by Alyce Barry –
I’m often asked if Shadow Work coaching is similar to life coaching.
No, I answer, it’s quite different. [Read more…]
Bring your true self out of the shadows and into the light
By -
by Alyce Barry –
I’m often asked if Shadow Work coaching is similar to life coaching.
No, I answer, it’s quite different. [Read more…]
By -
by Alyce Barry –
It’s not something I say to every client, but it’s true: Shadow Work® has a cumulative effect. Each piece of work builds on what came before. [Read more…]
By -
By Alyce Barry
I often hear frustration from clients and friends when they re-encounter an issue they’ve worked on before.
“What’s wrong with me,” I hear them asking, “that I keep working on the ‘same old stuff’ over and over? Why am I not over this one yet?”
I can certainly resonate. I have issues I know I’ve worked on at least half a dozen times, each time going a little deeper or approaching it from a slightly different angle. I’m well acquainted with that “Not this one again!” feeling.
At different times, I’ve replied in different ways, depending on what I knew about the person and the issue they referred to. Recently, I wondered if I could come up with a more comprehensive view of why people work on certain issues over and over.
To do that, I turned to the Shadow Work® Four-Directional Model, which I find very helpful for this purpose. In fact, one of the things I like best about the Model is the way it helps me organize my thoughts and encompass ideas that I might otherwise fail to consider.
IN AND OUT THE PORTALS
I think of the four archetypes on which the Model is based — the Magician, Sovereign, Lover, and Warrior — as portals, or doorways.
I can step through each of the doorways toward one aspect or “face” of the highest self I can become. And life brings me things through each of the doorways, too.
For the purposes of this discussion, I’ll use as an example an issue I’m working on right now for what seems like the umpteenth time: wanting to feel more comfortable with my anger.
I grew up in a household where anger felt too risky, so I put anger into shadow. Of course, when I did that, I put away a good chunk of my power as well, since anger is really just power looking for an outlet. It’s my belief that anger is a healthy response to a situation where I want to set a boundary (a goal or a limit) in order to accomplish something. What I’d really like is to enjoy feeling angry, but I’m not there yet. I’ve come a long way, but it still feels risky.
THE MAGICIAN: LEARNING, AND SPOTTING THE PROBLEM
My Magician is the part of me that learns. Thus, if I’m working on anger one more time, “Life” (or the Divine, or God, or the Universe, or whatever you want to call it) is sending some new learning to me through the Magician portal, like light from a new or brighter source.
I believe that, to a large degree, life is about learning, and we’re here to learn as much as we can. Of course, I don’t always want to learn what Life’s trying to teach me. What helps me is remembering all the times when some new learning came in very handy.
I also believe that if life wants to teach me something, I might as well learn it now because it’s only going to come around again later if I don’t. As a friend of mine likes to say, “Life sends us pebbles, and if we ignore the pebbles, we get boulders.” I’ve had some boulders in my life, and I’d just as soon deal with the pebbles, thank you very much.
And what does my Magician want?
As I look out through the Magician portal, my Magician wants me to work on anger one more time because it’s not yet satisfied with how anger’s working in my life. My Magician is the part of me that’s ready to put its finger on whatever’s not quite right. When I’m washing a window, it’s my Magician who looks over my shoulder and points out the spot I missed. Although that’s not always a pleasant experience, I can take some comfort from knowing that my Magician is wants to help me improve.
THE SOVEREIGN: HEALING TO DO, AND BECOMING A BIGGER DOLL
From a Sovereign point of view, I’m working on anger yet again because Life, or the Divine, is letting me know I still have some healing to do. There’s still some hurt around anger, in other words, and the Divine is sending me compassion, like sunlight that pours through a doorway onto the floor and warms up the room. It comes through the Sovereign portal because my Sovereign is the part of me that connects me with the Divine.
If I ask my Sovereign what it wants out of working on anger one more time, an image comes to me, of nesting Russian dolls, each one nesting inside another doll that’s slightly larger.
Earlier in my life, when my Sovereign was mostly in shadow, I felt small as a person. I got support from mentors and teachers whose dolls looked bigger than mine.
As I bring more and more of my Sovereign energy out of shadow, my Sovereign becomes a larger doll. The larger it gets, the more it can support those whose dolls see themselves as smaller than me. In other words, I become a mentor and teacher to others.
What my Sovereign wants from working on anger one more time is to become a bigger doll: to become a role model in dealing with anger so that I can help others who struggle with the same issue.
I love this image of the nesting dolls. As I work through deeper and deeper issues, I get to know smaller and smaller dolls within me, so that I’m healing younger and younger parts of me. I also become capable of helping other people with deeper issues of their own, and healing younger parts of them.
The deeper the issue I’m working with, the more my Sovereign asks for, and receives, support from the biggest doll in the set, which is the Divine. It will always be there to support me, even on those sunless days when I see myself as the littlest doll in the world.
THE LOVER: ON THE DANCE FLOOR
Coming through my Lover portal is a soft rain from a cloudy sky. It’s a good day to curl up with a story book.
Once upon a time, when I was small, something painful happened: I found out that my anger wasn’t welcome to someone I loved. So I put my anger away rather than risk damage to my relationship with that beloved someone.
My anger was a natural, healthy part of me, and when I put it away, I felt the grief of loss. And I lost a part of my connection with that person who couldn’t welcome it, too.
Today, anger remains an issue because a part of me is on a dance floor, in a painful dance with that person. To that part of me, who wants desperately to hold onto the remaining connection with that person, a painful dance is better than no dance at all.
When I can see the dance as my way of loving, I become able to change it. I can give back the painful dance to my beloved partner and take a different way of staying connected. In doing so, I also reclaim what a loving person I am.
What my Lover wants, as it peers out through the Lover portal, is a different kind of dance. It wants to dance with my anger, to play with it, have fun with it, enjoy it, instead of feeling uncomfortable with it. My Lover wants me to connect with power through my body. It wants my anger to be part of my relationships, too, where it can help me create healthy boundaries.
My Lover hears a dance tune coming through the portal. It invites me to step through and start dancing.
THE WARRIOR: PERSONALITY TYPE AND A HARDER RACE
Lastly, what comes through my Warrior portal is a bracing wind that reminds me that a struggle with anger is one aspect of my personality type.
I once thought of a personality type as a kind of pigeonhole, and I didn’t like that at all.
These days, I think about personality type very differently. My type isn’t a limit. It represents a set of strategies that I adopted at an early age for navigating my early environment. It’s a map that shows me where I started, and by implication, what direction I might want to go.
In my early environment, anger was risky, so I put it away. That happened so early in my life that my struggle with anger became a foundation for many other things I became. It’s natural that I should run into it from time to time as I work on the deepest, youngest parts of me.
There’s little question what my Warrior wants as it bravely steps out through the portal: it wants a challenge!
Just as my Sovereign wants to become a bigger and bigger doll, so my Warrior wants to get stronger by running a longer, harder race over more difficult terrain. I’m working on anger one more time because my Warrior wants to run to a finish line that’s a little farther away than the last finish line was.
A MAP
When I chart my new insights by the four directions, I have a map for helping me understand why I work on “the same old stuff” over and over again. It looks like this.
Alyce Barry is a Certified Shadow Work® Group Facilitator and Coach, and a writer, in Evanston, Illinois, a suburb of Chicago. She is the author of Practically Shameless.
This article originally appeared in our free email newsletter in 2007. To subscribe, visit our subscription page.
Back to the Articles Menu.
By -
by Alyce Barry –
We all carry shaming labels inside that say we’re bad in some way. It’s as if the shame we experienced long ago tattooed a word or phrase on our inner foreheads. [Read more…]
By -
by Alyce Barry –
“I think in hindsight, it’s easy to see there was a bubble. But you know, when you’re at a party having a good time, sometimes it’s hard to stop and leave the party.” — Michael Petrucelli, Senior VP, Lehman Brothers. [Read more…]
By -
By Joseph DiCenso
In preparing for a recent piece of work with a small business going through a major transition and confronting deep interpersonal conflicts, these four questions came to me as potentially useful. Since then, I have spent some time honing them and my thinking about them as a tool.
I like the simplicity of the questions and the ground they cover. I think they can be applied to group, team, family and/or relationship settings as well as to individual reflection and personal mastery.
Being a model-making type, I couldn’t just leave the questions as a list but felt compelled to see if they were an expression of something model-like. I actually think they’re quite serviceable and adequate as “just” a list of questions, and some readers may stop here and start using them out in the world without further ado.
But, actually, before you do so, I think you may find you’ll get even more out of them if I at least define my terms—what I mean by “truth,” “part,” “learning,” and “task.” While they may seem to speak for themselves, some of them could be construed in ways I don’t mean.
TRUTH
By Truth, I mean what authors Kathlyn and Gay Hendricks call “the unarguable truth,” or those things I can say that are simply not subject to dispute. Basically, that means what’s happening now, in my body—breath, belly, bones and emotions. I agree with the Hendrickses that the body tells the truth, so listening to and knowing how to interpret the body is more than half the work to be done here.
So, the first step is coming clean with myself, which requires self-awareness, a capacity for reflection and self-acceptance—making room for whatever shows up inside me.
Thus, answering the question, “What is my truth?” I reveal myselfrather than take your inventory. I’m not judging or evaluating, shaming or blaming others—or myself, for that matter! I’m speaking what’s alive in me simply and briefly, without game-playing or manipulation, pity or pride, pandering or protecting.
EXAMPLE: “My body is fidgety, and I’m not fully engaged.”
PART
My Part is how I am (or have been) co-creating, colluding with, or contributing to the current reality I just spoke about in my Truth statement. This requires a willingness to take responsibility. Somewhere between codependence/rescuer consciousness (“Everything’s my fault/happens on my watch”) and victim consciousness (“Everything happens to me”) is a state of vibrant self-responsibility wherein I take 100% responsibility only for my behaviors—and perhaps my beliefs, feelings, attitudes and values as well. With this model I suggest that behavior alone—what I do or say—be the focus of this second question, “What is my part?” (Question three provides an opportunity to address the less tangible beliefs, values, attitudes and feelings.)
Owning my part is not about shame or blame. Its purpose is not to figure out how I’ve been bad, but to notice where I have power and choice and what I’ve done (or not done) with those resources.
EXAMPLE: “I have not asked for what would keep me fully engaged.”
LEARNING
The term Learning refers to meaning, lessons, insights or guidance gained from reflecting on the first two questions. This requires humility and curiosity. For many of us, learning is laden with lots of baggage from our culture or personal history. It can be a form of punishment (“That oughta teach you a lesson!”) or a shaming act (“You should know better”). To learn anything, we must first admit our not knowing, which can bring its own risks.
The learning I invite and encourage in this model is free of shoulds and shame, self-attack or punishment, and full of honesty, humility, curiosity and trust in one’s own intuition.
I use two forms of the question because “What is my learning?” points toward a single and specific lesson or insight, whereas asking “What am I learning?” allows that I may be engaged in an ongoing process of inquiry, meaning-making and mastery. Either one or both may be appropriate, given your context.
EXAMPLE: “I have been blaming others for my boredom rather than voicing requests for what would engage me.”EXAMPLE: “I hesitate (or I am learning how) to ask for what I want because I’m not sure how to do so without shame or blame.”
TASK
Task is about action, application, contribution or gift. It asks, “How will I apply what I’m learning in concrete and specific action/behavior?” And, “What is my task (or part) in creating my/our desired future reality?”
What’s required at this stage is agency—to be willing and able to take action on my own behalf and for the benefit of others, to exert my power or influence. My task, in this context, is the thing I cando that I also choose to do. My task is not determined by “shoulds” or shame. It is not a penance or a punishment; it is more a sacrament and an experiment; something I fully offer without attachment—but with attention—to outcome.
EXAMPLE: “At the next three meetings, I will request, and offer to lead, physical movement at the start and the middle of our meeting.”
NO SHAME, NO BLAME
You may have noticed how, with each of the four questions, I have emphasized the importance of stepping out of any habits of shaming or blaming (self or others). I believe we live in a world, especially in the West—and in the U.S., in particular, where blame, shame and punishment are reflexive; they are culturally reinforced habits that show up in everything from our legal and penal (!) systems to our education system. From within this cultural trance, we view differences and unmet expectations as the result of someone being “right/good” and another being “wrong/bad.” This creates separation, polarization and fear, and dampens curiosity, empathy, learning, cooperation and generosity.
For these four questions to yield the learning and movement that I believe is their potential, they must be asked from a different cultural context or belief system stance than what I see as the dominant (and, therefore, often invisible) one I’ve named above.
So, as you try on and try out these four questions, I urge you to keep an eye out for where you fall into the habit of shame and blame. When this happens you might try asking yourself, “If there were no ‘bad’ ones, only unsuccessful attempts to meet our deepest needs, then what?”
COURAGE AND SELFHOOD
All four questions require a certain courage and self-esteem or self-possession. We cannot even ask the first question in some situations without the courage to find and face unpleasant or painful feelings—to say nothing about the guts it takes to reveal ourselves to others. To own up, we need to face our own imperfections; to learn we need to admit that we don’t know. To offer something of ourselves requires the courage to risk “failure” or rejection. (Note: I love the anonymous quote, “The only true failure is not to learn from what happens.”)
The more at home with ourselves we are—the stronger our selfhood—the more access we have to these kinds of courage. I believe these questions also grow courage and selfhood, perhaps because they demand them from us, but also because they offer them as rewards. The more I exercise my self-awareness, responsibility, curiosity, humility, agency and detachment, the more I affirm my belonging with myself, my at-homeness and my ability to act on my behalf while benefiting the whole.
THE SHADOW WORK® ARCHETYPES
As I played around with the questions and this model, I noticed the resonance of the four archetypes of Lover, Warrior, Magician and Sovereign. As I see it, the healthy and balanced expression of each is represented in the four questions.
A LEARNING AND GROWTH CYCLE:
(Lover archetype)
2. Ownership [my Part] (Warrior archetype)
3. Learning (Magician archetype)
4. Practice [my Task] (Sovereign archetype)
HAVE FUN!
This is new thinking on my part—or a new synthesis of ideas. I share it in the spirit of welcoming you all to join me in playing with these questions and the model or maps they may evoke or reflect. I’d love to hear from you with your own insights, applications, suggestions or questions.
In a future article I will explore how to make Truth statements in a way that fosters listening, understanding and truth-telling from others. I will also expand the model to look at the dimensions of group or culture and explore how the questions can be answered in the “we,” leading to ownership, learning and agency at the group or organizational level.
Feel free to share this with others, provided you include the following statement and link to my web site: “Written by Joseph DiCenso, 2009. All rights reserved.” http://www.joseph-dicenso.com.
For over 20 years Joseph DiCenso has been helping individuals and groups bring more of themselves to life and meet their deep desires. He does so currently as a counselor-coach, workshop facilitator and leadership consultant living in the hills of western Massachusetts. Contact him via his website, www.Joseph-Dicenso.com or by email at josephd@crocker.com.
This article originally appeared in our free email newsletter in 2009. To subscribe, visit our subscription page.
Back to the Articles Menu.
By -
by Joseph DiCenso –
Twenty-seven years ago, my father was the general manager of a regional wholesale musical instrument company he’d worked for for 20 years. [Read more…]