"In order to hold on to thoughts of anger, bitterness, revenge, guilt and shame, we have to use a lot of energy."
- Edwene Gaines, American speaker on self-empowerment
YOUR SHADOWS
Your Bottom-Line Small Truth … Who You Believe You Are …
PERSONAL EMPOWERMENT CONTEXT
During World War II, the first few years of the war in the East were characterised by rapid expansion of Japanese forces throughout Asia, and all the islands of Indonesia and other islands, some very remote. Small groups of soldiers were placed in remote islands and given instructions to ensure that the enemy did not gain any foothold there.
During the last year of the war, especially just before and after the dropping of the atomic bomb over Japan, Allied forces over ran many Japanese occupied territories, which prevented the Japanese from conducting a systematic withdrawal of all their soldiers from some remote islands and areas.
After the war, there were still Japanese soldiers in remote places who did not know that the war was over. They were located, usually because fishermen reported shots being fired at them. . Most of these soldiers were then found, informed the war was over, and taken home. The last report of finding such soldiers was in the 1970’s, over thirty years after the war.
Japan has a specific policy and procedure for dealing with such ‘lost soldiers’. When a report came through of a sighting, a high-ranking Japanese soldier would dress up in his World War II uniform, and go by himself to find the lost soldiers. He would thank the soldier for his loyalty and perseverance, ask how he has been doing and spend a few days talking about how life had been on the island for such a long time, making sure that the soldier understood that his efforts were greatly appreciated and honoured. Then, the soldier would be gently informed that the war was over, and that it was time to go home. Only when the soldier had dealt with the shock, been informed of family matters, was he taken back to Japan. There, he was welcomed with a public parade of honour, and his welfare was taken care of by the State.
Why are we telling you this true story? The reason is simple. In many respects, your Shadows are like those lost soldiers, fighting a war that is often long gone. There was a time when you really needed these shadows to defend yourself from criticism, loss, and many other pains, usually as a child. You may even need them occasionally nowadays. However, it is time to bring these ‘lost soldiers’ back home, back to present time, and assess whether you still need to defend yourself in this manner.
Do not view your Shadows as some kind of critism – as something ‘bad’. Respect them, for they served you well when you needed them. Occasionally, you still need them. However, as an adult, you have developed many other mental, emotional and physical resources that you did not have when you were child. Essentially, the process of looking at your Shadows is a process of updating your unconscious behaviours of coping, moving them from child-based methods to adult-based methods. Most of these issues will seem like those lost soldiers – forgotten, but still alive and operating ‘as if’ the war was still on.
It is important to remind you that these Shadows are not ‘bad’ – their intention has always been to protect you and serve you. All that we are suggesting is that you locate them, assess whether their methods are still functional for you, and then gently bring them into present time. That is all. You have many challenges in your present life – relationships, work, health – and you need to have all your resources lined up to deal with these existing issues. Sometimes, as in the case of Shadows, you have parts of yourself which are simply fighting a distant (past) battle which no longer exists, and which can actually block you from dealing with your present-time challenges.
We all have these Shadows – everyone does. That is not the issue. The issue is how we deal with them in such a way that they serve us, now and in the future. That is the nature of personal integrity – having all parts of yourself working together for a common goal, namely your well-being.
EXPLANATON OF SHADOWS
Your Shadows are the summary of your fundamental coping styles:
Your strongest psychological-emotional defence mechanisms for dealing with life events. They strongly reflect the development of your life until this point in time, based upon childhood events and decisions.
There are a few important points to remember when reading the descriptions of each Shadow:
HOW TO VIEW YOUR SHADOWS
During World War II, the first few years of the war in the East were characterised by rapid expansion of Japanese forces throughout Asia, and all the islands of Indonesia and other islands, some very remote. Small groups of soldiers were placed in remote islands and given instructions to ensure that the enemy did not gain any foothold there.
During the last year of the war, especially just before and after the dropping of the atomic bomb over Japan, Allied forces over ran many Japanese occupied territories, which prevented the Japanese from conducting a systematic withdrawal of all their soldiers from some remote islands and areas.
After the war, there were still Japanese soldiers in remote places who did not know that the war was over. They were located, usually because fishermen reported shots being fired at them. . Most of these soldiers were then found, informed the war was over, and taken home. The last report of finding such soldiers was in the 1970’s, over thirty years after the war.
Japan has a specific policy and procedure for dealing with such ‘lost soldiers’. When a report came through of a sighting, a high-ranking Japanese soldier would dress up in his World War II uniform, and go by himself to find the lost soldiers. He would thank the soldier for his loyalty and perseverance, ask how he has been doing and spend a few days talking about how life had been on the island for such a long time, making sure that the soldier understood that his efforts were greatly appreciated and honoured. Then, the soldier would be gently informed that the war was over, and that it was time to go home. Only when the soldier had dealt with the shock, been informed of family matters, was he taken back to Japan. There, he was welcomed with a public parade of honour, and his welfare was taken care of by the State.
Why are we telling you this true story? The reason is simple. In many respects, your Shadows are like those lost soldiers, fighting a war that is often long gone. There was a time when you really needed these shadows to defend yourself from criticism, loss, and many other pains, usually as a child. You may even need them occasionally nowadays. However, it is time to bring these ‘lost soldiers’ back home, back to present time, and assess whether you still need to defend yourself in this manner.
Do not view your Shadows as some kind of critism – as something ‘bad’. Respect them, for they served you well when you needed them. Occasionally, you still need them. However, as an adult, you have developed many other mental, emotional and physical resources that you did not have when you were child. Essentially, the process of looking at your Shadows is a process of updating your unconscious behaviours of coping, moving them from child-based methods to adult-based methods. Most of these issues will seem like those lost soldiers – forgotten, but still alive and operating ‘as if’ the war was still on.
It is important to remind you that these Shadows are not ‘bad’ – their intention has always been to protect you and serve you. All that we are suggesting is that you locate them, assess whether their methods are still functional for you, and then gently bring them into present time. That is all. You have many challenges in your present life – relationships, work, health – and you need to have all your resources lined up to deal with these existing issues. Sometimes, as in the case of Shadows, you have parts of yourself which are simply fighting a distant (past) battle which no longer exists, and which can actually block you from dealing with your present-time challenges.
We all have these Shadows – everyone does. That is not the issue. The issue is how we deal with them in such a way that they serve us, now and in the future. That is the nature of personal integrity – having all parts of yourself working together for a common goal, namely your well-being.
EXPLANATON OF SHADOWS
Your Shadows are the summary of your fundamental coping styles:
Your strongest psychological-emotional defence mechanisms for dealing with life events. They strongly reflect the development of your life until this point in time, based upon childhood events and decisions.
There are a few important points to remember when reading the descriptions of each Shadow:
- The Shadow descriptions are stereotypical. In other words, not everything stated will apply to you. Furthermore, the events described are nothing more than examples of the kind of events and decisions which may create a specific Shadow. Therefore, when reading through the script, instead of trying to find how you differ from the descriptions, focus instead upon how your life is reflected by what you are reading.
- Everyone contains an element of all eight shadows, to some varying degree. You are asked to focus only on the specific Shadows the trainers have indicated to you. The Shadows you have been given to read and write about are based purely upon the scores from the pre-training questionnaire that you completed, and we have simply taken the top scores as a reflection of your dominant Shadows at this point in your life.
- Your Shadows change over time, and also due to events. Although the scores that you obtained on your questionnaire will undoubtedly be different in a week or month’s time, they tend to remain fairly stable in the long run, unless you work on them.
- Shadows are based upon past decisions, formed in moments of pain. Today, they cause damage to relationships, health, presence, and spirituality. In other words, they perpetuate the pain, largely due to your use of them when they are not appropriate. Remember: The Shadow is PAST-BASED, largely based upon some fundemental FEAR.
- Your dominant Shadows are powerful and deceptive. The ‘Lie’ of the Shadow is that it is useful, and that you ‘need it’. For example, a person with the Stubbornness Shadow may say that if it was not for their stubbornness they would not have persevered and achieved what they have. However, ‘stubbornness’ and ‘cetermination’ are not the same thing. Determination is based upon a vision of the future, not a reaction to pain from the past.
- Yes, there are ‘good’ aspects of each Shadow. However, the problem with the Shadows is that it is very difficult to utilise the ‘good’ aspects when you are not even aware of what you are doing.
- The objective is to become aware of your Shadows, not to change them. When you are aware of what you are doing, you can make a choice of what to do, based upon the situation, and not some automatic ‘this is who I am’ belief. Conscious choice is the objective of this training, not Change.
HOW TO VIEW YOUR SHADOWS
- Always remember that you are NOT your Shadows - They are simply coping strategies that you have developed over time, due to events, and that they have become a habit. This is why they feel as if they are ‘natural’ parts of you. They are not.
- Read through the description of the Shadows once. You will notice that some things make sense to you, and other things do not. That is normal. Then read it again – you may notice things which you missed before.
- Keep in mind the Core Fear of the Shadow. This is the basis of the entire Shadow. Ask yourself: ‘How would I have developed this fear? Who – Father, Mother, someone else – would have instilled this fear in me through doing specific things?’ Sometimes, it was not the result of something that someone did to you – it could be that you watched someone important to you (eg, Mother or Father) acting in a certain way, and you incorporated (modelled) that behaviour.
- Probably the most useful thing to keep in mind when trying to figure out where and how your Shadows developed, is to recognise that your Adult Mind is very different to your Child Mind. As a child, your logic and way of looking at events is very different from and adult’s thinking. For example, as a child you think that everything revolves around you. So, if something goes wrong in the home, a child tends to think that they ‘caused’ the event, or that it reflects on them in some way. This is very important to understand, as events in the past which you now ‘understand’ with your Adult Mind, were viewed very differently as a child – the logic is very different. When working with your Shadows, try to see childhood events from the Child Mind’s perspective, and not from your present Adult Mind.
- Yes, one event can create more than one Shadow. Often, the Shadows are woven together. This is normal.
- No, this has nothing to do with blaming anyone, especially your parents. They did what they did, for reasons of their own. However, the Shadows develop due to the DECISIONS YOU MADE in response to what they did. You are responsible for these decisions, not the events. You have the power to change the decisions you made in the past. The events are incidental – they merely form the context or scenario in which the decisions were made. Focus on the decisions, and how they affect you today.
- It is perfectly normal not to remember the exact nature of events in which the Shadows developed. It takes an enormous amount of time to access distant memories, especially events of pain. It is natural for your mind to cover up painful memories.
- Remember: The purpose of working through your Shadows is to obtain some perspective of your present behaviour – it is not an exercise in psychotherapy or analysis! All that is required is that you get an idea of the fact that a specific Shadow is operating in your life, and that you have an idea of where it comes from. The finest details of the past are not important. Also remember that you have ‘discovered’ these Shadows very recently – it takes a long time to really understand where they come from and how they affect you.
- It bears saying again: Your Shadows are NOT your ‘real self’, nor your ‘personality’. They merely represent what you BELIEVE you are – they are NOT who you really are.