Shadow Work

Bring your true self out of the shadows and into the light

Three Uncommon Films

By

by Marie-Françoise Rosat and Alyce Barry – 

AS IT IS IN HEAVEN
Review by Marie-Françoise Rosat – 

This wonderful picture, made in Sweden, tells the story of a music conductor who has a heart attack and decides to go back to the small village where he was brought up.

Since childhood, he’s been looking for “the music that can open people’s hearts.” When he arrives in this little town, he is invited to be the conductor of a small church choir.

As soon as this charismatic man starts leading the group, all kinds of emotions, feelings and behaviors come to the surface from everybody: hate, jealousy, being a victim, envy, but also love, admiration and compassion. The choir becomes almost like a Shadow Work container, where everyone has the space to live his emotions!

When I left the cinema, I was crying tears of relief and felt more connected to life and to myself. The film’s score is also beautiful.

I loved this film and have seen it twice, have recommended it to lots of people around me and all of them loved it as well. It received an Oscar nomination for Best Foreign Language Film for 2004 and was voted audience favorite at the 2005 Palm Springs International Film Festival.

Marie-Françoise Rosat is a Certified Shadow Work® Group Facilitator and Coach living in Munich, Germany. Read more about Marie-Françoise. [Editor’s note: The film is not yet available in the United States. Americans who use Netflix can “save” this film to their wish list and send the message that there’s a market for it here.]

OFF THE MAP
Review by Alyce Barry

Many films tell the story of a protagonist who brings profound change into the lives of others. As It Is In Heaven (above) is one example. Others include Back to the Future, in which Marty McFly changes the lives of his parents, and Babe, in which a young pig uproots the long-held prejudices on a sheep farm.

It’s less common that the story goes the other way, and a protagonist embraces the extraordinary lifestyle of others and the change that it brings. Off the Map is one such film.

It’s a story about an eccentric family living off the land in northern New Mexico. The father (played by Sam Elliott) has been depressed for six months, the mother (Joan Allen) gardens in the nude, and their 12-year-old daughter is ready for grand larceny. Into their midst comes William Gibbs, a young, newly-hired IRS agent who’s been sent to do an audit. He gets stung by a bee and falls in love, first with the nude gardener and then with the land and his own possibilities. The viewer falls in love with Gibbs as his story unfolds and his life transforms. It’s a movie about people living in an entirely different way than most of us do, off the map, off the grid, and not caring how unusual it looks to others.

I REMEMBER MAMA
Review by Alyce Barry

You might think it odd that I’m recommending a film made in 1948. I only saw this film for the first time a few weeks ago.

It’s one of the most skillfully crafted movies I’ve seen in a long time. What I love most is its title character, a woman with a very healthy, balanced Warrior. Unlike the Warrior heroines in today’s movies, though, this woman doesn’t have to wield a gun, much less shoot multiple rounds while falling sideways as a building explodes in the background.

This woman merely sets boundaries, in as clean and truthful a way as I’ve ever seen in a film. She uses both sides of her Warrior, too, going to great lengths to protect her children as well as to insist that they get what they need.

Based on a book by her daughter, the story takes place in 1910 in San Francisco, where Marta Hanson and her husband Lars, both born in Norway, are raising their four children. They are members of an extended family with old-world values, where Marta’s sister must get permission from the male head of the family in order to get married and where her suitor can expect a dowry.

But it’s also a family in which the parents listen to their children and take their needs seriously. Where parents and children express and speak of their feelings openly. Where the parents care a great deal about telling their children the truth and refuse to break a promise. Where the family spends the evenings listening to the classics read aloud and, at a time when every penny counts, values the experience more than money. Where the parents openly show their approval for a son who wants to attend high school and who have an initiation of sorts for a daughter who’s growing up.

There are wonderfully funny moments, too, most of them thanks to an uncle who is the perfect Enneagram Eight.

Alyce Barry is a Certified Shadow Work® Group Facilitator and Coach in Evanston, Illinois, a suburb of Chicago. She is the author of  Practically Shameless, available in paperback and on audio CD and as an e-book.

This article originally appeared in our free email newsletter in March 2006. To subscribe, visit our subscription page.

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Ups And Downs Of Self-Help Books

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by Alyce Barry

There have traditionally been two approaches in self-help books: what in Shadow Work® we call the “uphill” and “downhill” approaches.

The uphill approach judges success by an external standard. It tells the reader, “Follow these rules that I offer, and you will succeed.” Success is a golden ideal written, as it were, in the sky. In order to reach the ideal, you, the reader, must ignore the resistance that rises inside you. If that becomes difficult, the uphill approach urges, “Just push through! Just don’t think about that! Just use will-power!” What keeps you going through the inevitable trials is your dream of doing it perfectly.

The downhill approach, on the other hand, judges success by an internal standard. It tells you, “Look within for your true self, and learn to live it.” Success consists in becoming self-aware. In order to succeed, you must sometimes ignore what others think as you put your own truth first. If that becomes difficult, the downhill approach urges, “Listen to yourself, and follow your own path, wherever it may lead.” What keeps you going through the inevitable trials is your belief in fulfilling your mission to grow, however imperfectly.

ALL IN A CYCLE

Neither approach is better. In fact, a mature growth process is a cycle that incorporates both approaches, beginning with an uphill phase.

Since I’m in the process of writing a self-help book (about Shadow Work®, as a matter of fact), I’ll use that as an example.

To publish a book, a writer must aim for the standard of what qualifies as a publishable book. The writer must get words on paper and structure the book in a way that appeals to publishers and readers. The writer must be motivated by a belief that the book’s concept can be realized in an ideal form. The writer must resist fear, impreciseness, avoidance, and other impediments to writing.

When the writer becomes aware of the manuscript’s inevitable imperfections, there is an opportunity to shift to the downhill phase.

uphill-downhillWith that shift to downhill, the writer views those imperfections with understanding and compassion, recognizing that they make perfect sense given the writer’s talents and perspective. The writer searches within his or her own heart to discover where the real passion lies. A new perspective emerges that reveals how better to capture that passion on paper. The writer views the first draft as a necessary learning experience, not as a mistake or a waste of time, because only by writing that first draft could the writer have reached the new perspective. The writer now has a new goal, and the cycle begins again.

STUCK IN UPHILL

What happens more often, however, is that the writer concludes that there was a right and a wrong way to do it, and this time it was done wrong. Thinking that there is a right and a wrong way is characteristic of the uphill phase. The writer decides that if the rules had only been followed better, the manuscript would have been a success — a decision that reflects the uphill phase instead of a shift to the downhill phase.

uphill-uphillMany writers remain stuck in the uphill phase of the process, trying again and again for the same goal and believing there’s something wrong with themselves for failing, rather than accepting a truth about themselves and then basing a new manuscript on that truth.

TWO COSMOLOGIES

This difference between uphill and downhill approaches also says a lot about the differences between Jungian psychology and mainstream culture. Jungian psychology is based on a fundamentally different cosmology.

uphillcosmologyUphill cosmology, as held by mainstream culture, believes that human beings are subject to good and evil influences that struggle to dominate our will and actions.

Good influences include God, Scripture, angels, good spirits, and so on. Evil influences include the temptations of Satan, the Devil, evil spirits, etc.

Based on uphill cosmology, the task of human beings in this life is to block out the evil influences and allow only the good influences, so that our actions will be good.

downhillcosmologyDownhill cosmology, as held by Jungian psychology (as well as by some Native cultures), believes that human beings are alive because the Creator has given us the life energy. Life energy is not inherently good or evil, it simply is. How we use that energy determines whether our actions will be good or evil. This in turn depends on our psychological health, or wholeness.

When I act out of my wholeness, that is, acting consciously from what I like to call “my best self,” my actions will tend to be good. When I act out of my shadow, that is, acting unconsciously from my woundedness, my actions will tend to be evil.

According to downhill cosmology, then, my task in this life is to heal the wounds inside me, so that I am acting out of my best self as much of the time as possible, and acting out of my shadow or woundedness as little of the time as possible.

THE FLAME AND THE GLASS

My favorite image for illustrating how we use our life energy to act in the world is the image of a flame burning inside a lamp.

The flame is what makes us alive and akin to every other being with a flame inside. The flame remains pure and perfect regardless of what happens to us during our lives.

The flame shines out through the glass of the lamp. That glass can and does take a beating as we go through life. The glass can be smudged, smeared, scratched, chipped, cracked, even shattered, by life events.

If you’ve ever looked at a flame through a cracked piece of glass, you will see that the crack appears dark. In the same way, the perfection of our inner flame may look like darkness to the world when our actions reflect the crack and not the flame itself.

Healing work like Shadow Work® can clean the glass, polish it, patch it, even melt it down and recast it, so that the flame can shine out in a way that reveals its Divinely-given beauty.


Alyce Barry is a Certified Shadow Work® Group Facilitator and Coach, and a writer, in Evanston, Illinois, a suburb of Chicago.

This article originally appeared in our free email newsletter in September 2006. To subscribe, visit our subscription page.

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