort, often in addictions. Food, alcohol, sex, work, drugs give us temporary comfort until the next confrontation where we’re made to face what we perceive is our undesirability. During the first lockdown, death toll aside, there was a general air of excitement at the new order clearly on the horizon. Now we’re on the 3rd and 4th lockdowns, in the absence of outside distractions we’ve been progressively made to face inwards and many are feeling low and depressed.

So the question is how do you deal with your shadow, and who’s really leading the dance - your conscious mind or your shadow self? Would love to hear about your experiences, thoughts, feelings, perceptions on this subject.

There will be a short meditation at the end for anyone wishing to stay on: Midnight Garden Meditation - Healing the Shadow