Shadow Dancing

Ash Wednesday was last week, marking the beginning of Lent. On that day, many Christians head to church for the obligatory swipe of ashes on the forehead, reminding us all that from dust we came, and to dust we shall return. Not a particularly cheerful ritual. Even as a “good Roman Catholic girl” in parochial school, I always secretly thought the whole thing rather morbid and sad - which is what we were supposed to think, now that I look back on it. As a child, Lent always seemed such a sad dark time, a mysterious time of “giving up” and “doing penance” and sacrifice. It’s hard to convey to a child the moral and soul-enriching experience of suffering and self-sacrifice (and perhaps to many adults as well) through the giving up of candy or potato chips. It does not compute.

As an adult, and as a Christian in a more evangelical stream of belief, I no longer receive the ashes, and I don’t think about what to “give up for Lent”, but I have come to see the value of “giving up” and “giving away”. And I’ve also come to see the value of intentional self-reflection - no matter the season. Perhaps it’s because Lent has arrived just as I’ve been doing far more inner-seeking than I’ve ever done before. Perhaps it’s because I’ve reached a time in my life , that “second half” of life where self-reflection seems important - critical even - to this spiritual journey I’ve been on for so many years. The books I’ve read, the blogs I follow - all are echoing similar thoughts: the importance of not only doing self-reflection, but even more so, in naming those negative and destructive things in my life that I now see, but that I’ve kept hidden away; the sin-struggles, the self-absorbed mind-set, the habits that are not pretty, or gentle, or loving.

In this self-reflective “looking inward”, I see things about myself I don’t like; those things that I’ve denied, and most likely, those very things that I’ve criticized and pointed to in other people. I’ve seen a version of myself I don’t particularly care for. No, not at all. And in looking back, I see that the person staring back at me in the rear view mirror is one I’ve not acknowledged; the woman who was not always kind or compassionate or understanding or loving.

I’m learning it’s easier to point to the splinter in the other person’s eye than to either acknowledge (or God forbid - remove!) the log in my own eye.

This person I don’t want to see, this person I really don’t like, is what Richard Rohr (Franciscan priest, mystic and author) calls my “shadow-self”, the version of me I keep hidden away in the deep cellar of my soul; the monster in the back of the closet. And we must admit it: we all have a shadow-self; the person we want no one else to see, no one to know about. This isn’t at all new or revolutionary: mystics, psychologists and philosophers have noted the existence of our shadow-selves for centuries. Famed monk and mystic Thomas Merton called it our “false self”: “Every one of us is shadowed by an illusory self: a false self. This is the man I want myself to be, but who can not exist because God does not know anything about him. And to be unknown of God is altogether too much privacy.” [1]

I’ve been chewing on that phrase now for quite some time. No wonder the shadow-self is so illusory, false and - yes, heartbreaking. There is no substance to a thing that isn’t even known by God. And as Merton says - it is altogether too much privacy; too much loneliness to bear. If we never confront our shadow-selves, the false self, we’ll never be the True Self God made us to be; the “me” and “you” He’s known since before the beginning of time.

Coming face to face with our darker side, our shadow, our false self is scary, unsettling at best - and oh, so exhausting. Richard Rohr calls dealing with this shadow or false self “shadow boxing” - boxing with the deep, dark side of ourselves we try to keep hidden away; and when it sneaks out for a breath of air, we push it back down deep into our souls, and go on pretending everything is alright. (If you are a Louise Penny fan, you’ll recognize her Three Pines character Ruth Zardo’s inimitable response to how she’s doing: “I’m F.I.N.E.” [2] ) Although we don’t have the crude expressiveness of Ruth Zardo, she certainly gets the point across. We are F.I.N.E when we don’t do the hard work of dealing with our shadow self. We smile and pretend all is ok, when inside, we are in tears of frustrated exhaustion, trying to hold it all together.

I prefer to to think of dealing with my shadow-self as “shadow dancing”. For most of us, we won’t go twenty rounds in the boxing ring with the shadows of our inner turmoil, with our very real inner struggles between good and evil.  Oh no! We are far more subtle, far more devious than that.  We dance with our shadows, playing with them, pushing them around, thinking we are dealing with them - but not really. We may see them, but we dress them up and make them pretty; we pretend that they are good things. Our selfishness is merely being “a good steward of our blessings”; our stinginess is being “financially responsible”; our laziness is “good self-care”. Our anger and bitterness is justified by the listing of all the wrongs done to us, all the unfairness of life, all the “bad-breaks” that have come our way. Our capacity for self-delusion is truly astounding.

And one day we come face to face with that shadow that is no longer willing to merely dance with us; it demands a response far greater, far more subtle. It demands that we fully leave our True Self behind, and give it full reign.

What does it matter? It matters a great deal, for if I do not deal with my shadow, face it head on, refuse to dress it up, refuse to dance the dance of anger and bitterness and pride with it, it will eventually consume me. God did not create that mere shadow, that false self. He created for each of us a True Self to be who we were called to be: persons filled with Light and Love. Once we face our shadow head on; once we turn on the Light, our shadow —as all shadows —will recede and eventually fade away. It’s not easy; it doesn’t feel good in the beginning - but the freedom that comes from releasing the shadow and refusing the dance is blessed indeed. The peace of being known by God, the person He created to exist in this time and place? Beyond priceless.

Who do you see in the rear view mirror? Who pops out of your deep dark closet when you crack open the door? Is it someone you’re proud of? Happy to see? And just how much shadow dancing have you been doing?

Next time, we’ll look at how to deal with that shadow self, and look at a couple of ways to turn on the Light, and conquer the shadow self so that we can begin to set free the person we were meant to be, in all our holy glory.

[1] Thomas Merton: New Seeds of Contemplation, New Directions, 1961; p. 34.

[2] For an explanation of F.I.N.E., and how it doesn’t really mean we are doing “fine” Google it, for it’s a very clear picture of what we try to keep hidden.