We Did Not Know What Was Coming Series: Our Shadow

When I opened the door for my first client Wednesday morning, November 9, 2016, the woman looked at me and exclaimed, “Are you okay? Has something happened?”. I said, “Hillary lost. I am having a hard time breathing.” That is not what a client expects to hear from their psychotherapist.

I managed to get through our session without speaking another word about the election. Later that day, the client texted me that she was ending our work together after four years because she no longer felt safe with me. She was delighted that Trump won. I wonder if she feels the same way today.

To say the last seven years have been a journey of growth for me and this country is an understatement. To help me process and cope with the roller-coaster of emotions I have felt these years, I started writing on Medium right after the 2016 election. I would write for months then drop off. Another upheaval would occur, and I would write another series of articles. I would stop until the next crisis occurred. This start and stop writing has continued through the years. My last series ended December 31, 2020 after Biden won the presidential election.

Recently I realized I missed writing “in my journal” and decided to go back to the very beginning and re-read my essays. I wanted to see where I started out on November 9, 2016 and where I am now. I do not believe my journey has been unique. In fact, I think many people in this country have felt and feel the same as I do, so I decided to re-post my favorite blogs with a short present-day commentary and continue onto current times.

I hope a few of you will join me on this journey of recollection, reflection, and learning. I feel such compassion for this country. Little did we know what we were headed into and there is still so much uncertainty ahead. The journey is far from over.

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Our Shadow: November 25, 2016

For the sake of transparency, I am a Hillary supporter but even more important I am a proud American. I also happen to be a psychotherapist. Depending on which hat I am wearing my reaction to the results of the 2016 presidential election varies slightly. As a Hillary supporter I am stunned by her defeat. I believe there are many reasons this election slipped away from her and I have absolutely no doubt those reasons rest upon the bedrock of misogyny and racism in this country. As an American I feel frightened that core rights and values guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution may be threatened by the incoming administration. As a therapist I feel a sense of relief that the “shadow” in this country has finally been brought to the light. In this moment, I am reflecting on that collective shadow.

What is a shadow? In my line of work, the shadow contains the darker emotions a person carries. It could be the emotions of anger, hate, fear, indifference, and cruelty. The shadow is also the energy of self-righteousness, blaming, shaming and scapegoating. At its core, it is the energy of judgment. This shadow can be hidden inside a person — whereby a person seeks to be “good” though they are simmering with rage inside. For those who act out the shadow at home or in the world, it shows up in choice of words, tone of words, body language and acts of behavior that range from indifference to cruelty.

Now what is really interesting in the mental health field is that the shadow is considered to be protective energy. What you might exclaim — protective?! It tears down! It hurts others! How in the world can that be protective?! The simplest explanation is the shadow seeks to distract the person from the most tender and most painful emotions they carry inside themselves — wounds inflicted by people and circumstances when the person was most likely very young.

Oh, that sounds like mumbo jumbo, you might say. No, it is true. Just check inside of yourself as I list the hurts we often carry from childhood: abandonment, rejection, isolation, shame, violation, feeling invisible, less than, unlovable, bad, sorrow, grief, guilt, powerlessness, loneliness, fear and many more. Do any of those resonate? And oh, by the way, there are very few of us that do not carry some of those wounds from our past.

When those hurt parts get triggered by the outside world, the shadow cannot bear for its person to sit in the pain. It goes into action raging and spewing about the badness of people “out there”. Everyone and everything “out there” is the problem and that runs the gamut from my wife, my women boss, the owner of the company going to Mexico forcing me out of a job, the black people living next door, the gay couple down the street, the crippled guy begging on the corner, the yuppies taking over my neighborhood making it too expensive for us old timers to stay in our homes; take your pick.

The shadow blames because when it blames the person does not feel all the really painful emotions inside of themselves. For example, it is easier to rage at Hillary being a liar about her emails than to say, “I don’t know what to do with the factory closing. I feel scared I won’t be able to get another job. I feel scared I won’t be able to feed my kids. I feel scared I am not enough to get us through this — I feel really really scared.” The shadow of blame and rage distracts from the pain of feeling scared, powerless, confused, and hopeless.

Sadly, long term the shadow strategy is not helpful to the person. The pain inside grows and grows so the shadow needs to get bigger and bigger and more aggressive as it seeks to do its job to distract and protect. It is a strategy that will always fail in the end, but boy can it wreak havoc and pain inside the person, within their family, community, state and country. Look at Germany and WWII — the classic case of a shadow taking over a country and failing horribly.

So we come to November 9, 2016. All those folks who pretended to be politically correct or hid it under the surface, or already had been acting out just could not contain their pain anymore. The gloves came off and they elected a man who spews shadow language onto every group of people in this country and he is proud to do it — women, the disabled, Hispanics, Muslims, the LGBT community, the press, companies doing business out of the country. This is a problem because they elected a man with a huge personal shadow of his own who cares less. When someone cares less really bad behaviors can emerge. When someone cares less it hurt others. When lots of people care less our humanity is threatened — especially if one of those people is the president-elect.

I would be really depressed right now if I was not a therapist. I know true healing of the individual and collective psyche can only be healed when the wound and burden is revealed and boy, the dark stuff is right out there. So in this scary place what do I want for all of us? I want us to wake up.

In healing circles we talk about individuals being awake or being sleepy. When an individual wakes up, he or she sees all aspects of themselves — light and dark — and can accurately name at their core what they are truly feeling moment to moment. When a person wakes up they seek to understand which parts of themselves extend love and compassion and which are ground in fear and rage which is the energy of victim and/or perpetrator. Being awake means making choices from a place of curiosity, compassion and love. Being awake is our birthright.

The good news for me is over and over I have seen the emotional healing of clients, healing in their relationships, and healing in their families. I have witnessed folks coming out of the darkness into the light of life with increased personal joy and power. In this moment I am holding on to that for dear life for myself and the rest of us.

So bottom line I am praying like crazy we will collectively embark on a healing journey; that we as a people will wake up, and that as a country we heal our shadow. Individually the way is often gut wrenching and painful but there is no more worthy effort. It is going to be tough going for our country but I have some thoughts on how we begin one person at a time, one baby step at a time to wake up individually and collectively.

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Commentary: October 28, 2023

I hold steadfast to every word I wrote in the above essay. What pains me to my core is my naivete that people would quickly learn these lessons. I feel like the Rebel soldiers of the Civil War who thought it would be fun to route the Yankees in a few weeks, teach them some lessons, and head on home to life as they had always known it. Little did I know the depth and breath of the shadow in this country. Little did I know.