I’m excited to welcome a guest contributor to Smaller & Deeper this week. A couple of months ago, Andrew reached out to me after reading here.
We appreciate many of the same wisdom teachers and poets. I love this piece that Andrew wrote to share with us.
Make sure you check out his book Unmasking the Inner Critic: Lessons for Living an Unconstricted Life. I’ve been reading it slowly, as he suggested, and I’ve found it easy to access, wise and helpful. Andrew also writes a great weekly newsletter every Wednesday-I love it. I hope you’ll check it out too.
The Divine Invitation of Our Shadows: Experiencing God in the Unexamined Spaces
by Andrew Lang
In 2016, I became a high school humanities teacher in a small suburb of Seattle, WA.
When I look back to those first few years in the classroom, I realize I viewed it as a place where I could prove myself. It was a space where I could make an impact – I saw it as the way I would change the world.
And so I took everything onto myself.
Along with teaching all four grade levels over the course of the first two years, I also became one of the building representatives for our local union, a lead in our high school team meetings, a softball coach, and the co-lead of our senior project program. I buried myself in doing “good things” because it bolstered my sense of identity as the “good protector” of the people.
And when a new principal showed up and we didn’t see eye to eye, I immediately felt as if I were in a holy war.
Every day as I walked into the school building, my body carried the tension of being in an epic battle of good versus evil. Over the course of two years, this tension led to an ever-present, internal, bubbling anger and the feeling I was bashing my head against a wall over and over again.
And other things in my life started to slip as well.
My relationship with my then-fiancée, which had felt rock-solid, began to fall apart, turning my home into an extension of the war zone. I would come home from a day of battle and immediately transition to walking on tiptoes, actively working to avoid the landmines of saying or doing the “wrong thing.”
It was in the midst of these two mountains of the unsolvable that I came face-to-face with the shadows of my life.
If you’re unfamiliar with the concept of shadows, here’s the quick version, based on the work of psychoanalyst Carl Jung.
Shadows are the parts of ourselves we'd prefer to ignore, avoid, and evade. We’d rather they not be real – and we’d certainly like it if nobody else ever knew about them. They might include our:
negative inner narratives,
sense of shame or guilt,
childhood traumas,
private behaviors,
and so on.
When these parts of ourselves are seen or questioned, or even hinted at, we can feel uncomfortable, defensive, and disgruntled. We can feel as though we are under direct attack.
And so here I was, feeling under attack both at work and at home when something miraculous happened.
I began to see myself with soft eyes.
I noticed for the first time the shadows at play internally within me, informed by years and years of social confirmation, internalized frustration, and a deep sense of constriction. Forced to shift out of autopilot by the grief of the moment, I heard the messages speaking clearly from within me:
I am not in control.
I am not good enough.
I am not lovable or worth it.
But they weren’t just the verbal messages of an inner critic.
I felt the weight of these shadows in the embodied ways I clenched my shoulders; the ways I imagined big ideas but never took a step toward them; in the ways I did just enough to be noticed but not enough to be held accountable. I began to realize the ways in which I had given these shadows the power to direct so much of my life.
Over the course of several months, I began to practice sitting with these shadows. I journaled and took long walks, asking each part of me where they came from and what they wanted.
Instead of trying to destroy them or sink into the shame of having them, I practiced simply being with them. It was most certainly slow work.
With time, I learned to see these parts of myself with soft eyes and I imagined this was the way the divine sees us: with a gentle softness and with what James Finley calls the “intimate immediacy of love.”
This is the divine invitation of our shadows.
When we begin to do our shadow work – to examine the parts of our lives that have so far gone unexamined – we find there is a beautiful quality of depth within each of us, under all the masks, the personas, the labels, the accomplishments, the fears, and the failures.
Underneath all of it is our inherent dignity, invincible and precious.
Thomas Merton referred to this space of God-in-us as our “true self;” Rumi spoke of the “candle in our heart;” Mirabai Starr calls it our “inner sanctuary.”
Whatever you want to call this space within you that is so beautiful and alive is up to you.
The invitation is to begin paying attention to your shadows and to sit with them long enough to learn their language. And in doing so, to begin excavating your inherent dignity from beneath all that you’ve been taught to bury it with.
To trust there is something more true held within your depths.
Want to learn more about shadow work? You can sign up for my free 5-day email series here.
Bio:
Andrew Lang is an educator in the Pacific Northwest, an alumnus of Richard Rohr’s Living School for Action and Contemplation, and award-winning author of Unmasking the Inner Critic: Lessons for Living an Unconstricted Life. Along with writing regularly, he facilitates workshops helping people to navigate their inner lives and explore their sense of identity and spirituality. You can find more of his writings and offerings at www.AndrewGLang.com.
Consider Andrew’s invitation to walk with your shadow over the next week. Invite those parts of yourself that feel uncomfortable and uneasy to join you on a gentle walk; as Andrew suggested, ask those feelings to share where they came from and what they might want.
(Spiritual Direction is often a helpful place to have those conversations too. Learn more about my Spiritual Direction Practice here. I’ve been adding some blogs and resources with more in the works. Remember, the first session of Spiritual Diretion is always free. If you’d like to see what it’s like, I would love to share a session with you. Schedule that here, or email me directly.)
A few great summer reading books. These are a few books that I’ve loved that are perfect for light, fun summer reading. I listened to a podcast on summer reads, and it was fun to hear suggestions of backlist books (not new releases) that are easier to find at the library.
For me, a summer read should be fun, light, and still a great memorable story-and. Sometimes I like a summer setting too! I’ve linked each book to Amazon so you can read more about the book if you are looking for a great summer read. Each of these are books that I still think about from time to time. Happy summer reading!
Excellent Women by Barbara Pym
Norah Goes Off Script by Annabel Monaghan
Less by Andrew Sean Greer
Malibu Rising by Taylor Jenkins Reid
The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo by Taylor Jenkins Reid
Daisy Jones & The Six by Taylor Jenkins Reid
Black Cake by Charmaine Wilkerson
These Precious Days: Essays by Ann Patchett
The Book of Lost Name by Kristin Harmel
Pádraig Ó Tuama is a favorite poet and writer. Read his poem, “A Prayer”, slowly several times. Notice if a word or phrase stands out. Does this poem speak to something that Andrew wrote above that wiggled something in your head or heart? See if a word or phrase has a message or invitation for you. Maybe carry a line or word with you this week.
A Prayer
By Pádraig Ó Tuama
So let us pick up the stones over which we stumble, friends and build altars
Let us listen to the sound of breath in our bodies.
Let us listen to the sounds of our own voices, of our own names, of our own fears.
Let’s claw ourselves out from the graves we’ve dug.
Let’s lick the earth from our fingers.
Let us look up and out and around.
The world is big and wide and wild and wonderful and wicked,
And our lives are murky, magnificent, malleable, and full of meaning.
Oremus.
Let us pray.