Junie Moon Schreiber is a Certified Shadow Work® Facilitator and Coach, interfaith minister and acupuncturist. She grew up in Fort Lee, New Jersey, where she could “hear the traffic on the George Washington Bridge outside my window.”
She now lives in Oak Ridge, New Jersey, and is currently studying Tony Robbins’ coaching techniques at the Robbins/Madanes Institute of Strategic Interventions. She has led or co-led various women’s empowerment weekends including Women In Power. Junie’s passion is to create transformative healing opportunities for people desiring rich, amazing lives.
December 21, 2012, by Alyce Barry
AB: How did you come across Shadow Work for the first time?
Junie: I didn’t realize it was Shadow Work. In September 2006, I took a two-hour workshop with ALisa Starkweather at a weekend festival. Being someone who had done a pretty substantial amount of work on myself, and was in the know of healing and psychological stuff, I was watching her work, and teach and guide and do these mini-processes.
I was thrown back — I saw people shift, I saw people’s walls go down. And I asked myself, What is she doing? There was such safety in the room, such love, such dedication from her as a facilitator. I couldn’t believe what I was experiencing, it was so different from anything I had experienced. There was a skill set she had. It was such an impactful workshop, and I’d never seen anything so beautifully done before.
As soon as the class was over, I went up to her and said, What was that? Where did you get those skills from? She said, Oh, I am a Shadow Worker, and she told me a little about it.
From that point on it was pedal to the metal. By October or November I was in my first Shadow Work weekend to experience what a real Shadow Work container was. Her workshop wasn’t straight Shadow Work, it just used some of the language we use, about What’s at Risk and so on.
So then I went to Woman Within and the Basic Facilitator Training, and kept going. One thing after another, full blast.
AB: What kinds of growth work had you done before that?
Junie: I had done one-on-one therapy with someone who isn’t a traditional counselor, but I would call it therapy. And lots of weekend workshops, at the Omega Institute, Debbie Ford’s work, Marianne Williamson’s work, lots of reading and self-reflection.
I’ve been hungry for understanding why I am the way I am since I took my first breath. As soon as I got into my 20s I really dug in to a deeper understanding of who I am and reached out on many different levels. There wasn’t any particular path I gravitated to, I bounced around to different weekend experiences. Even expressive dance, being able to move authentically, expressing who I am in breath and music and dance, allowing myself to be comfortable in my own skin. Using different modalities to open my heart to be more connected to the Divine and to Spirit.
AB: What do you think of Debbie Ford’s work?
Junie: When I read her book The Dark Side of the Light Chasersmany years ago, it was my first awareness of the concept of shadow. I think we in Shadow Work have a similar model of what shadow is. I think she approaches the healing work very differently than we do. But I’ve never experienced what it’s like to be a facilitator of her work, so I’ve never seen it from the other side. I appreciate her work, and I think a lot of doors open to us in Shadow Work because people are familiar with the concepts, because her work is all over the place.
AB: What do you remember of that first Shadow Work weekend?
Junie: The facilitators were Chrissy and Dave McFarren, and Janine Romaner was there as a mentor certifying them, though I didn’t know that at the time.
It was profound, I remember being in awe, and I still find myself in awe when I witness Shadow Work, truthfully. The safety of the group, the ability of facilitators to hold a space with such love and dedication and intelligence, to allow people to go where they need to go. It just opens my heart so much, and it’s made me hungry for more.
I also remember doing a couple really big pieces around my dad. I remember opening up deeply with a grieving piece, and it wasn’t even done one-on-one with the facilitators, it was one of the group exercises. I remember feeling so safe and allowing myself to really grieve my dad. It was a magical weekend.
AB: How did you decide to train to be a facilitator?
Junie: I had a youngish son at the time, he was 9-10 years old, so everything I scheduled depended on how it would affect my son. I did as much as I could, as fast as I could, with that in the background.
So the first opportunity I had to take the Basic Training was in August 2007. Then I did the Advanced Training the following spring, but it took me another year before I could take the Leader Training. So it was a little less than three years before I finished everything. As Vicki said, “You’re on the fast track!” I wanted to do as much as I could as fast as I could, so I could really start facilitating.
AB: How would you say your life has changed as a result of doing Shadow Work?
Junie: I love that question, and it’s not necessarily an easy question. If anything, it stirs a lot in my heart when I think about the shifts and changes. But it’s an important question for me, because it’s touched my life in such amazing ways. I believe I wouldn’t have the quality of life I have if I hadn’t done the work I’ve done.
Specifically, one of the most beautiful things about Shadow Work is that I see people differently. I consider myself a pretty loving, compassionate person. That said, I think Shadow Work has opened my heart up massively, because I see people, and then I see beyond the personality. A person will have an attitude, or a quality we’re projecting onto them. For whatever reason we don’t like them or judge them for what they’re doing. There is such a softening of what I consider judgment on my part. I see the story more — I may not know their story, but I see the heart, the human being behind the façade of craziness they might be exhibiting. Shadow Work has opened my heart in such a huge way that I see more people more clearly for who they really are: beautiful beings that have a lot of crap on them and haven’t yet had the opportunity to heal.
On a personal level, one of the sad things — and yet happy things if I look at it both ways — is that I’m not with my husband any more. It’s not Shadow Work’s fault, because the relationship wasn’t working, the problem was already there. Shadow Work opened my eyes to a lot of dysfunction. It encouraged me to have more truth in who I am, and I wanted more of a healthy relationship. The more I saw what was in need of healing, the harder it got. Definitely hard challenges. The opportunity to heal it didn’t happen, and that’s just sad. But my marriage didn’t last for a really good reason.
But the beautiful thing is that I have a new partner and the depth of our relationship is beautiful, and if it weren’t for Shadow Work I wouldn’t have the quality of relationship, or the Clean Talk we’ve been trained to do, or the ability to communicate and share in the deep ways I so want now. It’s given me such a gift of deeper understanding of relationships and how one could get healthier.
The other thing is, I love the skills I got from Shadow Work, and that also has changed my life dramatically. Whether it’s working with an individual professionally or sharing with my friends and family when they’re having challenges, and using some of the languaging we’ve been taught — I’ve had opportunities to help a lot of people. Just to ask that basic question, What’s at risk? What’s going to happen if you do that? And to be able to honor their choices. Such great skills that open people’s hearts instead of shutting them down, and I’m really grateful for that.
AB: It sounds like you and I have that marital history in common. Has Shadow Work affected your parenting?
Junie: I don’t know how it’s affected him. But I can say as a mom, I’m so grateful for the skills. I was able to not dump a lot of crap on him. The healthier I got, the better mom I became. Keeping my side of the street clean, hopefully giving those lessons to him by being an example. Shadow Work has helped me work out some of my issues around him so that when I am with him, it’s relatively peaceful on my part, relatively clean and loving from my perspective.
I think the Shadow Work processes I’ve done have helped me heal so that I could show up for my son more authentically without dumping all over him. I am able to be a better person, communicating more cleanly and keeping my stuff out of the way.
AB: Why Junie Moon?
Junie: I have always had the nickname Moon cause I did moon ceremonies and moon rhymed with June, so people would put the two together. Then I was writing my bio for a class I teach called Chakras Alive, an authentic dance workshop, and when I wrote June Schreiber it just didn’t seem right. So dull. Many of the facilitators at the festival had very cool names. The person who was teaching this class wasn’t just June Schreiber but someone who had learned and grown and shifted through the years, so I birthed that name as the one who now does the work I do. And then everyone started calling me that name.
The funny thing is my mom wanted to name me a name that couldn’t have an “ie” at the end. She can’t believe after all that people now call me Junie. [Laughs.]
AB: Tell me about acupuncture.
Junie: I’ve been doing acupuncture for 13 years, and again, I bring Shadow Work with me wherever I go. If somebody comes in with a physical problem and I see that there’s an emotional component, as there almost always is, some of the subtle questioning we have been taught can help people see things differently and make different choices for their life. Sometimes I will invite them to experience the work. I believe you can’t separate the body and the mind; you can work on both sides of it, you have a lot of magic.
AB: I wonder if we could offer the world a map linking health issues to emotional issues, like risks, or relationships between archetypes, so that people would know where to start looking beneath their symptoms. I have pain in my feet, and I think of that as a Warrior thing, that my feet are meeting the boundary of the earth. As someone who is hearing people’s symptoms all the time, I wonder if you’ve thought about that.
Junie: Yes — and! I definitely think about that, especially with the Chinese model. When you say the foot, it can mean so many different things. When someone comes to me for acupuncture, there are layers. It can seem to be one system that’s affected, and you might find out from questioning and examining that another system is imposing on the other one. It’s not always straightforward.
So your feet, standing strong — from an acupuncturist’s perspective, as soon as you said bunions, I thought, Spleen. In Chinese medicine, the emotion associated with the spleen is worry. So would worry be a Warrior thing? I’d probably put it in Magician instead. I might see it as someone who is trying to cover all the bases, make sure nothing bad happens, who’s constantly ahead of themselves. That’s what causes anxiety, when we’re not in the present moment. So for bunions I might say that.
But bunions involve the bones, and in Chinese medicine, the bones are ruled by the kidneys, and the kidneys are all about fear, and that’s also about Magician.
So to do a whole workup on you with the Chinese model — is it the liver, which is anger, and the liver channel is right near a bunion — we’d look at it and see what it is for you. It opens up more possibilities of understanding what’s going on.
For example, my lungs right now are very challenged after a really bad cold, and in Chinese medicine the lungs have to do with grief. In the past few months I have an empty nest, my son is no longer living with me, and I’ve got a lot of sadness still moving through my body. From a Shadow Work perspective that’s Lover land, and I’m very much in my sadness.
AB: Am I right in thinking that on the Enneagram, you’re a Seven?
Junie: I am so a Seven it’s crazy. When I did those tests, every single question that could be a yes to a Seven, I was 100%. [Laughs.] I’m so grateful for my Sevenness, because that Seven energy has gotten me through so many things. I’ll have a moment of feeling like shit, and the next thing I know, What’s next? Where am I going? And I jump right back into life! Yes, I’m a Seven!
AB: I grew up with two older siblings who are both Sevens — Cliff and my sister — and I usually told myself I should be a Seven like them.
Junie: You’re a Six, right?
AB: Yes, and what you say about worry and fear is totally right. I’ve leaned into my Seven wing a lot in recent years, after years of being mostly in my Five wing and living in libraries. I’m really glad I got out of the library, there are a lot of fun things that aren’t in libraries!
Junie: A lot of life! And that sounds like a Seven! [Laughs.] If you’re a Six, you’ve got a Seven wing. If you spot it, you got it, babe! [Laughs.]
AB: Has your view of life, or your view of yourself, changed as a result of doing Shadow Work? You were already focused on health, so that might not be such a pertinent question for you.
Junie: I think it magnified strongly things that I knew or things I was beginning to understand. It was like an accelerant to the deepening of understanding of humanity, how we’re wired. And it’s helped me see people with a deeper compassion. So yes, I was on a healing journey and in the healing arts and being as present as I could be to the people I worked with. But Shadow Work has afforded me a deeper, more authentic way of being in connection with people. I think people are so hungry for that, for someone who doesn’t have an agenda, who can be completely there for them. And Shadow Work has helped me moved my stuff out of the way so I can be a better vehicle for that.
AB: You mentioned becoming more compassionate. Is that true of your relationship with yourself as well? Did you used to beat yourself up a lot?
Junie: Absolutely. I have a quite the big predatory voice that has beat the heck out of me. And though that voice is still present, I understand it more and it has quieted. The more I can forgive myself, the more I can forgive others and be more present to them. I think it starts with me. The more I can love myself, the more I can love others.
AB: I sometimes talk to someone who hopes that their predator voice will never show up in their head again. And like yours, my predator voice still shows up, which used to send me into a spiral that would last for years. And today I can get a really quick turnaround and get back to self-esteem.
Junie: Yes, I think that’s healthy, that’s healing. And here’s a great example! You sent me some of the possible questions you might ask me, and I tend to glance and then let things roll out of me. But I decided to see what some of the other interviews looked like, and I started reading them. And that predator voice came out and said, They’re so well spoken, their answers are so well thought-out, how are you going to come across?
The voice started going, and I loved it, because here I am about to talk about Shadow Work, and an hour before that, I am hearing this voice that is trying to sabotage what I was hoping would be a good interview, and trying to make me feel inferior and worthless. [Laughs.] And it lasted only a moment, you know?
I know, underneath, that voice just wants me to do a really good job and make a difference and say things that have meaning. I know that’s what that was about. And I said to it, Thank you for your two cents, and now I’m going to move into what I know to be true: I will speak from my heart, and it will be what it will be. It was a moment instead of me being terrified, nervous, stomach ache, should I do this, and canceling on you. God knows what I would have done years ago, if I had heard that voice and didn’t understand what it was about and move on. And I’m just really grateful.
AB: What are you most excited about right now?
Junie: So many things! Which one to choose?! I am living more and more each day into my new reality. I have my life back. Seventeen years of devoting my life to another human being, and now I have my own choices. Other than my own furry creature I come to at night, I do what I want to do. I don’t have to think about how busy to be any more.
I am extremely excited about a business I’m co-creating with a woman I’ve known since first grade. I had a vision, and she said, Let’s do it. She’s worked with business. I want to open up a center that is a place for many different healing modalities to come together: counseling, coaching, massage, acupuncture. Where many healers can come together and have a big room where classes and workshops can happen.
The intention is to help people, and not only that, but a place where people can get a lot of different kinds of healing. I hope to hold Shadow Work workshops and inspirational talks and classes. Have all the pieces of my life in one place. I’ve experienced so many things that have enhanced my life.
Another thing I’m excited about is launching my coaching practice. I have let people find me by word of mouth. Having so much emotional unrest the last few years, now that I feel pretty strong on my feet, I’m ready to go. I have a new website designed by a friend of mine, it’s so beautiful, coachjuniemoon.com. So now I’m really going to let people know about my coaching and offer that as another thing that I do.
I’m also excited about travels coming up. I’m looking forward to the CFG [the annual Shadow Work gathering] in just a few weeks. It’s so exciting being with all the other facilitators. Any time I’ve done anything in the last 17 years, I’ve never been able to do it as fully because in the background, I wondered if my son was going to be okay. And now, wow, I can fully be there. I’ve got so many things to be excited about in the coming year, I can’t wait.
AB: You’ve been leading Shadow Work weekends with Mark Massoni. How did your working relationship start?
Junie: I did the Basic Training and came back to New Jersey and wondered how I was going to practice and improve. I was pedal-to-the-metal and wanted to know the material really well, so I reached out to everyone who had taken trainings who was located near where I lived. Mark, who’s in Cape Cod, called me, and we had this great conversation, and we clicked.
We decided to do a Shadow Work Introduction Day in New Jersey. I pulled it together, and we had an amazing day. I was blown away by his skills and felt like I knew nothing! [Laughs.] Boy, was my predator alive that day! I thought I was so lame on the carpet, but at the end of the day he said, Maybe I’ll do the Leader Training with you and we can do this together. It kind of blew me away, because I thought I was so lame compared to what he was bringing. He’s been such a dear friend and the most wonderful supportive partner that has had my back, been on my side, encouraged me every step of the way.
We’re a drive of about 5-1/2 hours apart, so it’s challenging. We found a hub in Massachusetts that’s about halfway between us. It’s been such a pleasure, he’s an amazing facilitator and an amazing person. I’m very blessed to have him as my friend and as my facilitating partner.
We usually do a workshop in the spring in Massachusetts and another one in the fall in New Jersey.
AB: When we were scheduling this interview, you mentioned that you were going to a Tony Robbins workshop.
Junie: Yes! Tony, Tony, Tony, I love Tony! [Laughs.] I’m pretty immersed in Tony land.
About a year ago, I was going to do ALisa’s Priestess Path for women, but there was no way I could do it because of stuff that was going on. I was so sad, my dear friends were doing it without me. But being the Seven, after I mourned my loss deeply, I said, What’s next?! [Laughs.] It didn’t take me long.
By accident — but there are no accidents — I don’t know how it happened, I stumbled across this coaching program Tony does that helps people learn the skills Tony has for doing interventions with people. I think he’s a master; he’s got a heart of gold, he’s hysterically funny, and he does things with people that are amazing. Sort of like Shadow Work!
Even though his approach was very different — he’s very directive, he doesn’t necessarily allow people to unfold the way we do — I signed up for his coaching program. I wanted more skills and wanted to add to my repertoire for coaching. There’s a big overlap with Shadow Work, at least what I see, in some of the things he does. I started his coaching program about a year ago, some of it just for me to heal and grow. Then I signed up for this package of experiences for deepening work and having magnificent lives. It was called Date with Destiny, in Palm Springs. I was there for six days, and it couldn’t have come at a better time. Having this new life, I had this opportunity, to be a blank slate, and I wondered, What do I really want to do? Who am I, and what is my purpose here? It was perfect timing, and I had a glorious week of shifting some old beliefs and stepping into a very new place.
AB: I don’t know that much about Tony Robbins, except that he’s very positive and upbeat.
Junie: He is, very upbeat. He’s very strong in his heart, that fierce love we talk about. Sometimes he has to pull that Warrior up to confront somebody. Sort of like the Good Guy Bad Guy process we do, but it’s definitely a very different model. I’m taking pieces of what he does and finding ways to offer people additional possibilities for transformation.
AB: Were you affected by Hurricane Sandy?
Junie: Yes and no. It was only inconvenience compared to the devastation for some people. I didn’t have power for eight or nine days, and it was hard because I didn’t have running water or heat, because I have a well. However, I do have a wood-burning stove, and I have a brother not too far away, and I could go to his place when I needed a shower.
I lost money because I couldn’t work, and I lost the food in my fridge so I had to eat out. The kitchen became a disaster: cooking and cleaning became very difficult.
My house is in the woods, and about half a mile of the forest leading to the house is gone. It looks like an asteroid blew through, and all the pine trees are gone. It’s such massive devastation to the trees in my area. But the people on the Jersey shore had it so much worse, I have a lot of gratitude.
As of two days ago, I’ve got a generator, so I will never be without power again! I got hit with a hurricane last year, too, so I’m done with that. I’m as prepared as I can be for natural disasters. The climate is changing.
AB: What do you think about the Mayan calendar ending today [December 21, 2012]?
Junie: I’ve had my moments of anxiety over the years as we’ve approached 2012. But this year as I feel more connected to things happening around me, I had a different belief about it. I did not think the world was going to end, but I do believe things are shifting, and I do believe it’s time to make a choice. If we stay on the course we’re on, we will not have a planet. There’s such devastation to our mother earth, and to each other, with people gunning other people down. There’s so much unrest in people’s souls, and more and more people need to make a choice to come from love. I think it’s more of a spiritual shifting, but I believe the earth will continue to shift, too — again, mind, body. What we’re thinking, She’s feeling!
I think we’re in for a bumpy ride. I pray that the world is changing and choosing more of the light and not the dark. I think it’s in our hands, and I hope more people come from love.
See also Junie’s facilitator page. Her website is coachjuniemoon.com.
This interview originally appeared in our free email newsletter in February 2013. To subscribe, visit our subscription page.
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