Vampires and Vultures
October 2009
This is the second story I am writing about my personal experience in
uncovering the shadow (see also
‘From Holy to
Wholly’). I have some resistance to confessional writing because
it’s just so ‘unprofessional’ and un-academic’ – but then again, those
of you who have attended a Shadow Workshop with me will know that
intelligence has been one of my masks, so in the interest of wholeness,
and because the story contains lots of learning, here goes.
For some reason I arrived back from the DVD store last week with the
film Twilight in hand. This is not my kind of movie, nor Garrick’s, so
he looked at me a little strangely when the teenage vampire movie
started to play. If you’ve watched Twilight then you know that it’s not
big on plot, character development or anything actually, except
smouldering teenage sexuality, or at least that’s what I saw. I found
myself irrationally hooked on the sexy vampires, edgy music and
dangerous intimacy. This would simply have been yet another reason for
Garrick to spend his life teasing me had I not been doubled over with
sobs by the end of the movie. And, no, this was not because it (really)
was somewhat of a waste of a rare movie night.
The high school context of Twilight with its typical prejudices,
emerging sexuality and youthful beauty managed to open up in me a host
of adolescent pains mostly to do with not being pretty or sexy or cool
enough. I know this isn’t unique, but it was very real to me at the time
and I did not express a bit of it. Though I look back on that time in my
life as being fraught with hurt, I never shared, talked about or
processed it. My high-achieving and very religious personality simply
didn’t allow me to be that vulnerable or ‘not ok’. And so I buried it
and have carried it around ever since. The ways in which that repressed
hurt have limited and sabotaged me are too numerous and, frankly, too
boring to mention. Suffice to say, the story of not being beautiful or
sexy has influenced every arena of my life and no amount of awareness,
cleverness or peak spiritual experiences could do anything about it.
So why did Twilight magically unlock the door? Have the writers infused
the script with cleverly disguised transformative powers? Sadly, no. The
fact is that in engaging with shadow work so much over the last few
months I have been giving regular permission to bring to the surface
what I have stuffed away. To the extent that I am aching for exercise!
(Believe me this is new J). Why? Exercise, too, is another way to let go
of what you have been carrying. Up till recently I haven’t actually
wanted to see and feel the pain of what I buried so of course I had no
desire to exercise. No amount of willpower or discipline would have
dominated that resistance until I internally allowed it (this is what we
work with on Embody). Unless there is real, unambiguous and regularly
demonstrated permission for something, you will continue to sabotage
your efforts in that arena. Everytime I walk now, I re-frame the
activity as an opportunity to release more of what I no longer need and
to become fully alive. With that, authentic, context I simply love
moving.
The main point here is this: if you give permission for something (like
I have done by researching and teaching about the shadow, exercising
with the intent to uproot the shadow etc) then the mechanism for
achieving it is (a) irrelevant and (b) it will find you! Like a silly
little vampire movie winking at you from a shelf in a shop.
One way (and there are many) to give permission to see your shadow is to
attend the Introductory and Advanced
Shadow Workshops that I am running in November (see above). Those of
you working with the wonderful Bird Cards (I’m getting new stock in next
week) can also use The Vulture consciousness to take this further.
Here’s to vampires and vultures taking us to the next level of joy!
© Angela Deutschmann
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