{"id":895,"date":"2018-01-19T14:02:46","date_gmt":"2018-01-19T21:02:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/shadowwork.com\/?p=895"},"modified":"2018-08-17T15:20:17","modified_gmt":"2018-08-17T21:20:17","slug":"makes-two-processes-foundational-ideal-support-warrior-run","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/shadowwork.com\/makes-two-processes-foundational-ideal-support-warrior-run\/","title":{"rendered":"What Makes Two Processes Foundational: Ideal Support and the Warrior Run"},"content":{"rendered":"

I work with a variety of small groups which use dramatic emotional work. During the past year, I\u2019ve enjoyed introducing them to Shadow Work\u00ae methods, using a simplified version of Shadow Work\u00ae processes called the Carpet Training Manual.<\/span><\/p>\n

While editing that manual recently, I reflected on a question I\u2019m commonly asked: “Why are the two processes on which that manual is based\u2014the Ideal Support and Warrior Run processes\u2014the foundation of the work we do?”<\/p>\n

\"TheIdeal Support has traditionally been thought of as a Sovereign process, since it brings a person support from an ideal being or concept. The Warrior Run has, as its name suggests, been seen as a Warrior process, since it helps a person set a boundary. On a map of the Shadow Work\u00ae Model, the Sovereign and Warrior archetypes share a “north-south” axis.<\/p>\n

Why are these processes foundational? Are the Sovereign and Warrior archetypes, or perhaps their shared axis, somehow the natural starting place for carpet work? Are these processes simply what we\u2019ve discovered thus far, perhaps to be superseded by even more basic processes later? Or are they simply the easiest processes to learn to facilitate?<\/p>\n

I will explore some possible explanations for the foundational nature of these processes, in order to suggest some future areas for growth and exploration within Shadow Work\u00ae.<\/span><\/p>\n

WANTING TWO THINGS<\/b><\/span><\/p>\n

One explanation is expressed well by Shadow Work\u00ae facilitator Dmitri Bilgere in the “Online Carpet Training” available at his website, dbweb.org. In the training, he attempts to distill facilitation into its most simple and jargon-free form:<\/span><\/p>\n

“Here’s a BIG process work secret:<\/b><\/span><\/p>\n

People want one or both of two things. They either want to separate from something, or to connect to something. That’s\u00a0it<\/b>.<\/p>\n

That fact simplifies process work a\u00a0lot<\/b>.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Dmitri goes on to describe the Warrior Run as “[getting] angry at a big mean part, in order to separate from it.” He describes Ideal Support as “[getting] sad and loving with a small helpless part, in order to connect to it.”<\/span><\/p>\n

His explanations suggest that, rather than being associated only with the Sovereign and Warrior quarters (as they tend to be in formal Shadow Work\u00ae materials), these two processes, in their rawest form, explore an even more primal distinction of separation\/connection. Ideal Support, after all, involves the entire Lover-Sovereign energetic loop, connecting both by being little and by being big, with a lot of “connecting through feelings.”<\/p>\n

From such an observation, I think there\u2019s an obvious connection that can be made to attachment theory and related realms of psychology. Attachment theory explores the idea that our earliest experiences of psycho-social attachment to our caregivers set patterns which play out throughout our lives.<\/span><\/p>\n

OUR ATTACHMENTS<\/b><\/span><\/p>\n

We could easily view Ideal Support and the Warrior Run as experiences in which the participant severs a poor psychological attachment and creates a healthier re-attachment. Shadow Work\u00ae theory does propose that the most primal archetypes are the Lover and the Warrior, suggesting a resonance with attachment theory, in that these archetypes can be described as fundamentally connecting to, or separating from, others. I believe this kind of thinking about attachments is important because it emphasizes the deep symbolic nature, built upon our earliest experiences, of what is happening on the carpet.<\/span><\/p>\n

But I don\u2019t find it helpful to always view these processes as a return to rework infantile issues. In reality, I rarely work with people who aren\u2019t attached to\u00a0something<\/i>\u00a0in some good way, or with people who have no boundaries whatsoever, the kinds of conditions that would seem to call for an attachment-therapy orientation.<\/span><\/p>\n

Rather, what I experience with participants on the carpet is a shift in their perceptions of\u00a0what<\/i>\u00a0they can attach to and separate from. I see participants looking over the contents of their lives and perceiving new aspects or opportunities or realities, followed by a symbolic enactment and practicing of the newfound choices such perceptions present. What changes on the carpet is not someone\u2019s fundamental ability to connect and separate but what they perceive they\u00a0can apply those abilities to<\/i>\u00a0\u2014 what new meaning they make of their lives.<\/span><\/p>\n

MAKING MEANING<\/b><\/span><\/p>\n

It\u2019s a little hard to get language around the process by which human beings transform their own meaning-making, but we see it emerging in the Shadow Work\u00ae literature. For example, the six-step What\u2019s At Risk process has given rise to the term “2-5 shift,” summarized here:<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n