Why the Shadow Exists

Shadow work can feel heavy and strenuous, but the reward is the difference between "freedom and slavery". We examine the mechanics of how the shadow forms as a rational response to past discomfort and why you are now uniquely capable of facing it.

Key Highlights:

• A Protective Mechanism: The shadow often forms when a younger version of yourself tucked away threatening or embarrassing experiences to avoid pain.
• Rational at the Time: Pushing discomfort into the background was likely the right move when you lacked the capacity to deal with it.
• Your Current Capacity: The very fact that you are now seeking out your "rough edges" proves you have the strength to handle the material you once avoided.
• Today’s Challenge: Identify a recent overreaction. Don't try to solve it; simply identify what discomfort or reality you were avoiding by reacting that way.

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• Tim Dedman
• Jorge

Creators and Guests

Host

Brian Mattocks

Host and Founder of A Mason's Work - a podcast designed to help you use symbolism to grow. He's been working in the craft for over a decade and served as WM, trustee, and sat in every appointed chair in a lodge - at least once :D

What is A Mason's Work?

In this show we discuss the practical applications of masonic symbolism and how the working tools can be used to better yourself, your family, your lodge, and your community. We help good freemasons become better men through honest self development. We talk quite a bit about mental health and men's issues related to emotional and intellectual growth as well.

[00:00] Yesterday, we talked about the psychological shadow and sort of how to locate it, find
[00:06] it in the little recesses of your experience.
[00:10] It's that disproportionate reaction or the unfulfilled wishes and desires kind of pushed
[00:15] to the edges or the patterns that keep repeating themselves across years and time and context
[00:20] and stuff like that.
[00:21] Finding those is the beginning of the work.
[00:25] But before I go any further, I want to make sure you kind of know what we're working
[00:29] towards here.
[00:30] And we talked about a little bit a couple episodes ago, but this work is, it sounds heavy.
[00:36] It sounds onerous because we're getting into some kind of rich emotional territory.
[00:41] It's going to feel a little bit strenuous.
[00:46] And I want you to know what you're sort of working towards here and why is the view that
[00:53] we're going for worth the climb, if you will.
[00:55] And what's on offer here is the difference between essentially freedom and slavery.
[01:04] It's whether or not the things in your life, in your everyday experience control you, or
[01:10] you are the master of your own sort of destiny.
[01:15] You're the master of your own ship.
[01:16] And so when we start digging into this work, you are not here to essentially become above
[01:28] the work.
[01:29] You're here to live through it.
[01:32] And in the process of living through this work, you gain agency over it.
[01:38] So, uh, when I'd spend a moment talking about where the shadow came from and why is it kind
[01:44] of something you can't see in the first place because the mechanics of this are kind of important.
[01:50] So when you were younger, uh, whenever that was, uh, maybe you were a child, maybe it was
[01:58] yesterday.
[01:59] Who knows?
[02:00] There was a version of you that was confronted by something that they didn't understand.
[02:09] They maybe had, uh, an experience that felt threatening.
[02:15] Uh, maybe they took on an emotional reaction from someone else that wasn't, wasn't their own.
[02:22] Maybe they felt embarrassed or ashamed.
[02:26] That version of you couldn't deal with it.
[02:32] And we're not trying to, in this conversation, deconstruct that significant, right?
[02:40] We don't need to go into the mechanics of all of why that person didn't feel safe.
[02:45] It doesn't matter.
[02:46] What does matter is that that person you were responded in the moment in a way that anything,
[02:55] any rational person, any reasonable organism would respond.
[03:00] They avoided discomfort and pain, uh, or they sought pleasure as part of a medicative process
[03:09] that, that mechanism that avoided, uh, this discomfort.
[03:15] It pushed all of the stuff that came with it into the background and I swept it under the
[03:22] rug where it couldn't cause issues where you didn't have to deal with it.
[03:28] And for most folks, that's the right move at the time.
[03:34] Like you couldn't deal with it then.
[03:36] And you kind of just talked, tucked it away.
[03:38] We don't take the time in the moment to, again, build that capacity to respond.
[03:45] You only kind of can work on these things after they've happened.
[03:50] Again, just like in the first episode this week, you don't go put yourself in a crisis
[03:55] to, to figure out like, how can you better adapt to crises?
[03:59] You actually build crisis capacity during your sort of everyday Tuesday or whatever.
[04:04] So when, when all of that happened in your past, in your previous versions of yourself,
[04:11] that was a rational response, but where you're at now, the person you are in this very moment
[04:19] that is pursuing that shadow, that's looking for it.
[04:24] That's trying to find that rough edge is, is genuinely capable of dealing with the crisis
[04:34] that created that problem.
[04:36] The person that is seeking this, the person who put you on this path yesterday, this morning,
[04:45] 30 seconds ago is able to handle this stuff.
[04:49] You know this because you start to lean in, you start looking for that uncomfortable material.
[04:58] That, that ability to look for it is in and of itself the capacity to deal with it.
[05:07] Now it's uncomfortable, but you can handle it because you start looking.
[05:15] The moment you start looking, you know, you're already on the right path.
[05:19] So today as part of maybe the homework from this episode, or as you're kind of going through
[05:26] your everyday life, look for a recent moment where you had an overreaction.
[05:31] You don't have to solve it.
[05:33] There's nothing to do right now, except find that moment and think about it.
[05:42] Think about what happened.
[05:43] What was the thing you were avoiding?
[05:47] What was the, the thing that you were able to not deal with as a result of the reaction
[05:54] you had?
[05:56] As you go through this process, you'll be able to, again, cultivate a much stronger experience.
[06:01] We'll talk a little bit more about how to deal with some of the more difficult parts, the
[06:07] folks that, uh, the little shadow shadowy guys hanging out in your, the back of your mind
[06:13] that are really being, uh, kind of dodgy.
[06:16] Uh, and then we will, uh, work through those a little bit more in tomorrow's episode.
[06:21] Thank you.