The tongue Guardian of the shadow Closing that door means swinging one wide open Be still Be quiet Welcome the outsiders in - friends into the Sunlight ... The innocence you’ve ignored The grace you’ve feared The love thought unworthy for All you’ve forgotten as too good to be true Unbounded love, joy, peace – Blessing gardens abloom Fragrances unleashed into the dawning
Breathe deeply knowing you breathe Life! Life! Life! Smile
*Brian K. Wilcox, Ferry Beach, Maine, 2019
I have written on this site of a surprising friend that came out into the Light, from the shadow, shortly after I began meditating. I had a Master's in counseling, had studied in-depth Jungian thought, had been a client of a counselor who used principally a Jungian approach, so was well-acquainted with the shadow.
Yet, the shadow being the shadow, I had seen it as the repression of the unwanted - the dark - in the unconscious - some say subconscious. I mean those things we consider bad, evil, sinful. I had learned how this material was kept away from awareness - I have referred to it as keeping things in the basement. And, as we learn, this repressed energy finds a way to come out, sometimes in disguised form. Have you ever reacted to someone and thought, "Where did that come from? That's not me"? Or, maybe you were alarmed at some prejudicial thought toward someone of a different skin color, when you thought you were not capable of such anymore. Energies tend to hang around, seen or unseen, with a stubborn content that translates into thought, attitude, and action.
We can keep the unwanted in the shadow by busyness and talkativeness. We can be driven by an impulse to protect ourselves in these ways. Of course, there are many ways we can try to keep the basement door tightly closed, and these ways may appear benign, even positive. One can be deeply religious or on a spiritual spree as a means of avoiding the shadow.
Yet, while the unwanted is repressed, so is the uninvited - like turning away both those we see to be foes and those we see to be friends. I mean by uninvited what we basically do want. You might think, "I would never keep something positive, something I wanted, repressed?" Oh, yea? You might be, and you might not even know - after all, that is why we speak of the unconscious.
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The friend I had kept in the basement, and I did not know I was keeping it there, was joy. In meditation, learning to be still and quiet, joy came forth to surprise me. Again, I was not aware I had been repressing this lovely, friendly, and healthy quality. Such openings can be opportunities to explore what led to the repression. Where had I gotten the message, "Brian, you cannot be joyful. Joy is not for you"? Was the message, "You don't deserve to be joyful"? Was it, "My parents are not joyful, so joy is not allowed in my home - so, my life"? And, "What other energies - messages - are linked to this lack of inner permission to be joyful"? There is a time to explore such questions, and a time to cease the exploring. So, we do not need to turn this into an unhealthy pursuit of self-knowledge: that is the other extreme of avoidance.
Most neurosis arises in the early years of our lives, and, therefore, most of the energies needing to come into the Light have been hidden and influenced our lives since then. Dysfunction becomes norm. We can settle into our own personal drama, getting comfy with our malaise, angst, or discomfort. We may not feel well, but we feel safe. And spiritual practice is meant to challenge - not destroy, not give a guilt-complex, not lead to more self-condemnation - all our personal drama.
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The above poem addresses the keeping of the outsiders outside and the possibility of welcoming them in - that door opening, that coming into the Sunlight. Thus, meditation and other spiritual practices are a means of healing. However, they are not the cure for everyone.
Stillness and quiet can lead one to realize a need for help from trained professionals to work with deeply rooted complexes, for example. These other means can work in consort with spiritual practice. There is nothing wrong with seeking such help. In rare cases, a person may need not to meditate until getting such support. Having a spiritual teacher or spiritual companion of some sort can assist in this discernment of how to work with the varied energies and experiences that arise in the stillness and quiet.
Meditation - in fact, all spiritual practice - is not simply to make us feel better. That is not even at the top of why to do it. To heal, we sometimes need to feel not-better, even worse. A lot of persons advertise, for example, mindfulness as a means to peace, lower blood pressure, and so forth - all positive and saleable, and appealing to the ego. While I do not discourage persons engaging in a mindfulness practice for those favorable qualities, that is not the principal intent of spiritual practice or silent contemplation - those would be only by-products.
Yes, spiritual practice brings many positive experiences and growth in qualities like inner peace, yet it, also, leads us into experiences and times where what we are doing seems to be bringing more upset than calm, more inner discord than inner harmony. Healing takes work. The spiritual life - so, healing - places us in a position to be honest about both what we see to be positive and negative, which we have hidden away. And we need insight on why the repression occurred. While spiritual practice leads us beyond understanding, it does not permit us to bypass understanding. While it leads us to transcend the self, that means including the self, not denying it. The self is never left behind. To try to leave it behind is futile and will lead to self-deception and misrepresentation. The self, even the unwell self, is an expression of Life, our True Self - by whatever name.
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Energies we see to be foes can be transformed into friends. Ghouls can become angels. Life wastes nothing, and it acts without discrimination, inviting the unwanted and uninvited into the Sunlight, the dawning.
Note: The use of spirituality to avoid dealing with our psychological issues is often referred to as "spiritual bypass." While we do not want to bypass, neither do we want to try to rush to healing. Be gentile with yourself. Befriend what you pushed away into the shades. Learn to invite and sit quietly with the uninvited and unwanted. As I have said, healing takes time. It is not a rush, it is a process, an organic one. Love yourself in the pleasure and the pain. Be consistent in your practice. Know when you need help from someone else - a counselor, a friend, a guide, ... And, always, be your best friend.
