To put it another way, you go away from the workshop with a set of beliefs about yourself which expand rather than limit your way of being in the world.
This is what is meant by “healing” your shadow. The word healing means taking out of your unconscious the thoughts, feelings and behaviours caused by traumatic, painful or damaging emotional wounds during your childhood, and putting in place a different emotional “program” which allows you to step around or beyond the limitations of the past and assume your rightful power, presence and potency in the world. We’ll look more at this process in the next chapter.
Chapter 7
Emotional Process Work:
Becoming Who You Were Always Meant To Be
Imagine that when you were a child your mother was too concerned with her own emotional wounds and difficulties to provide you with the loving care and attention you deserved. Maybe she was openly hostile or conveyed the message she didn’t love you. Ever since then you’ve found it hard to trust women or to open yourself fully in an intimate relationship.
Intuitively you know this lack of trust and openness arises because somewhere inside you there’s a young and tender “inner child”, a part of you which was wounded by your mother’s actions. You also intuitively realize that as an adult man, making yourself vulnerable to women may lead to you re-experiencing that pain.
Or maybe you don’t realize that, because every time you get into a relationship, the same thing happens – you get hurt again, or you regress and begin to feel like a little boy frustrated with his mummy. That’s because of some unconscious beliefs about women which developed during childhood and which still lie inside you, waiting for the right trigger before they make you regress into little boy mode. No matter how powerful you really are, there are circumstances which can stop you standing in your mature masculinity. In fact, you feel powerless in the presence of a woman who behaves like your mummy did, all those years ago.
But why? At some time, for some very good reason, you unconsciously created a set of beliefs about how you “have” to be when you’re in a relationship with a woman if you’re to get love, or what passes for love. And this was shaped by what you learned about relationships with women from being with your mother.
No matter what the particular circumstances you faced in your own life, this example illustrates how we all behave in ways which recreate emotional challenges or emotional pain, without really understanding why. Fact is, there are as many personal issues which men and women may want to work on as there are men and women in the world. Speaking of which, what are we actually dealing with here? What can you explore, resolve, heal, rebalance or repair in an emotional process work or shadow work workshop? Here are a few:
Abandonment, loss of loved ones, lack of love. Shame, humiliation, disrespect. Boarding school. Bullying. Issues with sexuality. Lack of sexual interest. Absent fathers (oh, the number of men who had inadequate or absent fathers). Absent mothers. Smothering mothers. Narcissistic mothers. Angry mothers. Abuse, be it sexual, physical, or emotional. Your lack of leadership in your own life. Not knowing what you want, or not knowing how to get what you want. A sense of powerlessness, impotence or inadequacy. Lack of self esteem. Poor boundaries, an inability to say “No” (or “Yes”). Lack of assertiveness. Not knowing what love is or how to find it. Being overwhelmed by the need for love. Inability to stand up to the masculine. Inability to stand firm in the face of the feminine. Not feeling masculine, or feeling too feminine. Not feeling anything. Dysfunctional behaviour. Loneliness. Lack of friendships. Rage, grief, despair. Anxiety and fear. Not seeing any reason to live. Finding a purpose in life. Compulsions and addictions. Unmourned losses and the grief you carry.
Well, you get the idea: just about anything.
Emotional process workshops are one setting in which you can “work” on your shadow, or if you prefer, “heal” your shadow. In such a workshop, participants and facilitators start by getting to know and trust each other, so the group develops both strength and safety; enough safety for men and women to explore their problems and challenges, and their desire for change, without the fear of being hurt once again.
Most importantly, we create a safe “container” in which men (and women in our mixed groups) are respected and in control of what happens at all times. This is the container in which you can work on your shadow. This is the container in which you are “held” as you explore the parts of yourself which carry your emotional wounds.
There are many techniques which allow us, together, to replay the drama of your past, but this time to give it a different outcome. It’s like rewriting the last act of the play so that you get the outcome you desire. In the example at the start of this chapter, this might be the ability to open up to women and show your vulnerability so that you can give and receive love fully, openly and without feeling fear.
The results of emotional process work can be almost miraculous because the work goes right back to the heart of your deepest emotional issues. And these techniques work fast because they are action-oriented and direct. In fact, I believe that a 90 minute session of deep personal work in a group setting, a safe space where you can re-enact parts of your life’s drama and experience a different outcome, can be as effective as three months of weekly one-to-one classical counselling or talking therapy.
One To One Work On Your Shadow
A very good alternative to group work is to do your emotional healing work in a one-to-one setting with an experienced facilitator, a shadow healer who is well versed in working with these emotional wounds and issues.
Sure, the techniques are different, but the outcome is just as dramatic: you can quickly resolve the issues and challenges that are affecting the quality of your life.
How do group work and individual work compare? The most obvious benefit of working in a group is that you are not alone; you are witnessed and supported. Most of the wounds which men and women experienced during childhood were borne alone, so to be witnessed in your personal healing work in a group can be a powerful restorative and reparative experience in itself. In addition, each group can generate a very special heart-centred energy which helps to hold the participants in a sense of emotional security and hasten their emotional transformation.
The obvious benefit of working one to one is that you can move at the pace which suits you best. The session is more focused on you, and you have the full attention of the facilitator for as long as you are in the room.
Perhaps the best way of doing your work is to combine a series of personal sessions with a group session every three months or so. This seems to really speed up progress for most people.
To recap:
There are some clear signs if you are dealing with shadow energies in your life:
First, once upon a day you made a choice not to be a certain way in the world. You did this for a very good reason, usually concerned with maintaining your “safety” in your family or some other highly charged setting like boarding school. That safety may have been emotional, physical or spiritual.
Second, consciously or unconsciously, you put certain unwanted thoughts, feelings and behaviours into your shadow bag.
Third, you find this energy sometimes bursts out in your life today, uncontrollably and unexpectedly. Often it looks different to when it went into your shadow bag.
Fourth, when it does burst out, it feels as if the energy is in control of you. It may even feel as if it has no connection with you. (“Where did that come from?”)
Which all adds up to this: when an energy goes into shadow, it grows, and later in life when you find yourself in a situation – as you surely will – which mirrors the original situation in your childhood in some way, you’ll find yourself behaving in a way you don’t want to behave, doing what you don’t want to do, and saying things you don’t want to say. All apparently without any control.
You might find yourself shouting at your children, your wife or your girlfriend, thinking awful thoughts about hitting
your children, cowering in front of a dominant boss, allowing people to walk all over you, not speaking up when you need to, experiencing violent images and thoughts, crying uncontrollably – and a million and one other unhelpful things.
In either a group workshop or a one-to-one setting you can dive deep into the causes of these behaviours and explore and understand them. Then you can literally embody a different way of being in the world: a more authentic, genuine and balanced way of being. A way of being which reflects who you really are.
Men who work on their shadow in this way discover that when they’re in a provocative or triggering situation they have more control over how they respond. This lets them consciously choose how to respond to situations and events which would previously have “triggered” them to react without thinking.
That’s the difference – in the past you would have just reacted without much control as shadowy energy burst or maybe even exploded out of you, most likely leaving you feeling bad afterwards. When you’ve worked on your shadow you’ll find you can choose how to respond to events. You’ll develop mastery of your old behaviour patterns and be able to change them into something much more helpful for your life today. What’s most amazing is that almost any historical experience can be transformed in this way.
There are facilitation techniques which allow you to work on an emotional issue without having to explain the historical details, if that’s better for you. Such techniques can help with all kinds of abuse where you may not wish to reveal the details of what happened to you.
These workshops are also an effective way to develop the power of an archetype if you don’t have enough strength in that area.
Suppose you want to strengthen your Warrior so you can set boundaries with people – which might mean finding ways to say a clear “No” or a definite “Yes”. You can start by finding out how and why (and by whom) the power to set boundaries was taken away from you; then you can develop the ability to set clear boundaries effectively.
Or suppose your issue is not feeling good enough. You might start exploring this, and discover that you came to believe you were not good enough because your father never praised you or was never satisfied with your achievements.
So you might set up a dynamic where you receive blessing and approval from the ideal loving father you never had. This is a profound process, for the part of you still looking out for a Dad’s love and approval will accept it eagerly. What happens then? Your sense of self-worth and self-esteem will immediately rise and your beliefs about yourself will change, so that suddenly you know, with a certainty you’ve never experienced before, that you are indeed worthy of praise, attention, and love.
Just one more example: if you’re having difficulties in your relationship with a loved one, you could go a long way to resolving those difficulties with a piece of work in which you explore the origins of your current beliefs, feelings and behaviours. As you explore how these things started, you bring the energy which drove them to come into existence out of shadow and into your awareness. Then you can own it fully. As you do this, you will gain new power and control which allows you to respond in a different and much more adult way to what happens in your relationship today.
As I suggested before, in emotional process work, when you’re working on healing your shadow, you embrace what has been repressed and denied. You embrace it, you bring it into your conscious awareness, and you discover how to control it as servant rather than master. And it works! In over twenty years of working in the world of therapy, I have never seen a more powerful and effective system of personal growth and development than working on your shadow in this way.
But there’s more to these workshops than resolving emotional issues from your past, important though that is. You can also enhance and develop the energies which are a bit lacking in you. For example, if you’re out of touch with any of your emotions, you can find ways of accessing those emotions and experiencing them fully.
If you aren’t sure how to set boundaries with somebody, or you don’t know how to express your needs, wishes and desires, you can discover ways to do this in the safe workshop space or in one to one work with a skilled facilitator.
If you can’t understand why your life seems limited in some ways, or you can’t find ways to get what you want, you can explore the energy that’s holding you back. Often the limiting factor is a strategy designed by your Magician archetype and intended to keep you safe during childhood. Sure, that may have served you well in the past, but today – well, it’s not necessarily so useful!
Ways of being in the world which you learned when you were five, seven, or ten years old need to be updated so you can transform them into something much more useful in your life today. Together, you and your facilitator can find ways to encourage the part of you that’s dedicated to keeping you safe (but is stuck in the past) to turn his attention to doing something much more relevant and helpful for you in your life as an adult man.
As you see, emotional process work is versatile and offers almost unlimited possibilities for change, but through it all runs a single theme: it will help you become the person you were always meant to be, before the world got in the way. If you’re interested in Emotional Process Work or workshops focused on the art of “Healing Your Shadow”, please check out the next chapter of the book.
Chapter 8
Resources:
Places To Work On Your Shadow
Here’s a selection of facilitators who are well trained and experienced in working with the shadow and emotional issues from the past and present. Each of them has provided some information about how they approach their work.
Groups For Men (UK)
Rod Boothroyd, Diarmaid Fitzpatrick & Ed Rooke run regular Shadow Workshops for men.
They also offer one to one coaching, and you can find details about that lower down the page.
The current group workshops they have scheduled for men are listed on https://www.strongfreemen.co.uk
Rod: “I work with men individually and in groups to heal the wounds of childhood in every Archetype. And beyond healing, I work with men to guide them as they explore and access their unexpressed power and potency in the world, so they can be fully who they were always meant to be. Together we explore unconscious shadows, find ways to heal them, and strengthen the power and potency of your Sovereign, the leader within you. I’ve worked with hundreds of men in groups and one to one settings over the past few years, bringing my training in psychotherapy to complement my vast experience and training in working with the shadow.”
Website: https://www.strongfreemen.co.uk
Phone: 07788 502 902
Email: [email protected]
Diarmaid: “As a Certified Shadow Work Facilitator, I see my role as being about enabling people to identify and break free of long standing limiting beliefs and behaviours. By doing so they can more enjoyable, fulfilling and purposeful lives. Of all the personal development skills I’ve learned over many years of personal development I find Shadow Work to be the most effective because it reveals the deeper issues underpinning life’s challenges, helps heal old wounds and transforms long standing traumas.”
Website: https://www.strongfreemen.co.uk
Ed writes: “I first became interested in the power of emotional healing as it allowed me to recover from a chronic illness 15 years ago. Since this time I have been deeply engaged with many meditative and therapeutic disciplines, as well as formal training in Psychology (PhD), Hypnotherapy, Generative Coaching and Shadow Work. My approach has also been greatly influenced through extensive training with relationship expert Jan Day. I offer a unique sensitivity and presence in the way I work which often allows clients to rediscover the subtle parts of their unconscious which underlie their recurrent patterns. I care deeply about helping men reconnect with lost parts of themselves, so that they can rediscover who they truly are.”
Website: https://www.edrooke.com
* * * * *
Groups For
Women (UK)
Please contact Marianne Hill to check what she currently has scheduled. Read more about Marianne on the next page.
Website: https://www.healingtheshadow.co.uk
Phone: 01373 300 749
Email: [email protected]
Mixed Gender Group Work (UK)
1) Marianne Hill and Rod Boothroyd offer a wide variety of workshops for mixed gender groups, including closed groups which meet regularly over six or twelve months, as well as intensive residential workshops.
Website: https://www.healingtheshadow.co.uk
Phone: 01373 300 749
Email: [email protected]
Marianne writes: “I believe deeply in the transformative power of non-judgemental acceptance – where all parts of us are welcomed, heard and compassionately held. Only then can the most vulnerable parts of ourselves come forward into the light, knowing it is a safe place to be, and that they may finally be witnessed and transformed. I have been working deeply with the shadow for the last 12 years. Initially working as a Shadow Work Facilitator and Coach, I have adapted, expanded and enriched this work over time. In my Healing The Shadow practice I draw on my other twin passions of relationship work and body work and have created a strong and safe framework of holding which allows profound change to take place and be integrated. I am deeply committed to providing a compassionate and transformative place for people who wish to explore and heal their shadow side.”
Rod writes: “Working with women and men in a mixed group provides a rich and fulfilling opportunity to heal the historical wounds which have arisen between men and women. Add this to the opportunity for individual healing work which gradually restores full emotional health and repairs the emotional wounding we experience at the hands of our families and others, and I believe this work makes the world a safer place for everyone – women, men and children alike.”
Warrior, Magician, Lover, King Page 21