The Shadow Effect

A quick recap:  Since I started this blog as a sort of very occasional consciousness diary for myself in 2007.  A lot has changed since then.  Things continue to do so, and overall that's good, as change is good.  I've often had to reinvent myself as I've plotted along this path of life and I also think that is a good thing.  One who sits and just looks without moving, inevitably just sits.  I have my mosaic that I've talked about in earlier posts... my reality tunnel through which I perceive the world.  I actively deconstructed the one that I grew up with, starting in the mid 90s with a mantra of "clear the static" in the hopes of opening up and exploring my inner self. 

That process continues, albeit increasingly in terms of frequency.  Maybe that just happens if we're open to it as we age.  I have been to the aforementioned Lake Shrine several times now, and the awareness that I attained after my first trip there has stayed with me, along with a deeper sense of insight into a lot of things.  It's palpable at times.  People who have known me often use the word "deep" to describe me.  Diving, as it were, into the realms within one's self have now taken a leap that I didn't know was there, although in reality I did somehow.

I had learned in school about the Shadow Self, and have had the occasional conversation with others about it, but for some reason it was never anything that I took the time to explore actively within myself.  The whole concept was this sort of nebulous blob that I associated with my id in the Freudian sense, the deepest part of my being, that I viewed as my dreamscape alone for some reason, despite traveling to the same place via meditation.  I am rather eccentric in a savant-like way sometimes.  Perhaps I had put a wall up and remained, for the most part, oblivious to the idea that my shadow self contained individual, identifiable components.  Or maybe... I didn't really place too much emphasis on direct exploration earlier within myself because I was already doing it in other ways... unguided journeys brought on by various stimuli in my younger years and through character exploration later in acting, which I explored for about six years.

The lid really blew off for me this week when I discovered Debbie Ford and her film, "The Shadow Effect".  There had been a noticeable shift in awareness since my first visit to the Shrine.  Whether the Shrine had anything to do with it or not is questionable, however, the convergence of several other things mentioned in previous posts, Dark Night of the Soul among them, certainly played a role in the timing of this event for me.  I've never ordered any material from Debbie, nor have I seen the film until this point, despite wanting to.  I have mixed reactions to commoditized  self-help items.  Sometimes I indulge, but if if someone is pushing merchandise as my ticket to some new awareness, they can forget it.  I left studying Kabbalah at the local center for that reason.  Thankfully, this time I didn't have to (buy anything).  After watching the trailer I took the process of identifying my shadow components into active meditation with intent.  It's not difficult as long as you're honest with yourself.  These are parts the Self that we are all-too familiar with, yet refrain for the most part from sharing in public.  If and when we do, if we're not balanced with a shadow component, it can have disastrous effects, as the movie trailer shows.

This is rare for me... on my first attempt, many things fell into place.  First, I realized that I had already identified a few shadow components almost immediately.  I had already brought some of these larger components, albeit craftily in some areas but usually with some effort, and in the settings in which they had manifested at their times, with love.  The largest component took the longest and was the hardest.  In hindsight it has also been the most worthwhile.  These components have to do with part of my personality.  Some came out within my acting experiences, others in other places.  I've played characters my whole life, so in that respect it's nothing new.  But Debbie's process involves seeking out those parts of yourself, inviting them to come to you one by one, to acknowledge them as part of yourself and thank them for their assistance when they've helped you.  

For example, an angry component of your shadow self has probably protected you when others have hurt you.  The point is acknowledgment, thanks and then sending love to that part of yourself.  I have since reflected that if these components are a key to expanding one's awareness and growing as a being.  I spent one long evening sifting through all kinds of stuff in my mind, trying to identify as many components as I could find.  Ultimately, I could only find three main ones, although each had less powerful personalities.  At one point after pondering the three primaries for some time, an image of four triangles appeared in my mind.  It no sooner appeared than the outer triangles all shifted counter-clockwise, rotating on their sides until the one on the left had moved to become the top of the larger triangle.  I had an epiphany and it felt as though I had crossed some kind of line in terms of self realization.

What I saw was an equilateral triangle.  The center triangle, I felt, was a representation of my essence on a soul-like level.  Once I had seen the triangle and subsequent shifting of the outer parts, and I thought about how I had been engaging my shadows for the most part openly for some time, I felt more whole as a being than I have in some time.  I wondered if this was part of the "remembering" that I have been chasing after all of these years.  Certainly in terms of providing context in served a similar person.  

I walked away from the meditation with what seemed like a quantum leap of awareness, as if I had found a discarded schematic for an electronic device that I was trying to understand.  Things have really been moving swiftly lately.  I feel like for a time I have been making some progress in terms of raising my vibration and understanding my true nature as a conscious being.  This experience is a breakthrough for me; huge... and it was right in front of my face all along.  Connecting the dots illuminated what is a different world view, an enhanced mosaic.