Perhaps all the dragons of our lives are
princesses who are only waiting to see us
once, beautiful and brave.
Perhaps everything terrible is
in its deepest being
something that needs our love.
~ Ranier Maria Rilke
Our personalities are comprised of many parts, called subpersonalities. Subpersonalities are psychological configurations, discrete patterns of feeling, thought, and behavior that emerge into awareness when drawn upon by different life situations. For example, you may express the decisive, confident part of yourself at work, but feel like a young child when you're visiting your parents. We have numerous subselves: The Inner Critic, Rebel, Nurturer, Pleaser, Artist, Controller, Frightened Child, and many more. The poet Fernando Pessoa wrote, "In every corner of my soul there's an altar to a different god."
We're usually happy to have positive selves such as The Helper or The Entrepreneur, but we often treat our shadow selves as unwelcome visitors. In an attempt to always be upbeat, loving, and light, we consciously and unconsciously distance ourselves from our "dark side," our challenging attributes and feelings. If some of our traits and tendencies aren't in accord with who we want to be or think we should be, we relegate them to the dark corners of our psyche. In so doing, we cut ourselves off from the full range of who we are. As we become willing to recognize and get to know these disowned parts of ourselves, we start to feel more whole. No longer fighting and resisting our humanness, we become more authentic and open up to a much wider range of human experience.
By acknowledging our shadow selves we can get to the root of what fuels them. For example, it's possible that a hurt and lonely child is at the core of your Inner Perfectionist. You may have become perfectionistic as a way to gain a sense of control in your life or, perhaps, you discovered when you were young that always getting everything "just right" would engender approval from others. When we access the source of our subpersonalities, we uncover deep unmet needs and can then start to find healthy ways of addressing them. You might let that lonely child within you speak up in ways that she never could in the family, or she may need to stomp and yell. As we unearth and attend to these unmet needs, the subpersonalities lose their tight grip on us.
By exploring the wounded parts of ourselves we're allowing for feelings that may have been buried for years. Our full emotional nature can then be felt and expressed. Embracing the whole range of our subpersonalities and opening to what is at their core is a way to honor our humanness. We are human beings as well as divine beings! Shadow work helps us to become whole.
TRY THIS EXERCISE:
Shadow Subpersonality Dialogue
1. Choose a personality trait that you want to explore.
2. Find a comfortable place to sit and gently close your eyes. Bring your
attention to your breathing and follow the breath for two or three minutes,
as it comes in and goes out, letting yourself relax as you align with the
breath.
3. Reflect on this trait, and let an image form that represents this part of you.
This image could be a man, woman, animal, object, or aspect of nature.
Let the image emerge spontaneously.
4. When the image appears, give it time to reveal itself.
5. Let the image have a voice, and then you will ask some questions, such as
"What is your name? How do you operate in my life? Where do you come
from? What do you want? What do you really need? What do you need
from me? What can I learn from having you in my life? What gifts do you
bring?"
6. Then express anything you want to this shadow self. Ask any other
questions that are relevant to you.
7. When you feel complete, take some time to write about what occurred.
8. You can repeat this exercise as often as you want.
Note: If you find this process becomes
too intense for you, just stop, take some deep breaths, and become centered again. You can try the exercise another time. If it continues to be too challenging, you may want to seek professional help to continue exploring your shadow.