The Secret of the Shadow (6 page)

I’m a mistake.

I’m bad.

I’m not okay.

I’m incomplete.

I’m flawed.

I’m unlovable.

I’m a failure.

No one cares about me.

I can’t trust anyone.

When our shadow beliefs are triggered, they reinforce our stories, proving to us how “accurate” and “true” our dramas really are. Every thought we think triggers an emotional response in our bodies, and when we are living inside our stories we have access to a very restricted range of emotions. Here are some of the feelings that live inside our stories: resignation, lack, deprivation, resentment, victimization, loneliness, anger, blame, shame, despair, 49

T h e S e c r e t o f t h e S h a d o w hopelessness, sadness, fear, guilt, jealousy, envy, regret, self-pity, and self-loathing. Each of us telling our stories that evening could see how these emotions had been our constant companions.

In the safety of our pajama party it was easy to see how small we had each chosen to make ourselves. Although there was some good in all our stories, in our group of sixty people there were few stories that screamed, “Look at me, look at how great I am!” or

“Look at what an extraordinary human being I turned out to be!”

There were few stories that were guided by love, compassion, or contentment. Even though many of the people in our group had accomplished amazing things and were highly regarded in their fields, our stories were not of bigness and greatness, but rather of the fear of a child who had bought into a lie about who they were and what they were capable of. What came out on that night was all our loss and despair, all that was lacking or missing in our lives.

The consistent message that each of us gave off was “If only”: If only we had different parents, lovers, friends, bodies, brains, or luck—if only we had had a better education or a more supportive family—we would be the people we most desired to be. All of us could see how we had given up our greatness and our power in some area of our lives in order to stay locked inside our stories.

All of us could see particular areas of our lives where our dramas played themselves out. Some of our stories revolved around our careers; others enacted our dramas on the stage of our relationships, families, or finances. Some of our dramas showed up in our emotional states or our physical bodies. Often our dramas overlapped into two or three areas of our lives. But the point that 50

e x p l o r i n g t h e g r e at a n d m y s t e r i o u s s t o r y o f y o u was made on that glorious night was that at some time in all of our lives we stepped out of the world of infinite possibility and stepped into the world of our own limited reality. This is where our troubles began and our limitations originated.

Many people could identify the story they had created as a child but had a difficult time seeing the impact of that story on their lives today. A few people shared that their lives were completely void of drama: Their story was that they didn’t have any drama or any story. Donna, a clinical psychologist, said that she had a great life. She had two kids and a thriving practice and was perplexed at how the whole idea of the story related to her. I asked her to tell me a little about her life. She said, “I had a great mother and father, I had a good childhood, and everything is fine. In fact, I’ve always been the rock of our family, the one who everyone calls for reassurance. I’ve always been the voice of sanity.” At that moment our eyes met and Donna heard her own words. They were, more or less, exactly the same words she had uttered thousands of times before to describe her life. They fell out of her mouth automatically. Stunned, Donna realized that she had just inadvertently uncovered the theme of her story: that “everything is fine.” No matter what was going on in her life, she could always put a smile on her face, pull herself up by her bootstraps, and convince herself that everything was perfect.

It’s important to note that not all stories are sad, traumatic, or painful. There are some stories whose theme is “Everything is great” or “Just perfect, thank you.” But even those “happy” stories run out of fuel and carry heavy limitations. For Donna, living 51

T h e S e c r e t o f t h e S h a d o w inside the story that “everything is fine” prevented her from taking any risks that might involve her seeing that life is not always perfect or happy. Her story kept her trapped within a safe but limited reality. Although she lived in the illusion of happiness, she sacrificed being bold, adventurous, and outrageous, and this stopped her from ever examining her deepest desires.

H e a r i n g t h e S o n g o f Y o u r S t o r y

“How can we tell when we are in our stories?” “How can we hear them?” These were the questions everyone wanted answered. A sure way to find out whether we are living inside our stories is to examine the quality of our thoughts and the internal dialogue we engage in on a daily basis. Many people spend most of their lives being somewhere other than where they are in the present moment. When they are at work they are thinking about being at home. When they are at home they are thinking about going on vacation. When they are with their children at the park they are thinking about watching their favorite show on television. Their bodies are present, but their minds are somewhere else. I know that I spent the first thirty years of my life somewhere besides where I was. I lived for the fantasies in my mind, dreaming about what might make me feel better, always trying to give happier endings to the aspects of my life that were not at all happy. I spent at least twenty years dreaming about the man of my dreams and how when I met him I would finally reach utopia.

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e x p l o r i n g t h e g r e at a n d m y s t e r i o u s s t o r y o f y o u
Future gazing is a sure sign that we are deep inside our stories.

When I wasn’t dreaming about the future, I spent my time thinking about the past: all that went wrong, all that should have turned out another way. I could spend a week reliving an argument I had with somebody in a grocery store over who was first in line. When you’re inside your story, the quality of your thoughts can range from fearful and morbid—like worrying about freak accidents or unlikely tragedies—to the trivial and the absurd, like obsessing about a button on your sweater or the neighbor’s dog peeing on your lawn.

When we are in our stories, we never think a thought just once.
We don’t think, “I would love to have a great relationship” and leave it at that. We think, “Oh, I hope he comes soon. I hope he doesn’t have an ex-wife. I hope he is kind and loving and will buy me a ring. I hope he doesn’t burp out loud or stink up the bathroom.”

We might dream about lying on the beach in Hawaii, looking better than we’ve looked in ten years and having passionate, fulfilling sex. Then we think, “I hope he doesn’t hurt me. I hope he’s not like that last lying jackass.” And then we think about the last creep we had a relationship with, and off we go on a tangent about how badly we’ve been wronged and how much better we would be doing if we hadn’t ever gotten involved with that person. Inside our stories we rethink the same thoughts over and over—future, past, future, past, future, past, past, past. . . . It goes on and on and on. It’s tireless. When we live inside the smallness of our individual stories, it is often so painful that the only way our minds can deal with the pain is to daydream or dwell in the past.

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T h e S e c r e t o f t h e S h a d o w M e e t i n g Y o u r S h a d o w B o x All this internal dialogue goes on inside what I call the
Shadow
Box,
the container that holds the ongoing, never-ending internal dialogue that lives in our minds. Imagine the loudest boom box that ever disturbed your peaceful time at the beach. Now put that inside your head. This will give you a sense of the disturbing noise of your Shadow Box. Your Shadow Box is filled with every thought you’ve ever suppressed—all your judgments, all your righteousness, all your unprocessed emotional wounds, and all your shadow beliefs. Your negative internal dialogue is like psy-chic indigestion. Until you digest all the unconscious thoughts and feelings that live within your psyche, you will continue to live in the noise and discomfort of your Shadow Box. Stop for a moment and listen to the thoughts in your mind. Now allow your attention to drift onto a project that isn’t getting done or a relationship that is not working out. Now listen again. By this time you should be clear about what your Shadow Box is.

Our Shadow Boxes live inside our stories and go with us wherever we go. They constantly whisper to us all our flaws, all our disappointments, and all our inadequacies. Our Shadow Boxes let us know what we really think about ourselves while we are inside our stories. While our intuition tries desperately to get our attention, more often than not we turn away, pledging our allegiance to our Shadow Box, that familiar voice that loves to remind us of our failures, our inadequacies, and our self-imposed limitations.

A couple of years ago I gave a lecture to one hundred people in the ballroom of a large hotel. When we began, everyone was com-54

e x p l o r i n g t h e g r e at a n d m y s t e r i o u s s t o r y o f y o u fortably spread out around the room. Then suddenly the fire alarm went off. A loud voice came over the loudspeaker, and a repeating taped message began: “This is the fire marshal. The fire alarm has been engaged. Please go to the exit door closest to you.

You must exit immediately. This recording will not be turned off until you leave the building.” Since this was the third time the alarm had gone off that day, no one in the room was too concerned.

The ballroom was on the ground floor, and we were sure we would be able to flee if in fact there was a fire.

At that point we had only forty-five minutes left together, and we decided to gather closely on one side of the room so we could hear each other speak and so I could finish my lecture. As the fire marshal’s message repeated itself over and over, I had to raise my voice so everyone could hear me. Even though they were more interested in what I was saying than in what the recorded message was repeating, they couldn’t help but be distracted. Then the thought occurred to me that this recording was a splendid example of our torturous internal dialogues. I asked the group, “How many of you would choose to listen to this tape all day long for the rest of your lives? How many of you would buy a little box that repeated this recording and listen to it while you work, while you’re out on dates, or when you’re watching a movie? Would any of you delib-erately buy a box like this and carry it with you wherever you go, clutching onto it for dear life?” Of course, they all said no.

I stayed quiet for a few minutes so my audience could once again listen to the tape recording repeat its all-important message.

Then, looking deeply into their eyes, I asked, “How many of you spend more than an hour a day listening to the internal chatter that 55

T h e S e c r e t o f t h e S h a d o w goes on and on inside your head?” Everyone sat quiet, getting a glimmer of what I was talking about. Everyone could see that every day they wasted a large part of their precious energy listening to the repetitive tape that plays over and over inside their minds, saying things like, “That wasn’t very good. That wasn’t very smart. You shouldn’t have said that. What is she talking about? Why don’t they just turn off that recording now?” Or it might be babbling on with, “I didn’t pay all this money to come to a lecture and listen to this alarm all day. I wish she’d just get to the point.” Or maybe you wake up next to your husband and in your mind you hear, “Why doesn’t he brush his teeth before he has his coffee? If he would just earn more money I wouldn’t have to work so hard.” Maybe your Shadow Box spits out things like, “No one cares what I think. I’m so alone, no one wants to be my friend.” Or maybe you didn’t finish yesterday’s project on time and your Shadow Box thoughtfully reminds you, “Look what you did this time. You really blew it, you’re just like your father.” But what is most disturbing is that no matter how many times you’ve heard it before, you
still
listen. You listen again and again, actually taking that voice seriously.

How many of you have spent thousands of hours listening to that box in your mind? Maybe you have even avoided going to a party or having fun in some other way so you could stay home and listen to that box. Some of you have stopped yourself from pursuing a better position or going back to graduate school, basing your actions solely on the feedback you’ve received from your charming little Shadow Box. Someone suggested I invent a Shadow Box: For $14.95, I will program your internal dialogue so you can listen to it 56

e x p l o r i n g t h e g r e at a n d m y s t e r i o u s s t o r y o f y o u every day. You can carry it with you wherever you go. Or it can act as a talking alarm clock. You just turn it on in the morning and it says, “Good morning. God, you look awful today.” That way you don’t even have to say it yourself. Your Shadow Box will say,

“Nothing worthwhile is going to happen to you. You don’t have what it takes. It’s never going to get better than this. You might as well stay in bed today, because no one notices you anyway.” You may be up for a raise, but your Shadow Box will scream, “It’s never going to happen for you! It’s not fair. They don’t really appreciate you. Life is tough. What do you know? You’re a loser. You’re never going to make it.” Or “Poor me, why can’t I get a break?

Maybe I can win the lottery this week. Then I’ll be happy.” Or if you’re on a roll and things are going great, your lovely little companion will chime in, “If you get too big, people won’t like you.

You can’t have it all. Don’t get too big for your britches.”

I felt excited and lucky to have had this experience of the fire alarm, because most people never understand that their internal dialogue is like a bad tape that plays over and over, unconsciously, without edit. Most of us choose to listen to that voice every day.

Most of us listen so intently that we can’t even hear what the people around us are saying. The Shadow Box talks with certainty, and if you begin to ignore it, it will say, “No, listen. This is important.