Unleash Your Inner GenX Power: Part 1 - Shadow Work Basics
This is the first installment in a new series that I hope you will find enlightening and potentially life-changing. Yeah, that’s a high bar I just set.
Over the next few weeks, we’re going to explore a topic that I invite you to open your minds and hearts to. It’s a topic that has allowed me to fundamentally change how I approach my life, who I am, and how I move through challenging times.
It’s the topic of shadow work, and specifically, how GenX’ers can unleash their inner power through shadow work.
In today’s post, we’ll explore the basics of shadow work - and I do mean basics. We’re keeping it at a 10,000-foot view for now. In week two, we’ll explore the unique cultural influences that have potentially created shadows for GenX’ers. In week three, we’ll cover why shadow work is so important for the Forgotten Generation. And finally in week four, we’ll learn some basic shadow work practices.
Why do I encourage you to open your minds and hearts to the topic of shadow work? Because GenX’ers are navigating one of the most - if not the most - pivotal chapters in our lives. We’re now in our early 40’s to late 50’s - a time when we’re experiencing everything from planning for retirement, to wondering if we should change careers, to saving for or putting kids through college, to supporting our aging parents, to changes in our bodies, to wondering what the hell happened to the life we thought we’d have by now.
In my experience, my 40’s and 50’s have been the most amazing, powerful, challenging, and character-building years of my life. I imagine that many of you feel the same way. But it’s only been in the last couple of years that I’ve been introduced to the power of shadow work. And oh how I wish I’d known about it sooner.
I wish I’d known about shadow work when I started getting really anxious and depressed about my career; when my mom died; when I was in significant financial debt; when I was struggling with quitting my job; when I started going through perimenopause (unbeknownst to me); and when I didn’t care whether my life continued or not.
Doing this shadow work over the last couple of years has allowed me to become more conscious, resilient, and compassionate toward myself and others. It’s allowed me to tap into my deepest sources of power and consciousness. And I believe it can hold that same potential for you.
So, my invitation to you is this: approach these blogs over the next few weeks with curiosity about the potential for you to become more conscious, resilient, and compassionate toward yourself and others. What might shift in your life if you opened up to the power of this work?
Okay . . . here we go . . . .
As a generation who came of age during the 70, 80s, and early 90s, GenX’ers have experienced a unique set of cultural influences that have shaped our worldview and impacted our relationship with ourselves.
And while some of these cultural influences have created tremendous GenX strengths (like our tendency to be more laid back), there are ways in which the culture of our formative years conditioned us to resist, hide away, or cut off the parts of us that were deemed to be wrong, evil, or unacceptable.
From a very early age, we begin to learn that the world runs on dualistic notions of “right or wrong,” “good or evil,” or “acceptable or unacceptable.” For some, there is a very clear black line between those categories, while for others, it’s more of a gray area. Either way, as we grow up, we learn two things from this kind of dualistic thinking.
First, we learn to believe that we have wrong, evil, or unacceptable parts of us and that other people do too. And second, we learn what is wrong, evil, or unacceptable based on messages from family, culture, society, church, school, etc. The reason we absorb those messages - hook, line, and sinker - is that if we don’t, our basic survival instinct that is wired for belonging and connection will be threatened. In other words, during our formative years we largely adopt these messages from a very deep hard-wired survival instinct that wants to ensure that we’re not kicked out of the group(s) that give(s) us our sense of identity.
Consequently, we learn to stuff away, disconnect from, or cut off the parts, traits, or behaviors within us that we have been conditioned to believe are wrong, evil, or unacceptable, so that we don’t risk being kicked out of the groups to which we belong. We also learn to judge those same parts, traits, or behaviors in others as wrong, evil, or unacceptable as well.
The result is what Swiss psychologist and psychoanalyst, Dr. Carl Jung, called the creation of the “shadow.”
The shadow “is that part of us that we fail to see or know.” Robert A. Johnson, Owning Your Own Shadow: Understanding the Dark Side of the Psyche (1971) (p. 4). Our shadows are the parts of us that we’ve disowned, disconnected from, or hidden away.
Think of it like this: We are born whole and complete; but, throughout our lives we become fractured or divided through the conditioning of our particular cultural influences that tells us what is wrong, evil, or unacceptable. As a result, as Johnson (1971) explains, we develop a “persona,” which is “what we would like to be and how we wish to be seen by the world.” (p. 3). Our “ego is what we are and know about consciously.” (p. 3-4). Our shadows then, are the unconscious parts of us - they are “that which has not entered adequately into consciousness.” (p. 4).
In simplest terms, our shadows are our triggers. They are what get activated when we blow up for no apparent reason. Why we get irritated when someone cuts us off in traffic. Why something seemingly trivial can send us into a tailspin. Why we feel like we can never be enough, do enough, or have enough. Why we can’t seem to move out of being stuck in our lives, meet a goal, or make a dream come true.
As we’ll discuss more in week three, the process of shadow work allows us to bring those unconscious shadows into the light of consciousness. When we’re able to do that, we’re able to integrate those forgotten parts of ourselves that have been banished to the dark basements of our being. Integration allows us to move from divided and fractured, back into wholeness.
Know this: there can’t be light without dark. That’s a pretty basic principle that I want to apply to our human selves. If you want to be a fully empowered and whole human being, you can’t just live in the light. You must learn to become aware of and integrate the dark. We waste a lot of energy trying to push away, ignore, or suppress the dark. What could you do, who could you become, and how would it feel if you freed up that energy? Only by ceasing that resistance and fully reclaiming the discarded, shadowy parts of ourselves, can we re-member ourselves and come back into wholeness.
Through shadow work, we stop being reactively ruled by our unconscious so that we can live from a more conscious and empowered place. When we do that, we can gain a deeper understanding of ourselves, develop greater compassion and self-compassion, build stronger relationships with others, become more resilient, and make shit happen in our lives from a more conscious place. I’ll talk more specifically about some of the potential benefits of shadow work for GenX’ers in week three.
One final note: Although the term "shadow work" as we know it today is largely attributed to the work of Jung, the idea of exploring and integrating the unconscious or disowned parts of ourselves has been present in various spiritual and psychological traditions throughout history.
For example, in many indigenous cultures, there is a tradition of “soul retrieval,” which involves bringing back parts of the self that have been lost or disowned. In some Buddhist traditions, there is a practice called “tonglen,” which involves breathing in the suffering of oneself and others and breathing out love and compassion. In Hinduism, the idea of “atman” or the true self is a core concept that involves understanding and integrating all aspects of oneself. Additionally, many ancient Greek philosophers, such as Socrates and Plato, emphasized the importance of self-knowledge and exploring the unconscious aspects of the self.
So, although the term "shadow work" may be relatively new, the idea of exploring and integrating the disowned parts of ourselves has been present in various cultures and traditions throughout history.
In the next blog post, we'll explore some of the unique generational experiences that may have created shadows for GenX’ers.
In the meantime, I invite you to start getting curious about when you feel triggered. In general, there are three reasons we get triggered:
We see something in someone else that we don’t like.
We see something in ourselves that we don’t like.
We see something that someone else has, like a trait, behavior, belonging, lifestyle, etc., that we want (envy), or, we’re afraid that something or someone that we have may be taken away (jealousy).
Over the next week, simply start to be curious about which of those three reasons may be showing up when you feel triggered, agitated, annoyed, sad, depressed, angry, lonely, etc.
And come back next week when we dive into the GenX shadows.
Join the conversation: drop a comment with questions or reactions you’re having around this basic shadow discussion.