The Secret of the Shadow (13 page)

While her mother was away, Natalie’s father showered her with gifts: clothes, perfume, and—most important—his undivided attention. Even though Natalie missed her mother, for the first time in her life she felt deeply cared for and special and close to her father. When her mother arrived back home a couple of months later it was not the happy and joyous reunion that Natalie had anticipated. Instead, her mother began probing, questioning why she had so many new clothes and perfume and other special treats. Her mother was clearly angry that her father had paid her so much attention while she was away. All of a sudden Natalie was aware of her parents quarreling about her, and at the same time she felt her father pulling away from her, putting an end to the close bond they had shared. The pain of that separation was still present in Natalie to this day. I asked her what she had made her father’s detachment mean about herself.

She told me she had made it mean she wasn’t good enough to be loved and she wasn’t important enough to get the attention she needed.

I then asked Natalie to make a list of all the ways this decision had negatively impacted her life. Here is her list: After I felt my dad withdraw from me I began to dress seductively, trying desperately to draw attention to myself.

I became angry and resentful if the man I was dating paid 118

t h e p o w e r o f p r o c e s s attention to any other women, whether it was his mother, his sister, a waitress, or an old friend.

Since the time I was a young woman I’ve always had the need to control the men in my life. I manage their time and need to know where they are going and who they are going with.

I humiliated myself countless times by acting out in jealousy and rage when I didn’t get the attention I wanted.

I was so insecure that I broke off relationships with great men because I didn’t feel they were willing to make me the most important person in their lives.

Natalie easily saw how this one incident, and the conclusions that accompanied it, had impacted every relationship she had ever had with a man. I then asked her to close her eyes and try to see whom she got to keep making wrong by acting out these behaviors. In an instant she spurted out, “My mother.” Natalie was surprised by this response, because she had always felt that she blamed her father for his detachment. But in this moment Natalie could see that she blamed her mom for her father’s detachment, sensing that her mother had forced him to choose between the two of them. Natalie realized that every time she acted out in jealousy and every time she sabotaged another relationship, she got to point her finger at her dead mother and say, “See what you did to me?

It’s all your fault.” Now, letting out tears of sadness, Natalie told me that her mother, in the days preceding her death, had been in a coma. One evening right before she died her mother woke up and 119

T h e S e c r e t o f t h e S h a d o w looked around. Natalie rushed to her side, held her hand, and said,

“I love you, Mom.” Natalie’s mother then spoke the last words Natalie would ever hear from her: “You do?” Natalie wept as she confessed that those words had haunted her for twenty-five years. I asked Natalie what she had made her mother’s words mean about herself. Natalie told me she had decided that her mother’s “You do?” meant “Who cares?” But this time in recalling her mother’s words she took them to mean “How could you still love me?”

I asked Natalie to look inside and see what it would take to heal this incident, to integrate this lump in her batter that had caused her so much pain. I also encouraged her to spend as much time as possible writing about the incident, to invite other memories and feelings to come to the surface to be healed. When we met a few days later, Natalie told me that one day while journaling she realized that her mother was not a vengeful or hateful person, but a woman scorned and deeply insecure. Her father was a woman-izer who had been unfaithful on many occasions. For twenty-five years Natalie had been in therapy, working on her issues with her father, thinking that it was his love she was desperate for. She continued reenacting the same situation from her past, unconsciously trying to get her father’s attention through Jeff and other men. By doing the work of integrating this experience, Natalie could now see that it was her mother’s love she had been seeking all along.

Suddenly Natalie saw her mother’s jealousy in a whole new light.

Her mother simply wanted love and attention, just like Natalie.

This realization brought more tears, but this time they were not the tears of a little girl betrayed by her mom but tears of compassion and true understanding. When I asked Natalie if she had 120

t h e p o w e r o f p r o c e s s thought of a healing ritual to perform with her mother, she told me that one had occurred to her spontaneously one day as she was going through her old pictures. Natalie’s healing ritual was to look at a picture of her mother every night before going to bed and imagine holding her mother in her arms. Then she would say the words that her mother had always longed to hear: “I do love you, Mom. You are important and lovable.” By making the commitment to loving and forgiving her mother, Natalie was able to access the part of her that could mother herself.

The last part of the process was for Natalie to uncover the gifts that had been generated by her mother’s last words and receive the wisdom that was hidden inside her shadow belief that she is unlovable. The main gift that Natalie shared was that the pain of her own childhood was the primary force in her decision to become a family therapist and that her unresolved issues with her mother and father had given her the insight and compassion she needed to work with her clients. The struggles that Natalie had with Jeff ’s son have enabled her to be a guide for other blended families, supporting them in creating healthy, fulfilling relationships. And because she knows all too well the pain of not having the unconditional love of her mother, Natalie has become an expert in teaching others how to mother themselves and to meet their own unfulfilled needs.

= <

At first the process of integration might seem overwhelming, because most of us have a lot of unexamined pain from our past.

But what I have found from taking thousands of people through 121

T h e S e c r e t o f t h e S h a d o w this process is that if we are willing to go after the most traumatic incidents first, the secondary traumas and less significant issues will often fall away of their own accord. Often we will find that many of our most traumatic times are linked to one major event that caused us to make a core decision about ourselves, a decision that formed the story of our life. In that moment we birthed one of our core shadow beliefs, which replayed itself through our entire life story.

Since each of us has a unique contribution, unlike anyone else’s, we are the only ones who will be able to find our inner treasure. The gift that we are can be seen only when we are ready—when we have embraced all the components of our individual stories; when we have given up our right to make others wrong and blame others for the condition of our lives. Healing the wounds of our past is a sacred process. It’s a holy event, a moment when we decide to step out of our dramas, the smallness of our individual selves, and see the sacredness of our existence. By gaining wisdom from our emotional wounds, we break free from our past and are able to grasp something truly amazing—our Divine purpose in this life.

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t h e p o w e r o f p r o c e s s H e a l i n g A c t i o n S t e p s The following exercise is vital to healing the past and uncovering the gifts that lie hidden within the painful events of your life.

It’s important that you bring your full attention to the process. Set aside at least a half hour of uninterrupted time, and create an atmosphere that will support you in doing deep inner work. Have your journal and a pen nearby. Remember, all the answers you need are inside of you; you only have to become quiet enough to hear them.

When you are ready, close your eyes and take five slow, deep breaths, using your breathing to relax your body and quiet your mind. Read each question one by one. Then close your eyes and allow a response to emerge from deep inside you. Once you have received the answer to a question, open your eyes and write the answer down in your journal, and then move on to the next question.

What incident from my present or my past is still causing me pain, anger, or regret?

How does this situation make me feel?

When have I had these same feelings before? What incident from my past does this remind me of?

What did I make this event mean about me? What did I decide was true about myself?

How has this decision negatively affected my life?

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T h e S e c r e t o f t h e S h a d o w Whom do I blame for the decision I made and for everything that has happened to me as a result of that decision?

What needs to happen for me to heal this incident? Is there something I need to say or do in order to feel complete?

What have I gained, what have I learned, and what do I now know as a result of having experienced this incident? What wisdom can I now contribute to the world as a result of what I have gone through?

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Contemplation

=

“Every painful event of my life

has brought me great gifts.

I find these gifts effortlessly.”

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= Chapter 7 <

M aking Peace with

Your Story

To liberate ourselves from the confines of our stories, we must be willing to give up the comfort of our self-made cocoons. I once heard a story of a young girl who asks a wise old woman, “How does one become a butterfly?” With a twinkle in her eye and a big smile, the old woman replies, “You must want to fly so much that you are willing to give up being a caterpillar.” Breaking out of the cocoons of our stories can sometimes be a slow and painful process, but the moment we break away, we liberate our souls and bask in the joy of emotional and spiritual freedom. In order to step outside our stories, we must first learn to love, honor, and cherish them for all the ways they have contributed to us. We must acknowledge the experiences they have brought and the wisdom they have bestowed on us. Then and only then will we be able to make peace with our stories and move beyond them to fulfill our deepest desires.

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T h e S e c r e t o f t h e S h a d o w I’m always baffled by the long-standing grudges we hold against ourselves. Why do we continually blame ourselves for events that happened ten, twenty, thirty years ago? Why do we feel so unworthy of complete and total salvation or of absolution for the crimes of our past? I have spent years dwelling on this question.

I have watched people continually sabotage themselves, robbing themselves of all that is truly important and depriving themselves of that which would feed their souls. Is it possible that at some level we are continually trying to kill ourselves—or, if not our entire selves, at least some dark, awful part: the aspects or incidents we feel the most shame about? The destructiveness of self-blame and self-loathing can be seen throughout our society. Addiction, violence, abuse, and underachievement permeate all of our lives.

F o r g i v i n g Y o u r s e l f

I have spent years in the self-help movement, first working on myself and then acting as a guide for others. I have come to understand that the core of healing is self-forgiveness. There is nothing—and I mean nothing—more essential to the healing process.

Until we make peace and forgive ourselves for all aspects of our lives and our stories, we will continue to use our past to beat ourselves up and to sabotage our deepest dreams. Self-forgiveness happens when we relax into the vulnerability of our humanity and find compassion for our own internal struggles. When we are able to forgive ourselves we come to understand why we are the way we are, why we believe what we believe, and why we feel the way 128

m a k i n g p e a c e w i t h y o u r s t o r y we feel. My friend Sarano Kelly, the author of
The Game,
says,

“When you understand, things will begin to change.” As long as we continue to feel bad about our stories, and until we have done everything in our power to understand why they are there, we will continually be drawn back into the confines of our dramas. Only when we accept our stories and forgive ourselves completely will we be able to extract all the wisdom our stories hold. Only then will we be free to live outside the limitations set by our shadow beliefs and our stories.

R e s o l v i n g Y o u r U n f i n i s h e d B u s i n e s s Until we have come to a place of self-forgiveness, we won’t be able to manifest our most extraordinary selves and live the life of our dreams. How can we feel worthy of love, success, abundance, and perfect health when our stories continually remind us that we are flawed, insignificant, and unworthy? How can we wake up in the morning calling forth the best from the Universe when we beat ourselves up about our selfishness and continue to feel bad about leaving our relationships? How can we openly receive Divine grace knowing that in our past we ripped off our brother or sexually assaulted our sister? How can we honor ourselves knowing that we continually ignore the callings of our own inner voice?

Our unfinished business is the source of our guilt. Layne and Paul Cutright, in their book
Straight from the Heart,
say, “A guilty mind expects punishment. Guilt will cause you to attract people and/or situations to validate your unresolved guilty thoughts 129