When Shadow Becomes Light: A Portal to Authentic Connection
A reflection from our recent gathering with 32 brave souls
I woke up this morning feeling super depressed, and I just wanted to leave. There were thoughts around ending my line of work. It was just too much.
The previous evening had left our circle fragmented, tension had erupted, safety was compromised, and I felt all of that inside of me. I was overwhelmed. And underneath, there was a rage. I could feel a kind of powerlessness rage of, "I don't know what to do."
In that moment of feeling incapable of figuring it all out, I knew I needed support. So I reached out to one of my assistants, and over tea in the kitchen, I began to share where I was at. She reflected back my pain, validated the fragmentation I felt, and reminded me of my capacity to meet others in their darkest moments, just as I had met her when she had completely collapsed after becoming a mother, losing her business and partner.
Feeling her devotion and validation of my vulnerability, my tears, rage, sadness, and desire to escape—I felt the power that comes from speaking the truth. The kind of truth that people can trust, that invites others to accept what they're feeling and hold it and sit in the fire and allow it to alchemize.
The Invitation Into Shadow
The plan I had for the day completely changed. Instead of avoiding the fragmentation, I decided to invite it fully. I wanted to go into the shadow, into my escape mechanisms, my behaviors when triggered. I wanted to go into my judgments, projections, and dark stories about others. I wanted to go through “hell to heaven” with them. I wanted to come back to love through diving into the compost pile and begin to share what was hidden from each other.
I wanted to make bridges of material that we usually felt too vulnerable to reveal, to offer on an altar of love.
When I opened up to my colleagues and our 32 participants, people began to share how they'd lost trust in the space, were thinking about leaving, felt disconnected. There was mistrust, confusion, collapse, frustration, anger, judgment.
And when I began to share and invite people in, saying "just like me, I'm right there with you," I felt the connection.
The Alchemy Begins
We went deep into shadow behaviors, those avoidance patterns, people-pleasing patterns, and other behaviors that are initially unconscious but become something we can change by just owning them and sharing them.
We explored projections and what we usually keep hidden, what we're afraid that if we share, we'll be seen as unkind, our inner darkness will be revealed, or we might hurt others. We found a way to soften it with the frame: "The story I make up about you is..." and then "what that reveals about myself is..."
The breakthrough came with our “hot seat” exercise, where each person received projections from four others for five minutes. All five group members got to receive, and they were lit up. They wanted more. They had so much love and so much freedom, and it really moved mountains.
At the end of this hot seat, it was almost like all the anger, all the distance, everything that was between them had evaporated. They were now free to be themselves and be loved as they are and welcomed, even with their projections of others. It was normalized, it was humanized. It was something that united us.
From Compost to Gold
We rounded off by moving the energy, reversing all the swallowing down of judgments, projections and dark thoughts, all the times we hadn't said no, hadn't spoken our opinion because we were afraid. We moved that emotion in connection, first with small groups and then with everyone else.
We went into forgiveness: "If I hurt you, I'm sorry." Then love and appreciation. It was a whole other group, now bonded through shadow behavior awareness, full ownership and sharing of projections, and passionate emotional expression in connection.
We opened our hearts saying: "I'm sorry if I hurt you. Thank you for letting me project my unfinished business on you. And I love you and this is what I appreciate about you."
An Invitation for Reflection
When was the last time you were able to truly hold yourself when you felt like collapsing and running away?
When did you last let yourself be felt, seen and heard in your most vulnerable state?
This is how we build embodied and authentic connection. This is how we deepen emotional intimacy and create deeper bonding. This is how we create a field of permission for others' darkness to surface, integrate, and open for more aliveness, connection and creativity.
When we openheartedly share what we least want others to see, we open a portal of healing, freedom of expression and community healing.
I'm so grateful for the pain that showed up that morning, that almost overwhelming rage and escape pattern. I'm grateful for the friends I've made and the people who are there for me when I let them. And I'm grateful for the work itself that now lives not just in me, but in people around me.
We can really be with the fire together and let it take us somewhere into this alchemical journey of making gold out of lead, of stirring the compost pile so that it becomes the most fertilizing soil for the most amazing blossoming of all of us.
There's so much love, so much joy, so much play, so much camaraderie, so much respect, so much presence and playfulness and creativity and so much love and laughter and joy.