The Secret of the Shadow (17 page)

Taking the leap outside my story required me to stop, close my eyes, and acknowledge to myself, “Oh, here I am, back inside my story.”

Now, standing outside my story, I felt strong and bold, boundless and indestructible. But stepping out of my past and leaving the story I knew so well felt like taking a giant leap off a high cliff. It appeared that the distance I could fall would be deadly. Inside my old story I already felt like a failure, so if I tried something and it didn’t work out, no one would notice. But now I had raised the stakes considerably. I had given up my alibis. If I failed at delivering a book, if I didn’t show up as who I said I wanted to be, I would be left in the hopelessness and resignation of a life unfulfilled. This thought was so unbearable that it drove me to keep stepping out, taking risks, and moving forward with an intense focus I had never known before. What I found was that the more I wrote about my life experiences in order to contribute to others, the more distance I had from my story. Living true to my purpose gave me access to staying outside my story.

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Ultimately, contributing our unique gift and using our specialty will be our salvation. Because when we’re using all that we know, all that we have been, and all that we are, we’re aligned with the vastness of the Universe and the highest expression of our souls.

Our attention and energy will no longer be on us and our drama.

This was certainly true for my friend Karen. Karen grew up in a household where she felt verbally abused and unloved by her parents. She cannot remember a time when she didn’t hear a voice in her head that told her she was inadequate and defective. By the time she was attending elementary school, Karen had begun using food to mask her pain, suppress her feelings of inadequacy, and provide her with the security she never felt at home. By the age of ten Karen was noticeably overweight, and she remained that way for most of her adult life. Being overweight, of course, further added to her feelings of inadequacy. Feeling fat, undeserving, and stupid, Karen settled for being invisible and rarely spoke up for herself. Instead, she continued to abuse herself with food, stuffing herself in an attempt to silence the harsh thoughts and painful feelings that were always screaming to get her attention. To some extent her strategy worked. Karen felt emotionally numb and disconnected from any sense of passion in her life. The message of her story, which she played out over and over again, was that she was fat and worthless, and that her existence didn’t matter.

Then one day after her oldest daughter’s wedding, Karen and her family excitedly gathered together to watch the wedding video.

When Karen watched herself on video for the first time, she was horrified by what she saw. The feelings of inadequacy she had tried 161

T h e S e c r e t o f t h e S h a d o w so hard to suppress now rushed relentlessly to the surface. She actually saw the reflection of her shadow story in living color all over the television screen. As years of unprocessed pain washed over her, Karen closed her eyes and held herself close, remembering all the incidents from her past that had left her feeling inadequate, defective, and unlovable. Later, when we spoke, I encouraged her to journal on a daily basis, as a way of healing and releasing the bur-den of pain she had been carrying for so long. Along with her daily practice of journaling, Karen began meditating, praying, and getting quiet enough to listen to what was going on inside of her.

Several weeks later, when Karen watched the videotape again, she was amazed by what she saw. This time, her excess weight showed up for her not as a source of shame and guilt but as a suit of armor that protected her from the world and cushioned her from her own self-loathing. Having embraced the gift of protec-tion that this armor had offered her for years, Karen was now willing to unzip it and venture outside the safety of her self-deprecating story. Holding on to her excess weight allowed Karen to conceal the truth about herself: that she is worthy of all the love the world has to give. Her physical imperfections and her weight had been her battleground for so long, and now she was committed to leaving the familiar path of self-abuse and stepping into the world of the unknown.

Karen’s life changed dramatically after she identified her life’s story. Once an aesthetician, she now works as a life coach and helps other women stop numbing and abusing themselves with food.

She teaches them to heal the emotions that underlie their weight issues. She coaches them to come out of hiding and to find the 162

f i n d i n g y o u r u n i q u e s p e c i a lt y courage to express their authentic beauty. She passes on to other women the gifts she gave herself: self-acceptance, security, and the confidence to be seen. When feelings of unworthiness surface in her, as they do from time to time, Karen blesses and embraces them. Most of all she blesses her fat, for it was the driving force behind her discovery of her unique contribution and her decision to share her specialty with the world. Standing outside her story, Karen honors her body as a temple and makes choices that support its well-being.

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Taking the step outside our stories is like having a foot in two worlds. As we look down the path of our stories, we know with certainty where it will take us. Even though we may not like the destination, at least we feel confident and comfortable in the knowledge of what to expect. But choosing the unfamiliar road and a life outside our stories calls on us to trust that the Universe will show us the way and give us what we need.

When I met Lyndi a few years ago she was in her early thirties and working as an insurance broker. Her mother and father, both alcoholics, divorced when Lyndi was very young and were rarely around to take care of her or her younger brother. As a result Lyndi was left to fend for herself. Although Lyndi started working at the age of fourteen, she barely made enough money to cover the cost of clothes and school supplies. The story that developed out of Lyndi’s childhood is that life is a struggle and that no one is ever there for her so she has to take care of herself. On the outside Lyndi appeared confident and competent, projecting the image 163

T h e S e c r e t o f t h e S h a d o w that she had it all together. But Lyndi had a big secret: At night, after a day of selling insurance in her office, Lyndi would get in her car and head downtown, where she worked as a dancer at a topless bar as a way of satisfying her seemingly endless hunger for money.

Lyndi desperately wanted to lead a more spiritual life, yet she had grown used to the money she earned as a dancer and didn’t know how she could make it financially without it. Eventually the fact that she was exploiting her body for money took too big a toll on her self-esteem, and one day she simply couldn’t do it anymore.

Committed to stepping outside the life she knew, Lyndi decided to take the money she had saved from her dancing and use it to travel to India. She was really hoping that something huge and dramatic would happen while she was there that would launch her out of her story and into her spiritual essence. But instead she had two subtle but profound experiences that would ultimately change her destiny and give her the courage to step outside her story.

While attending a spiritual seminar in Goa, Lyndi came across a man who was selling the most exquisite pictures of India. She wanted desperately to have those beautiful souvenirs to take home to show her friends and family and to remind her of her spiritual pilgrimage. But when she found out the price of the photographs she knew she could not afford them. A little voice told her to wait until the end of the seminar, that the man would probably sell the leftover pictures at a discounted price, but Lyndi didn’t trust this inner knowing and feared that if she didn’t act right away there wouldn’t be any left for her. So she dug deep into her pocket, bought the photos, and took them back to her room. On the last 164

f i n d i n g y o u r u n i q u e s p e c i a lt y day of the seminar, as all the vendors were packing to leave, Lyndi noticed that she had been right: There the man was, selling the same photos she had purchased, for a third of the price she had paid. She felt a familiar pang of regret as she walked away.

Lyndi had also set off on her trip with the hope of replacing a bedspread her father had owned. She spent days going in and out of little boutiques, hoping to find just what she was looking for. As her trip came to an end she figured that what she was looking for simply didn’t exist, so against her better judgment she bought the closest thing she could find. Then, at the airport in Delhi, while waiting for her plane, she walked into a little store and saw hanging in the back corner the very bedspread she had longed to buy for her father.

Unfortunately, by this time Lyndi’s bags were full and her pockets were empty. Lyndi was astonished and amazed to realize that, had she trusted the Universe and her inner knowing, everything she wanted would have been delivered effortlessly to her.

Instead of being able to bask in the joy of the Divinity of the Universe, Lyndi came face-to-face with the stifling limitations of her story, which told her she couldn’t trust the Universe to take care of her needs. As she told me this story, a deeper truth emerged: Lyndi uncovered her core shadow belief, which said, “I can’t trust anyone to take care of my needs.” When push came to shove Lyndi always crossed the line of her inner integrity and tried to make something happen, sure that she would never get her needs met in any other way. Lyndi had countless examples showing her that if she would just let go, get out of the way, and give up her story, the Universe would give her exactly what she needed. It became apparent that Lyndi’s story and all its drama had given her specific wisdom and a 165

T h e S e c r e t o f t h e S h a d o w very distinct gift: Lyndi’s specialty is to teach others to trust in the Universe, surrender their wills, and listen to their inner knowing.

Now a meditation instructor and yoga teacher, she often tells her students, “Listen to your heart and take that leap of faith.” Living outside her story, Lyndi has a new mantra: “The Universe gives me everything I need.” Lyndi feels blessed to know that God speaks to her through her own inner knowing.

E x t r a c t i n g Y o u r S p e c i a lt y : T h e P r o c e s s In order to find your specialty you must identify and integrate the significant incidents—both positive and negative—that have led you to become the person you are today. This process requires that you do several things:

1.
Make a list of the significant experiences of your life,
including your traumas, victories, loves, losses, successes, and
humiliations
. These are the particular ingredients of your recipe, which, once integrated, will give you everything you need to find your specialty and make your unique contribution.

2.
Look for the common theme or themes that each of these
events shares.
It might be that loss is the theme that permeates your life story. Or you might discover that your theme is that you have been left out of your family, rejected by your peers, or passed over at work. The 166

f i n d i n g y o u r u n i q u e s p e c i a lt y theme that your past reveals might be that you are never good enough—to get the part in the play, to get into the right school, or to find a loyal mate.

3.
Ask yourself, “If I were going to teach a college class based on
the incidents of my past, what would the name of my course
be?”
You want to look for what your life’s experiences have made you uniquely qualified to teach or contribute.

What do you know and understand about life that most people don’t? What have you learned from all your life’s experiences that could benefit someone else?

My sister Arielle is a great example of someone who is using her story and all its contents to empower herself and contribute to the world. Arielle has mastered the art and skill of making things happen. I asked her to share with me some of the significant events and incidents from her past that helped her find and develop her unique specialty. As she looked inside, three events stood out most in her mind. The first occurred one day when she was four years old and attending temple with our family. As they walked into the temple, Arielle overheard Sy Mann, who was at that time the pres-ident of the temple, telling another adult that people were talking too much during services. During the service, on a sudden whim, Arielle stood up and began walking up and down the aisles of the temple in her pretty pink dress and black patent leather shoes, shouting at the top of her lungs, “Sy Mann says to shut up!”

Suddenly everybody was staring at Arielle, laughing at the candor of this little four-year-old. Arielle remembers feeling ashamed and 167

T h e S e c r e t o f t h e S h a d o w horrified and deciding she never wanted to be seen again. She spent the next twenty years of her life trying hard to be invisible and to stay out of the limelight.

The second event occurred when she was seven. Arielle was fascinated by fantasy, fairy tales, and magic. As her little sister, I remember having séances at our house and people at school calling me the witch’s sister because Arielle had long black hair down to her waist, always wore black, and was into exploring other realities. There was something very different about Arielle; I knew it, and everyone who met her could see it. One of the experiences she will never forget happened when she was seven years old. Arielle woke up in the middle of the night and saw our Grandfather Lou sitting on the foot of her bed. He said, “I came to say good-bye and to tell you that I’ll always be here with you.” Then the image of him vanished. At that very moment Arielle heard the phone ring, saw lights going on in the house, and heard our mother cry out in pain. A few minutes later our father came into her room and said,

“I came to tell you that your Grandpa Lou died.” Arielle replied,

“I know, Daddy. He already told me.” It was at that moment that Arielle knew there was more to life than one could see.