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Creating Sustainable Change
I mean, not just checking things off a to-do list or focusing on an employee survey score and raising it. This is about really feeling a sense of awe because together you did something different this time. You found the high leverage points to achieve success. You had real conversations with your co-workers that inspired creative thinking. There was no fear of conflict and you eliminated surface talk. It can happen. It does happen. Are you up for it?
Afraid of Our Own Shadows
So February 2 is Groundhog Day and all eyes are on the Groundhog – will he or won’t he see his shadow? If he does, he will retreat back in his burrow and winter will continue for six more weeks.
I wish I could do that every time I see my shadow; hide under the covers and rest for awhile. But unfortunately, it’s not that easy.
Some of us are familiar with the concept: The Shadow.
In Jungian psychology, the shadow is a part of the unconscious mind, consisting of repressed weaknesses, shortcomings or instincts.
In every day life, our shadow can emerge in self-sabatoging, uncontrollable behaviors that can muck things up.
It all starts innocently. As children, we develop coping mechanisms to deal with the world around us. It doesn’t matter how healthy, happy or tragic your childhood was, we all did it. We created stories and mechanisms to protect ourselves. As we get older, some of those stories no longer serve us, but we play them out in unconscious ways and create patterns or behaviors that get in our way of our authentic self. The more these patterns play out, the farther away we are from our true self.
Here are some simple examples of how our shadow plays itself out in daily life.
- You learned as a child that the best way to get approval from mom and dad was to keep your head down and get good grades. So you do that at work and avoid taking risks and stay with what’s easy, or secure vs. doing what you love to do and is unfamiliar.
- You use distractions to avoid feeling what you’re feeling: watching TV, cleaning/organizing, staying busy all the time, having a glass of wine, unconscious eating, addiction to checking email or surfing the net, overworking. You know you do it, and you don’t necessarily like it, but for some reason, the pattern persists.
- You keep finding jobs or bosses that are difficult to work with, every where you go, so you either stick with them and are miserable, or hop job to job/boss to boss, determined to find the right “place” but there’s always something wrong every where you go.
- There’s something about a certain type of person that triggers you every time, you’re not sure why, but the trigger is always there.
I could go on for days with the list – heck, my personal list of shadow behaviors would be long.
The trick is creating some awareness of our shadow and embracing it – not judging ourselves for it, but understanding it, inviting it into our lives as a way of going deeper into understanding of self. When we’re aware of something, we have more ability to control how we respond to it. When we’re unaware of it, it tends to control us.
I hope we can all be inspired to ”Embrace our shadow” and own our “stuff.” We all carry baggage around, but it’s those that take the time to unpack it that I admire most. It’s not easy, it’s not always fun, but it gets us closer to the most authentic form of who we’re meant to be. And in the end, I’m not sure what’s more important than being true to ourselves. When we are, we’re better off and everyone around us is as well.
When we’re authentic, we’re in flow, time is on our side, we’re happy, healthy, and can serve others with higher abilities. We get more “done” and we love what we’re doing. It feels right. It feels good.
So, how do you start this dance with your shadow?
Here are some suggestions:
Journal - start writing every day and reflecting on what’s coming up for you – what patterns are you witnessing in yourself that you feel might not be serving you well. Here are some great questions to explore through journalling:
- What patterns am I starting to notice in myself?
- what or who tends to trigger me or cause strong reactions in me? What might that say about me? What can I learn from it?
- What fears do I have and are they based on old stories?
- What do I avoid doing and why?
- What do I do, and who do I hang out with that feeds my energy? What are some patterns you notice in this list?
- What do I do, and who do I hang out with that drains my energy? What are some patterns you notice in this list?
- When am I most in flow or feel most alive?
Start meditating or reflecting daily - give yourself some space to just “be” – sit and breathe for a bit, even five minutes a day, helps create some space in your head to let new thoughts and ideas emerge.
If you have an Insights Discovery profile, use it to discuss with your coach or facilitator to understand where you shadow behaviors come from.
Read - see my list of suggestions under Resources.
Take a class – Debbie Ford has great classes/lectures (www.debbieford.com) as does the Shadow Work Center (www.shadowwork.com)
Learn about Jungian Psychology and Archetypes - go on Wikipedia, or read “A Short Introduction to Jung” by Stevens.
Get a coach that has a psychological background
Find a Jungian Therapist (they specialize in shadow work)
Call me – anytime, I’m happy to discuss or get your started
I’m not sure what will happen on February 2nd when the ground hog comes out. All I know is, I’ve lived in Chicago my entire life, and as much as I’d like this ground hog to have an affect on shortening our miserable winter, I’ve learned that it ain’t over ’til it’s over.