I Learned to Eat my Shadow

February 15 2023

I know I talk a lot here about self improvement. I believe in it because I’ve seen great results with it. I also believe in getting help with some of the heavier lifting.

While black booking, rituals, talismanic incantations, affirmations, servitors, imaginal work, shadow work,and divination have yielded wonderful results and subtle changes to me, I am still struggling with moderation and curbing my reactions to certain things. There’s a therapist in my area and I have begun weekly sessions.

I talked about my spiritual pactices and studies through the lense of the psychological model with talk of affirmations, archtypes, messages from your subconscious, the source of inspiration, I Ching study, and meditation.

I think that interest in personality change through esoteric efforts can be enough for some, but the right goals with the right help are needed for others.

Society thrives on our ability to specialize into a field and get further than an industrious lay person would. I will attempt some home improvement projects, but I leave the structural stuff and utilities to professionals. Mental health and personality change work the same way for me.

Be well!

Update May 19 2023

After a couple months of weekly sessions, I stopped seeing the therapist. I went to my doctor and got diagnosed with Major Depressive Disorder and began taking Welbutrin. A couple weeks on the medicine has REALLY turned me around. I’ve got energy and a bit of optimism again. I know it’s not a permanent solution, but it’s a nice balm while I do shadow work. The shadow is the part(s) of your personality you hide, repress, or deny. Accepting and acting through those parts in healthy ways is eating or reintegrating the shadow.

For that I’m attending the ManKind Project’s virtual intro to Men’s work right now. Community and local friendships are going to be a major part of my healing after the virtual three week program. Check them out here: https://mkpusa.org/. If anyone is aware of women’s circles or group circles that aren’t gendered, please share them in the comments. This work can benefit everyone.

Updated May 30 2023

I’ve done it! I reintegrated my People Pleaser shadow. Rather than letting it carry me off into misery, I use its urge for acceptance to face conflict. This empowers me to resist escapist tendencies.

I want to avoid being like my estranged father, which I see as being loyal and agreeable. It’s unlikely I can change that, but knowing it allows me to recontextualize. I don’t want to abandon my loved ones like my he did, so I can’t escape into projects, spirituality, and indulgences.

The journey has only just started though. Robert Bly, in A Little Book on the Human Shadow, describes how everyone carries several shadows. I’m going to eat (reintegrate) all that I can.

Updated 7/23/2023

A couple years ago I read and did a bit of work on Uncle Ramsey’s Little Book of Demons. I created one called Feast and Famine to personify my struggle with moderation. Since I’ve been working with the eight trigrams of I Ching and correlating them with the eight Colors of Chaos, and the seven classic planets plus Uranus. I view this system (or hodgepodge of systems for those inclined toward semantic panics) as the eight modes of human experience: body, mind, passion, intuition, ancestral learning, celestial learning, looking into the world, looking within oneself.

I interact with deities, inner allies, elemental energies, and servitors all within this framework. It occurred to me that these interactions are personality integration on the level of the psychological model. Identifying and personifying a two faced demon for each of these eight modes of being would not only allow me to integrate all the shadows that are currently acting out their own rogue plans.

I drew a picture and wrote a poem for each as a page on my Grimoire of Talismanic Incantations (aka my Creepy Affirmation Journal). They are now honored once a week along with all my other Allies. I’ve also been visiting each one in the Imagination Zone. The talks range from wrestling, to pep talking, to compromise, and making demands. They all end in me eating the demon. Each has a unique flavor. Blye was correct when he asserted that this act of seemingly childish play had deep symbolic purpose.

I still intend to continue my work with ManKind Project, but I’m feeling like I may be through the “Dark Night of the Soul.”