Working with Your Shadow, II An Imperative on the Spiritual Path Lazaris Well, the Shadow can seem a bit overwhelming {laughter} hostility, martyrhood, and self-pity. But you see, what gets denied—whether it is stuff that you were taught and conditioned to believe, or what you denied because you couldn't handle it—becomes part of the Shadow. All the stuff the adaptive child elbowed out of the way so as to be the idealized self, so as to survive—the stuff that the adolescent, in its panic and need for order and stability, scattered in order to be accepted—become part of the Shadow. All this energy of aggression and avarice, all that you won't be and or think you can pretend not to be responsible for gets shoved down in you. And once it's shoved down, it has to come up at you—in the world, in the players around you, in the intimates of your life, in the stuff of your reality. When you can own it, then it doesn't have to happen out there in your world, in the stuff of your reality. You don't have to keep tripping over it, banging into it, being confronted by it. When you can own it—and after the ownership, make peace—then it doesn't have to come at you. In fact, it won't come at you. Likewise, the beautiful Shadow, so often ignored in most explorations—all the power and spirituality, all the genuine agendas of destiny, all that masculine energy and feminine energy that is so incredibly poignantly powerful and beautiful—doesn't have to seem outside of you, either. It doesn't have to be beyond your reach as you admire and envy those who seem to have what you miss, those that seem to have all that power, those that seem to have all that spirituality, all that strength and beauty and wonder. Why not me? Because that, too, you deny in yourself. Regardless of the words you wrap yourself in—if you deny it in yourself, it has to come up at you in the world and in the people around you. But when it can come through you, then you can create its becoming conscious. Then you are not just a witness, but a participant—not just a spectator, but a vital participant, a player. All that beautiful stuff that you so long to have, that somehow you know you already have, can be a reality for you. So often you've said, I know I'm powerful, but why doesn't my reality reflect it? Because you're not owning it from your Shadow. You may long for it, desire it, wish to embrace it and grab onto it. I have affirmations. I have positive statements, positive thoughts, but it's not mine. But to whatever extent it is there, it is not there with the depth or with the richness and ripeness there could be. Yes, the awareness and the information seem at times cumbersome, at times overwhelming, and depressing. But when you can own and then make peace with your Shadow—have an alliance with your Shadow—there is such a beauty, such an incredible wonder that on this side of the Shadow seems impossible—words to long for, to beat yourself up with, to feel in pain with—but on the other side of the Shadow they seem not only reachable, but are already in your grasp. So how do you own this Shadow? How do you own this Shadow? I) Working With Your Higher Self First of all, we suggest sitting with your Higher Self or with one of your counselors or one of your Guides (or whoever of your Unseen Friends seems most appropriate). Sit with your Higher Self and talk about the misunderstandings (these are given in Part 1). Sit down and talk with your Higher Self about this one that was born with you who holds sacred and protects and to return to you the litter as well as the treasures you have left behind. Talk to your Higher Self about this being that wears the mask of all you have denied, but which is really a living, breathing, conscious entity that exists within the vastness of you. The Shadow is not a complex, but rather is a being that is complicated. Talk about the truths:
Understanding that the Shadow is the enemy of the Negative Ego.
Understanding that the Shadow always tells the truth and the Negative Ego always lies.
Understanding more clearly what ownership means, what peace means.
And understanding that this Shadow—that you've run from, that you've hidden from, that you've tried to deny—holds the lost depth of Soul and Spirit, the creativity and imagination so essential to your spirituality. Sit with your Higher Self and talk about which of the misunderstandings are yours. Change the raw materials, the beliefs and attitudes, the thoughts and feelings, and the choices and decisions you make about your own Shadow. That's where ownership begins, in clearing up the misunderstandings. There are the seven we've suggested, and there may be others your Higher Self tells you of. II) The Reflections The second step is to look outside yourself. Look outside yourself at what we call The Reflections of your Shadow. Look to your family: mother, father, siblings. For some of you, there will be an extended family of grandparents, aunts and uncles, etc., depending on the size of your family. Look to your family. They are not your Shadow, but reflections of your Shadow. Look to your body, your physical form. For that is a reflection of your Shadow: too tall, too short, too heavy, too thin, disfigured here, deformed there, malady here, malady there. Look to the body—not as the absolute, but as a clue. Look out there to the family and to the body for what it's trying to say to you. Look to the players in your reality. A player is an acquaintance that you always encounter. It may be someone at work. It may be a boss. It may be someone that you see every morning on the elevator. It may be somebody that you run into every third day at the 7-11. They're not intimate friends. You don't feel a closeness, a tenderness, a vulnerability or a trust with them. They're just people you deal with on a very regular basis. They're players, not just extras. They're players in your play. That person: I always see them. I don't even know who they are. I've never met them. We've never talked other than a nod here or there. That's a player. This person who sits next to me, or that works across the hall from me, or that I have to deal with in this or that department. Look to them. Then look to the intimates, for often you will fall in love with your Shadow {laughter} or you'll give your Shadow to them. Maybe they weren't that way when you began, but now they are. Sometimes those of you who are so afraid of your own aggression, so terrified to admit that you might have an aggressive bone in your body, will marry someone or find yourself in an intimate relationship with someone who expresses not only their aggression, but your aggression as well. And it's not just your darkness they may carry. Some of you, so afraid to admit your beauty, your power, the wonder of you, will marry or fall in love with someone powerful and beautiful and wonderful. And then find yourself insecure, afraid of losing them, or jealous of them. Sometimes the person may not begin as the Shadow, but through the intimacy, through the closeness and vulnerability of the relationship, they become the Shadow. They become the martyr that you pretend you're not. They become the angry person that you pretend you couldn't possibly be. They become cold and distant, reflecting the coolness, coldness, that iciness that you, who pretend to be only warmth and soft, squidgy love {laughter} won't admit that you are. These are reflections, you see? The family, the body, the players, and the intimates reflect the Shadow. III) The Patterns Thirdly, look to the patterns in your life? Look to the exaggerated emotion. Now we have said so very often, so frequently, the importance of feeling with intensity. We're not talking about looking at the emotions you feel intensely. We're talking about looking to the exaggerated emotions you feel. This person makes me so angry that I could just explode. I could just shred them. I absolutely could just scream at the top of my voice. I can't stand what they do! The way they wear their hair! {laughter} Look at the shoes they have on! Every time I see those it makes me want to scream. {laughter} That's not intensity. That's exaggerated emotion. {laughter} Those blankety-blank drivers!! They don't turn on their turn signals. They are so inconsiderate. I just wish I had a shotgun. I'd blow that blankety-blank head right off and teach `em a lesson or two! {laughter} Sure, it's irritating. Sure, you might wish to gesticulate your anger, but you get home and you kick and you throw things because this idiot, 45 minutes ago, 10 miles ago, didn't turn on their turn signal. Or there's someone in your life you hate in a way that's not just intense, but exaggeratedly angry or frightened or hurt, devastated this way or that. It's exaggerated beyond its form. Look to the exaggerated emotions that get repeated, that won't go away. Look also to the repeated negative feedback that you get. Everybody tells me I'm so pushy. I just don't get it. I have never, ever, ever been pushy in my life. {laughter} I never tell anybody what to do. In fact, I refuse to tell people what to do. They're the ones who make the decisions. I insist upon it. I demand it. I would not have it any other way. I won't let it be any other way. {laughter} But people say I'm so pushy. {laughter} Who needs them anyway? {laughter} I'll find different friends, people who can appreciate me. Now they say I'm pushy. {laughter} Hey, if I know what's right for them, can I help it? {laughter} Is that my fault? When I see them making some terrible mistake, isn't it only loving for me to demand, to insist, to make sure they don't{laughter} When their life is all screwed up from dawn till dusk, isn't it loving of me to step in there and fix it all? And they call me pushy! {laughter} Maybe, just maybe, they're not all crazy. {laughter} Maybe, just maybe, they didn't all get together before life and decide, Let's tell them they're pushy? He, he, he. {laughter} Maybe it's not a conspiracy that while you were sleeping the world met {laughter} and agreed upon a lie. {laughter} I don't get it. They said I'm a martyr. Me? I don't have a martyred bone in my body. I don't know why people don't understand that. They say I'm a martyr and that I punish them. I don't know why? I had nothing to do with it, nothing at all. Look to the repeated negative feedback, and also (more frightening) look to the positive feedback. Some of you are so terrified that you don't let yourself get positive feedback. No, no, no, no, no, don't say that. No, don't say that. Can we change the subject, please? Cause I'm so afraid I'll go into my ego (says your ego). Look to the patterns of exaggerated emotion both dark and light—light as well. Every time I see this, I cry. Every time I see that, my heart goes out. Look to the repeated feedback: negative, but also positive. Look to your compulsions and your obsessive behavior. Compulsive and obsessive behaviors aren't necessarily bad, but they reflect or show a pattern of your Shadow. Look to your secrets—not to tell them, but to understand them. Look to the lies that you live, the secret life that you hold, if only in fantasy. Thus, look to your fantasies as well. Look to the kind of movies that you secretly like to go to. It's really, really sort of d class to think and to admit that you like the blood and guts, beat-'em-up violence. But see, somebody out there must like it. {laughter} Somebody must, because they're paying an awful lot of money to go see it and say, Oh, how disgusting! Oh! You know, there were 85 people there. I counted them. {laughter} The books that you would put a brown paper cover on, not because they're sleazy sex novels, but because they're shallow romance novels or whatever. Look to your fantasies, your secrets, your lies, your obsessions, your compulsions. All of these are part are of a pattern of something you're trying to get, something you're trying to find, but don't think you should—and you think this is the only way you can come across it. Look to the betrayals, the abandonments, the humiliations, the rejections—all these part of the pattern. Now you may not find them in each category, but as you look to the categories, nothing here, nothing there, but aha! Over here. Some of you don't have exaggerated emotional responses; others of you do. Some of you may not think you have compulsions or impulsive behavior, secrets, lies or fantasies. They're not bad to have—Oh, I'd better stop that!—but look to them, learn from them, for they reflect a pattern, or they're part of a pattern. So you look outside yourself to the reflections, you look outside yourself to the patterns. IV) Projections Fourthly, you look outside yourself for the projections. Reflections, patterns and projections are separate things. Take someone you hate. Oh, I don't hate anybody. {laughter} Big clue to your Shadow. OK. Take someone you dislike intensely. {laughter} Take someone you know, but if you're absolutely convinced there isn't anybody {laughter} there's enough world figures out there. At least you can hate Hitler or certain barbaric people. And if you absolutely don't hate anybody, then you know you've got a Shadow filled with hate. Take someone you really dislike, that really gets under your skin, and sit down and list out—write it out, don't just do it mentally—all the things about them that you dislike. Not lengthy paragraphs, but just a word or two or a list. I just detest this person because they're so arrogant, so self-centered, so full of themselves. They're dishonest. They lie half the time, not maybe physical lies, but they lie to themselves, and they lie about themselves. And they're so pushy, and so controlling with that. Well, I don't want to list too many (says your ego). How about disliking them because they're too generous, they're too loving, they're too naive, they're too spiritual. That's your ego talking, and you know it. Be honest. No one else is going to read your list. Be honest with yourself. What do you really dislike? Now not every bit of it is your Shadow. (Oh, whew!) There are some things that you dislike that you genuinely dislike. This person is an abusive person, and I hate the fact that they do that. Does that mean you're abusive? Not necessarily at all. But you list out all the qualities that you can think of: the 40, 50, 120, whatever. {laughter} And then you go through that list to find which ones of them are informational. Yeah, this bothers me about them. This I don't like about them. This I even hate about them. You can bypass the informational reasons that you do not like them, because they are, after all, just informational. Which ones really affect you? When you even think of them you just seethe inside. You find that something tightens up inside. And out of that many there may be three or four such qualities that really just get you. You tremble when you think of it. I don't even want to put it on paper. I just don't even want to see the word. When you have an intense reaction to one of those many qualities, that's one you circle. If it really, really gets you, that's one you want to note. Not that you necessarily do it in the same way, but it is part of your Shadow. And as you go about looking at that person you dislike, list the qualities, and then pick out ones that really get to you. You're only going to find three or four, maybe only one or two that really do something to you. Those are the ones you circle. Likewise, you take this same person, and you look at: Despite all of this, though I hate to admit it, I admire some things about them. Even though they're this wretched person with 45,000 things wrong with them, you've got to admit, they are one powerful this, or one capable this, or that, or the other. I hate it, I hate it, I hate it, but it's true. I wouldn't want to let anybody know! You don't have to, {laughter} just yourself. What are the positive qualities in this person you dislike? There may only be four or five. And among them, there are those that make you the angriest. Which quality really gets to you? I hate to admit this. It just bugs me. It just tears me apart to say that they are the words are like poison in my mouth! It's part of your Light Shadow. It's part of your Light Shadow. Now you reverse it, taking someone you really love—that you really, really love. And you list all the reasons why. Let me count the ways. List all the reasons why. The silly ones, the stupid ones, the profound ones, the poignant ones. You list them all out. Don't worry about ordering and prioritizing. Just get them out. And likewise, look through their qualities. This is informational. That's wonderful. This is wonderful. This one makes me cry. This one makes me weep. This one touches me so deeply. This one? I have to stop because it's such an intensity for me. Not that I envy it, but I'm in awe of this quality they have. It's so precious, so cherished that it catches my breath. Those are the ones you want to circle. And likewise with this person you love, they have faults, they have flaws, qualities about them, not overriding ones, that you don't like. If you are in love with someone and they have no flaws, you are not in love with a real person. Many of you women have been madonna-ized and put up on a pedestal. Oh, I don't have any chauvinism toward women, I worship women. {laughter} Sounds fun, doesn't it? Oh, oh, somebody's going to worship me. Oooooooh, I love it. Kiss my ring. {laughter} But you're not real to them. You're not real to them, and soon enough they'll find your clay feet and will accuse you of betraying them. Many of you women know this. Many of you men know this as well. If you are loving someone, and they don't have a single flaw, you don't know them. You don't know them. You are just projecting something, but not a real person. Now we aren't saying they have to have as many problems as they do beauties, absolutely. There may be only two or three things, but what are the qualities that you dislike? And likewise, circle the ones that have meaning, that jiggle you, that jangle you. When you're working with the projections, you gather those with intensity from one person you dislike and one person you like. Don't use a scattering of people—just one person you dislike, one person you love, and then work it through. And those qualities you find will be the qualities that are part of your Shadow Dark and your Shadow Light. You lay the backdrop. You look outside yourself to the reflections, you look outside yourself to the patterns, you look outside yourself to the projections. V) Shadow Patterns: Bringing It All Inside The fifth step is that you bring it all inside and you see—through the reflections, patterns, and projections—the aspects, qualities, characteristics, phenomena of your Shadow. You're not seeing the Shadow; you're seeing phenomena of your Shadow. My Shadow is these things. My Shadow is these qualities. My Shadow has these characteristics, these personality traits, these idiosyncratic behaviors and functions and activities. You bring it into yourself, and you start owning these qualities. And when you hear the phrase, I would hate to think this is true of me, know that's your ego. When you hear the phrase, Oh! It's so embarrassing, know that's your ego. OK, your ego's embarrassed. Do you care? Does it really matter to you? The enemy is embarrassed. Well, let's stop looking. Let's stop digging. If that were the standard in your world. {laughter} And you own it: Now maybe I don't have these qualities in the same way my projection did, but this is what I am. This is part of my Shadow. And in this fifth step you bring it into you and start owning it. You start admitting it. You don't have to broadcast it, but you own it and admit it in yourself. VI) Chase After Your Shadow In the sixth step, you chase after your Shadow. In meditation, in the inner world of your Safe Place and beyond—in the Underworld, following the Ribbon of Road—you go looking for your Shadow. You have to go after your Shadow. It's not just enough to say, OK, OK, my Shadow has hostility, my Shadow is cruel, my Shadow is filled with rage and hate. That's not hard to say, particularly after you've said it a million and one times. Those are qualities of your Shadow, but that is not your Shadow. You need to go into meditation and chase after your Shadow. You need to get beyond the safety—or into the Underworld, following that Ribbon of Road, perhaps even leaving it to wander across the wilderness in search of this Shadow. It is an assertive, aggressive search, and when you find the hostility, you go into it. When you find the cruelty, that hatred, go into it. Beyond your logic and reason, beyond your intellect, go into it and face not the quality, but the being that is hostile, that is hateful, that is cold and cruel, or punishing, or self-centered and subtly controlling in this way or that. You can make a list of terrible traits and say, That's me. That's not owning your Shadow. It's not owning it until you can go into it, chase after it and find it, wrestle with it, unravel it, get dirty in it, let it cling to you, let it be a part of you. Own it. VII) Meditation {The tape from which this excerpt comes has a guided meditation, which Lazaris refers to below.} Use the meditation format, or create your own. Create a meditative technique, create a ritual, a dance, as a way to connect with and find your Shadow. Always have your Higher Self, or your positive guidance, with you. We're going to suggest a sundial, a huge sundial 20 feet, 30 feet, maybe 50 feet around, not standing on a pedestal but embedded in the ground. A sundial where there is a vertical object in the center that casts a shadow upon the place on this sundial where you can go to meet, to see, to experience your Shadow. If you find, Oh, I have a place that works for me more effectively, fine. But create some sort of ritual, some sort of procedure, some sort of meditative approach where you can go to encounter, to engage, to deal with, to get to know that Shadow. That also is part of the ownership. Then you are ready to make peace with your Shadow, and to create an alliance with your Shadow that can catapult you forward. Making Peace with Your Shadow Again, always have your Higher Self or positive guidance with you. Work with the sundial, at your own tempo, at your own pace. Go back there to discover more of your own Shadow. Clear out your own misunderstandings, and look outside at the reflections in your reality, at the patterns of your reality, at the projections in your reality—bringing them inside, going after them, searching for them, going to that sundial. See it there, this huge disk, and flat upon the ground. And as you stand upon it in the darkness of night—no, this sundial doesn't tell the time, but rather reveals the Shadow. It will reveal those people in your reality who are holding pieces of your Shadow—the mother, father, sibling, or offender from your childhood or adolescence, standing here or there upon the dial. That person you know that you keep bumping into over and over again in your life that you had no idea was part of your Shadow? What are you doing here? I'm a part of your Shadow. It may be an intimate in your life, or one of the other players that seem obvious. They may show up there, standing at certain places as you move about from one hour to the next, from one place to the next. And when you see them you ask, Who are you, and why are you here? What part of my Shadow do you hold? What role do you play? And they may answer: I am your anger. I am your aggression. I am your hatred. I am your coldness and bitterness. I am your judgmentalness. I am your arrogance. All these ugly sides of self. All carry pieces of your Shadow that you take back, that you need to own. As you pass from hour to hour—section to section—12 of them in all—you may hear voices, you may hear snippets of dialogue, old snippets of tapes run so long ago. You may hear that voice saying, You'll never amount to anything. You're just a dumb klutz. You can never do anything right. You never finish what you start. Here, let me do it. You are such an embarrassment. I wish I'd never had you. Or you may hear the voice of that ex-spouse or ex-partner saying to you that thing that causes you to cringe, that is like fingers on the blackboard. Perhaps you'll see scenes, little snippets, of your past as you wend your way along. Once again, with your Higher Self or positive guidance present, then there will be a hush as the Shadow comes—that being that holds all of this for you will come to reveal itself with its mask. This is where you can work with it. This is where you can go through the process not only of discovering and owning it, but also to make peace in an alliance with the Shadow. Here in this very dial you can begin to own the Dark Shadow, for that is where you must begin. That's where you must begin, for the Light Shadow is much heavier, much more intense than the dark. Therefore, you don't tackle the highest hurdle. You go after the lower ones first. You deal with the Dark Shadow first so that you can become ready to face the Light Shadow. Upon this dial you can own the Shadow, and here also will show up the Light Shadow as well—those people in your life that represent the Light Shadow, those phrases that you heard, that one teacher that was so important to you, or that one friend who made that comment, or the one beautiful incident that occurred that somehow haunts you, that beautiful something that you did that is reminiscent of or is a clue to your Light Shadow. But the Dark Shadow comes first, and comes in disguise. So how do you make peace with the Dark Shadow? How do you do that? How do you make peace? How do you create an alliance? I) Dialogue with Your Shadow Always with your Higher Self or Positive Guidance presence The first step we've talked about many times. You come to meet the Shadow, and you talk to it. Hi there. What's your game? What's your number? What's going on? Who are you? You dialogue back and forth. Why are you here? What are you representing? What mask is that you wear? What costume? Talk to me. Object. Tell me what your point of view is. Express yourself. I'll express myself. We'll argue. We'll fight. We'll call each other names, but we'll dialogue it together. And in the process of that dialogue, what you want to find out is what your Shadow needs from you to make peace—not to be your friend necessarily, but to make peace. What does your Shadow need from you to be at peace? Now, you don't want to give it to it yet. You just want to find out what it needs. And you always want to have your Higher Self or some trusted Unseen Friend there to interpret, to give you the permission to believe what you're hearing. Well, I thought the Shadow always tells the truth. It does, but you don't always understand that truth. Your Higher Self does. Now that bristles some egos. But your Shadow is far too complex for you to understand it completely. However, your Higher Self does understand it. If you ask, What do you need from me? What do you need from me? It may say, I need your left eye. You may think, Well, of course they're speaking figuratively. They're talking about the way I view receiving, the way I view feminine energy, the way I view the world from that feminine side. I need to pluck out this eye and give it to them, figuratively, of course. So sure, I understand that. I'll give you my eye. But the truth may be that one thing that might give them peace would be your left eye—literally. And if you go ahead and do that in meditation without asking permission, without checking with your Higher Self to see what they mean and whether it's all right, you may be in great jeopardy. It may so happen that you have an accident where you get your left eye poked out. And in the horror of that, in the process of that, you might do a lot of soul-searching and come to discover who you are. Alas! Your Shadow told the truth. When it took out your left eye, it was at peace. Whoa! I'm not sure I'm willing to do that. And we agree! But if you check with your Higher Self, they'll tell you, No, they mean it literally. Do not give them your left eye. Find out what else they need. Suppose your Shadow says, You've got to give me all your money. You think, Of course, they don't mean it literally. What use would they have for that? I see what it is. I have to give up physical possessions. OK, I've got that. I know what that means. I'm smart enough. And six months later you're bankrupt, losing everything, having nothing. Some people have come face to face with their Shadow and have made peace with it, and they're destitute in the debacle of their reality. Gee, I didn't know they meant it literally. That's right. That's why you always check with your Higher Self. You may not understand the depth, the intricacy, the complexity of the truth the Shadow tells, so you always check with them. What do you need? As you dialogue, always clear it with your Higher Self. Then in reverse, you ask: What do you have of mine? What do you have that belongs to me? Not what gift in the sense of a wonderful treasure that they'd like to give you that's theirs. No. It's already yours. What do you have that's mine? And again: Check it with your Higher Self. Is that what they have? They may say: No. That's what they have, but you're not understanding it. They're telling you the truth, but you don't understand the depth of that truth. Ask further. Ask further. And as you work with them, with your Higher Self interceding and interpreting, there will come a point when your ego will say, Hey, you know enough. You don't need to talk to your Higher Self. Just go on your own. Because, you see, your ego is the enemy of your Shadow and would love for you to screw up. Then it will say, I told you so. And we'll tell you this: If you'll always remember this, you'll be safe, you'll be fine, but if you forget it, know that it's your ego. Know that it's your ego. If your Shadow says, I need this, and you say, OK, without checking it, know that you're in your ego. You might as well stop right there, get out of the meditation, and come back another time, because you're in your ego. Oh, no, I just forgot. Not true. No, no, no, these are the extenuating circumstances. Doesn't matter. You're in your ego. You're in your ego if you forget this little proviso, this little asterisk, to always get permission both in terms of what they need from you, and in terms of what they have that is yours. Well, I didn't have time. It's all ego. The first step is to dialogue and to find out what it has of yours, and what it needs from you—cleared by, interpreted by, understood by your Higher Self, who knows your Shadow in ways you can't begin yet to know it. Now, you don't give what it needs yet. You don't take what it has yet, to make peace and form an alliance. You move to the second step. II) Take the Mask of the Shadow As in the meditation, you reach out to take the Mask of the Shadow. Now it may be made of paper mache, or it may be a mask made out of metal, wood, or whatever. And you take it—not to throw it away, but to put it on. Remember to always have your Higher Self or positive guidance present. So here you are. You recognize your Dark Shadow is filled with hostility. And here stands this personification: beady eyes that stare into you—if they were knives they would shred you. You would be bleeding to death. Hateful eyes filled with that bitter, tight, taut look. Maybe it's a monster that's heaving and sighing and oozing all kinds of poison and terrible infectious stuff—this hideous hostility that wants to hurt and twist and destroy. It spills and spews all over you, and you're covered with its gunk. But you find out what it needs from you and what it has of yours. What does your hostility have? For one thing, an intensity of energy and a will like you've never seen—and a vision, in its own negative cast, like you have never known. Hostility has an intensity about it that is more immense than almost any other emotion. Now you reach out and take the mask of hostility, and you put it on. And you smell your hostility. And you feel your hostility, and it's slimy and greasy and disgusting. And you put on the cloak of your own hostility, and it's wet and it's ugly and it's vile. And you wear your hostility, and see through the eyes of your hostility. And you feel and feel and feel it. Just stay with it until you practically cannot stand it anymore. It is at that point that you move to the third step. III) Entering the Abyss Let yourself be dragged down into the pit, into the abyss, into the darkness where there are no words, into the pit of despair, of hollow emptiness, of a void. IV) Facing the Paradox In the void you face the Paradox. The paradox may express itself as: If I am this ugly, if I am this vile, how could I possibly be spiritual? How could I possibly be loved by my Higher Self, or by anybody, for that matter? If this is really true about me, then how could I possibly ever grow and be evolved? And indeed when you're dealing with the Light Shadow, there is a similar paradox: If I'm this powerful and this incredible, why isn't my life reflecting that same power? If I am this beautiful and this phenomenal, why haven't I already finished my lifetimes? Now, in a consensus reality, the way that people handle paradoxes is: Eeny, meany, miny, mo. {laughter} One or the other, right? The either-or world you exist in seeks singular authority: Either I am this ugly or I am that spiritual. Eeny, meany, miny, mo. Either/or, either/or. And there are those who conclude: I am this ugly, and therefore I am not spiritual at all. I might as well abandon my spirituality. And there have been those who have done so. Or they decide, I am this spiritual. I don't care what anybody says. You're trying to make me see myself as something I'm not! My Higher Self is tricking me, betraying me. You're telling me that I have hostility when, in fact, I know I'm a spiritual person, and spiritual people don't have any hostility. And it infuriates me no end! {laughter} You see, you tend to try to resolve paradoxes by either/or. It's this or it's that. Just pick one. That's called mediocrity, and it's not so. You sit with paradox. I am this vile and this loved. Both are true. But I don't understand that. It's OK that you don't. You don't have to understand it. You just have to let it in: I'm this awful and I am this beautiful. I am this ugly, and I am this beautiful. I am this vile, I am this spiritual. I am both of these. And you sit with it. Patience: paying attention. You listen, because out of the paradox will emerge not one or the other, but something that's in-between, something that is common both to your vileness and your spirituality, both to your ugliness and to your beauty. It's not a compromise—a little bit vile and a little bit beautiful. {laughter} No, it's something that you always are, whether you're being vile or whether you're being beautiful. That's the energy between. And as you sit with the paradox, waiting, watching, listening, feeling, you will discover that which is common to both these contradictory, paradoxical positions. And then you will be led out of the darkness by your Light Shadow—by the power, motivation, reliability, security, beauty, wonder, true feminine energy, and true masculine energy of your Light Shadow. You will be led out of the darkness by depth of your Soul that you've lost, by your Spirit. You don't leave the darkness; you are led out of the darkness by your Light Shadow, which you likewise dialogue with. You learn what it needs to be at peace, and what it has of yours, with the help of your Higher Self. And then, you make peace. You give to your Dark Shadow what it needs. And you take what has always belonged to you. And you give to your Light Shadow what it needs, and you take what has always belonged to you. Then you can use all that darkness, with its intensity, to propel, to change, to transform, and you let all the resonance of the Light pull you, change you, pull you into the new. The dark becomes a force; the light becomes a resonance. The force pushes, the resonance pulls. The force propels, the resonance compels. As you recognize your hostility and the immensity of energy, the immensity of caring, that lies at the root of hostility, you can discover the beauty of your passion and compassion, using the force of your own hostility to propel you out of the illusion you've been in. At the same time, the passion and compassion pull you into the new reality. You are pushed and pulled simultaneously, catapulted into a new reality. And that's how you make your alliance. It's not a friendship. You don't love the fact that you have hostility. But you can be allies and work together. You can be at peace with one another. How can I be this hostile and this loving? What's common to both? Caring, for example, is common to both. How can I be this much of a martyr, yet this able to create and to be spiritual? What's common to both? Transformation, transformation. Martyrs—not to be proud of it—have a phenomenal capacity of transformation. The Victim whines and complains because their reality is full of clouds and rainy days. Everybody rains on my parade. Nothing ever works for me. The Victim doesn't have the power to even make it rain, but they can imagine and pretend even when it's not there. The Martyr is so powerful that you make it literally rain. You really do get overworked. You really do get unappreciated. You really do get misunderstood. It's not enough for you to pretend. You have to create the concrete reality and then spend your life trying to prove to everybody: See how wet I am? {laughter} Whereas the Victim imagines everybody's raining on their parade, the Martyr makes the rain fall! {laughter} Now that is a power of manifestation extraordinaire. Martyrs can find people in a crowd that will take advantage of them. You have a sense that is phenomenal! {laughter} The meaning and energy of that which you use to martyr yourself is something you can use to propel yourself never to be a martyr again. You can use all that energy to be something else—a transformer of reality. And you can use the resonance—the Light Shadow—on the other side, to pull you into the New Reality. And this push and pull catapults you, produces miraculous change, produces magical change. And you will knock yourself over when you do it. Oh, my God, it works. But it involves, you see, clearing out the misunderstandings so it's not the enemy. It involves owning what it really is. It involves then, talking with it, dialoguing with it, wearing its masks, sinking into the pit, and facing the paradox. Then you will be led out of the pit by the Light Shadow. Then, accepting both the dark and the light as true, one force propels you as the resonance compels you. And then let the change occur. And that is the Shadow Work that is imperative upon the spiritual path. It sounds like a lot. And you know what? It is. But then, you see, you give yourself a lifetime. Shadow Work is the work that never ends. You will always be working with your Shadow. It is not your enemy. It holds sacred and protects what you need to become whole and to live your Spirituality. With love and peace. Lazaris 1995 Concept: Synergy & NPN Publishing, Inc. All rights reserved. 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