Shadow Meditation - Heart Wisdom
As I look at my daily to-do list, the top bullet reads: "meditation on sadness". I’m navigating all the life things and this particular season transition often whomps me - I'm definitely feeling it all. Ugh.
When I fall into a blue hole (the precursor to the black hole), one of my most faithful tools is to get quiet and ask my system what wants to be seen or what needs to be heard. So, today, in my blue funk, I'll bake sourdough bread, endeavor to move my body and I'll get quiet and attend to this round, overripe sadness in my belly. I’ll give myself space to meditate with it.
Meditative Flow
After one failed attempt to sit still, I try again and begin to sense the sadness. Down into my belly. Deep and smooth to start. Like a huge, smooth, frozen water drop, cold and heavy deep, deep in my center. As I investigate this area with my felt sense, part of it morphs and it feels undeniably like decay. I get a flash of a cold, wet forest floor. It is the dark of autumn, and the smell and taste of rotting, damp leaves surrounds me.
Then the imagery shifts - I’m now seeing a peach in a fruit bowl. When I pick it up, a large, flat, discolored, weeping bruise is revealed. My system wants to turn away - it seems to say “ohhhh, let's feel the ripe, toned, golden, fuzzy side of the peach babe. That’ll feel good!” 🙂 But, something in me knows that I need to stay with the sense of rot.
Decay is part the cycle of this season and I note it as interesting that it is manifesting in my mood (impeccable timing). As I stay present with the image of rotting fruit and the felt sense it has been evoked from, the following questions spontaneously arise: What needs to die? What needs to be composted? Is there something rotting/festering here?
And just like that, the image shifts again and I feel disgust. Being with our moment to moment experience isn’t always linear. First this then that. Often images and sensations and thoughts bubble up together. Co-arising, just beneath the surface membrane of the disgust, are some negative beliefs. Self-loathing reveals itself in somatic tone (my teeth clench, chest caves and stomach grips) and condescending words: "You have nothing new/good/useful/intelligent to offer to anyone.”, “Why are you even doing this?”. Then, "You're not good enough" and "There’s nothing special about you," bubble up, along with"You deserve to feel like this.”
As these “voices” undulate through, another old voice surfaces. It says, "you're so unlovable.” I stay curious. It tastes sour.
As the “you’re so unlovable” inner words rear up, they’re almost immediately met with the felt sense of divine warmth and tenderness - as if I'm looking through the eyes of love at my 5 year old self and a great spaciousness blows through me (this is the essence of “my” True Nature catching my attention). The mind-voice tries again “you’re so unlovable”, but the words cannot find purchase…there’s nowhere to land. (I’ve been with this one fully enough that I deeply know it’s not true.)
As I feel some relief, I could call it a day, and while it feels good to know I’m not unlovable, I know there’s more. I pause and then dive back into the other beliefs that previously surfaced. First feeling them in my body. As I attend to them, I find more beliefs and stories whispering behind them. It becomes an archeological dig, excavating the words and feelings and memories that today's blue hole feelings are tethered to. My own mental architecture of “not enough” maps itself out in word and sensation for me to see.
Remaining with the feeling inquiry as it unfolds, another oldie pops up - "You're not safe, stay hidden," and a variation, "it's never really safe to be seen, people are hurtful.” And I know, almost immediately, that all the other noise (you're not good enough, why try, etc.), is in service of this deeply rooted survival instinct. I breathe and feel. I acknowledge that “it’s not safe, stay hidden” is one of the main refrains that keeps people from expressing their authenticity. I also acknowledge that this fear is part of the existential sense (or angst) that happens when I believe that I am a separate self. I choose to stay with this belief. As if to say “here’s the proof that you’re unsafe!” a challenging childhood memory pops up on the screen of my mind.
I acknowledge the images and feel back into the “you’re not safe, stay hidden” place. When this belief becomes really focused in my senses, I ask it “what do you want?” and then “what do you need?” She (this place) has a laundry list of wants, almost all of which are unreasonable or impossible or both (which makes me laugh because it’s so honest). Her needs are harder to express. She has some ideas, and I know I’ll need to come back to her and check in. This place/time/shadow/belief in me, she’s very strong, but it’s a strength born of fear and I know she is not fully healed and re-integrated. I’ve spent a good bit of time with various iterations of her through the years (the 4 year old version of this belief, the 11 year old version, the 16 year old version, etc.) We’re in conversation though, and she’s no longer working a covert mission. (For those of you familiar with polyvagal theory, she is basically my dorsal vagal nervous system anthropomorphized and I’m in conversation to see what it will take to get her into a ventral vagal state.)
After spending time with my inner landscape, something in me releases and the gloom lifts. It’s like going from the first movement of Henryk Gorecki’s Symphony #3 to something more hopeful and bright, but not all the way to a scherzo (Pharrell’s I’m haaaaapppy!) I spend another few minutes feeling, seating my attention in my heart center (the energetic or cosmic or spiritual heart). I let the belief “I am not safe, people are hurtful” swirl around and ask - “what is my deepest knowing about this”…tears well up and the words “you are held” with the corresponding felt sense of a cellular level softening and tinglie-warm ease show up. Then, Mach speed, I’m opened into a breathless openness. The truth of being undefined by memory or belief permeates.
Now, there’s a sense of completion.
Why Do Shadow Work
This is what it looks like for me to do the compassionate work of bringing what's in shadow into the light in my everyday life. Last night, I went to bed with an aching sadness and woke tired, feeling the press of a numbing weight descend upon me. I know this as a portend of things to come if left unchecked - I know from experience that I need to give this discomfort my attention so it doesn't grow and swallow me.
You might be thinking, “Why engage with shadow? Why go there? It seems messy and hard. Won’t digging around just add to the weight and the blue?” Though it seems counter-intuitive, I’ve found that being with the discomfort often helps to lessen the weight of the blues. Also, I've been in the shadow trenches enough that when I now reach a challenging memory like one mentioned above, the narrative isn't "what's wrong with you" or "stop feeling sorry for yourself" or “nobody cares about you”, it's more like "sweet girl, you're so strong. I love you so much. I'm wrapping you in light." Healing and integration happen by bringing things into the light. AND bringing things into the light isn’t always easy. Sometimes in the beginning (or for biggies) it’s best done with a healing professional.
Shadow is often operating out of an unmet need, an outdated survival fear, and/or a binary or immature belief. As long as it's in charge and operating under the radar, you will try to meet and fulfill these need, and to live out the limiting beliefs by manipulating yourself, people and circumstances around you. When you see the shadow for what it is, you have greater ability to choose to act from authenticity and to interact with people intimately, honestly and from an more embodied, unfiltered Presence.
Attending to shadow has allowed me to recognize that while grizzly and uncomfortable, all that negative self talk above is not a failing or sign that there's something wrong with me (how are these voices still in my head after all these years and all this work!!!) I can now see these narratives, not as credible, journalistic voiceovers in a Ken Burns style documentary, but as the blunt force, adaptive tools of a survival fear. It's like seeing behind the curtain - ohhhhh, you're saying these things because you want me to shut down so there are fewer opportunities to get hurt, not because they're actually valid or evidence based. These voices aren’t here because they’re true or because I’m unskillful, they’re here because something in me feels really unsafe right now. I've learned that my dorsal vagal survival-fear parts are Machiavellian when it comes to trying to keep me safe. Knowing all of this helps me to recognize patterns and emerge from shadow more skillfully and swiftly with gobs of self-compassion. Such an important aspect of this self-inquiry is that we learn to see our psychological wounds without viewing them as essential flaws.
Self Inquiry Questions
Finally, this isn't a formulaic meditation. Sorry! :) It's more of an open, curious, receptivity where I am acutely aware of what is arising within me, of what is calling my attention. Over and over, I am guiding my attention to the sensations, images, beliefs and emotions that come up and staying with them until they dissolve or reveal something deeper. One question that I find powerful is “what is my deepest knowing about this belief (emotion/memory)” Grounding in the spiritual heart when we ask this or similar “what here is true” or “what is ready to be seen” type question, the answers can more readily arises from intuition rather than the mind. I have found just this sort of heart wisdom to be the only real balm for existential blues (survival fear.) In this ongoing practice of self-discovery and honesty it is so important to get into the felt sense meditative aspects. I’ve never found analytic thinking to relieve the sting and ache of core limiting beliefs, only meditation has done it for me!