Okay, now for something completely different. In case you haven’t noticed I’m one of those upbeat, optimistic people who are always drinking out of glasses that are half full. But as we all know life is not all rainbows and unicorns. Life has a knack for handing us the lessons we need to learn. Like it or not, learn it or not. Although I will say unlearned lessons will just keep showing up until we pay attention to them.

So there is no time like now to do a little shadow work, as the Jungian’s would say.

Here is a great little exercise I picked up from one of Ann Ulanov’s books. She has many, and they are all good. Just be warned you need a sense of humor for this one. They don’t call it shadow work for nothing.

Take a piece of paper and a pencil and think for a moment about someone you really can’t stand. This is someone who gets under your skin and irritates you. Why? You don’t really know why they just do. There is a distinction here. This is not someone who has hurt you of betrayed you, or anything like that. This is more of a person you just detest. They just rub you the wrong way for no particular reason. OK,  now write their name at the top of the page.

Now here is where it gets fun. Write down everything you can’t stand about them. Big, little, in between, just write it all down. Don’t leave one thing out, don’t hold back. Do they have that irritating smirk, hyena laugh, are they insensitive, condescending? List everything down.

When you’ve exhausted all the many irritating faults they possess erase their name from the top and write your own.

Yes, it’s a real bummer isn’t it? This is where the sense of humor comes in. (I hope you find even a hint of this funny.) Shadow work is not for sissies. The whole point is that we spend most of our lives in projection. It is hard work to see what is going on in ourselves, but fairly simple to see where everyone else is completely blowing it.

Doing something like this gives a bit of perspective. It helps us see our blind spots. In order to start addressing what is happening inside we first have to see it. Typically those people who irritate us for some unknown reason, or no reason at all, hold the key to what we need to look at inside of us. I think it’s kind of like hating the realization that you’re slowly turning into your mother (or father) and after all that work we’ve done not to be anything like them!

That’s the shadow, it’s working there silently in the background and if you don’t pay attention it overruns you. I love this exercise because it’s a starting point. It helps orient us to what’s really going on inside, and how we project our issues onto others. Then when we run into those people who drive us crazy we can actually do something about it besides complain.  

That still doesn’t mean you have to like them, or hang out with them for that matter.

Here’s to making the most our dark side!

kb