The Four Stages of Shadow
by Steve Simmer
I have been writing some things for this list about mission, but haven’t registered any opinions to date about shadow mission, (or, as some prefer, shadow’s mission). I made a stretch with my group two weeks ago to write up some ideas about this. It’s been difficult for me, because some of these ideas may seem obvious. I welcome a response to this.
I see four phases in our relationship with shadow. The first is the stage where I am unaware of shadow. This is the stage where I deny, hide, and project it, as they say on the weekend. I don’t really look at it, and certainly don’t own it. It causes significant damage to me, to my family, and the world. But it’s easy to blame this damage on others, or chance, or God. Technically, it’s not my fault, it’s ___________________’s fault.
The second stage begins when I crawl out of the hole of unconsciousness and glimpse my shadow, like the groundhog on Groundhog Day. This might happen in a dramatic event like the New Warrior Training Adventure, but it might also happen gradually over time, as I run out of excuses and defenses, and I look around at what I’ve done. I drink too much. I’ve destroyed two relationships with my anger. I don’t seem capable of friendship. I’ve lied to my kids and destroyed their trust. I’m dying and haven’t done shit with my life. And there’s no one else to blame for the mess.
After this second stage of sudden or gradual recognition of shadow, I enter the third stage and the war begins. I envision my life as a constant struggle against my own demons. I enter AA, set stretches in my I-group, and work to become a man of integrity. I work one day at a time in my conflict with the enemy I carry within. I tend to disappear at times of high stress, or tend to become a little tyrant when I’m put in a position of power. But in this stage I am fully engaged in the struggle to improve myself, to purify myself of the darkness. Jung calls this “a moral struggle of the first magnitude.”
But that’s not the final step, in my judgment. At the beginning of the ancient Babylonian story of Gilgamesh, Gilgamesh is part man, part god. He is full of himself, very arrogant. He discovers another great being, Enkidu, who is part human and part animal. The two meet and fight a great battle. Enkidu matches Gilgamesh blow for blow, and neither can permanently gain the upper hand. The battle ends in a draw. The two make a truce, and develop a great love for one another. In future battles, they fight side by side. Together, they are much more powerful than either was before their battle. They each have the other’s back, and are able to protect the other’s blind side.
Perhaps inevitably, there comes a time when I can’t seem to make progress any more in this moral struggle, when I’ve exerted my utmost strength in this straight-line attempt to eliminate shadow, and I’m at a standstill. The nineteenth-century psychologist and philosopher Gustav Fechner wrote about the shadow in a little essay entitled “The Shadow is Alive.” I come to recognize that the shadow is not only alive, but powerful, elusive, and possessing a great, instinctual intelligence. It’s not simply an inert, dead substance in me—not something that I can mold or transform or eliminate. It puts up active resistance, matches my every attempt to master it with a counter-attack of its own. I have met my match, my Enkidu.
The fourth stage involves befriending the shadow, forming an alliance with it. It involves starting to see the gold in what I previously saw as simply evil in myself. The gold may be in a rough, impure, form–like ore. It needs refining, but in this last stage I start to honor and value it. For example, let’s say that I have been wrestling against a tendency to disappear and make myself small and insignificant when I am under stress. I have been setting challenges for myself to remain in my power during those times, and may have even made some progress. But in this last stage, I start to acknowledge the importance of making myself small sometimes, of disappearing. In many fairy tales, the hero will get a stone of invisibility or some other power that makes him small for a time. In this last stage, I start to honor the importance and potential benefit of disappearance and smallness.
About Stephen Simmer-I am a psychotherapist serving Western Massachusetts, with offices in West Springfield and Northampton, Massachusetts.
To learn more about me and my work visit:http://www.stephensimmer.com
– is a deeply personal issue that everyone decides for himself. Sometimes the price is high, sometimes low. But this is not very important for life. Life is an interesting thing. And the price on Viagra – too.
