This month I am taking some Growth Clubs through a process called Integrating the Shadow.
Like many of you, I have been exposed to Shadow work through the books and films of Debbie Ford who has popularised the notion of the shadow, a concept which was originally named and described by Carl Jung.
It is only as I sit down to write this that I realize (of course!) that life has been putting me through exactly the same journey on which I intend to take my Growth Club members.
So this week I have been meeting one of my shadows and her name is Prejudice.
Painful as it is, let me share with you two incidents that happened this week that have opened up my prejudice to me.
On Monday, after doing some work with an NGO in the city, I had a fit of 'I'm-not-your-typical-white-South-Africa-I-embrace-diversity', which resulted me in deciding to do my weekly groceries at a Pick N Pay in Newtown rather than my regular, suburban branch.
I felt rather virtuous about my choice to shop in the city and rub shoulders with people who are very different from me.
Of course my virtuosity, my sense of being a good citizen, my superiority even, followed me right on into the shop and caused havoc.
Everything went wrong from the time I tried to park (Newtown Pick N Pay doesn't provide parking because its patrons are largely on foot) to the time I tried to pay showing my Vitality card (Yini Vitality?!).
I got in everybody's way, slowed down the lunch-time shoppers with my big trolley and kept people waiting behind me at the till because no less than three different items of mine would not scan.
I stuck out like a sore (white) thumb and I cringed inside at what I could so clearly see: in my effort to cross boundaries I had entrenched them even more.
This is always the result of effort, of trying, of going out of your way to be good instead of following your natural path, your authentic desire.
Wherever you are trying to be good (at parenting, at spirituality, at eating etc) you will inevitably, in some form or another, either produce or attract the reverse of what you want.
This is because, contrary to what most of us would believe, the universe or God is in support of wholeness, not holiness.
If you have to try to be or do something, if it is not a natural joy or an authentic desire, then you are repressing something, pushing away a part of you that you wish wasn't there and that is the shadow.
Whatever gets pushed into shadow will be what you unintentionally display or bring towards you so that you can see where you are in denial or being fragmented.
In trying so hard not to be a stereotypical, racist white South African I had become just that.
My prejudice was in the shadow.
The following evening Garrick and I went out with friends to watch the phenomenal film District 9.
Sitting in front of that screen was, for me, like being repeatedly punched in the stomach.
I could hardly tolerate the oppression and homegrown prejudice.
If the film wasn't quite so brilliant I would have walked out the cinema from the sheer pain of watching it.
In-between my sobs afterwards I sssssaid to Garrick that I was interested in the degree to which District 9 had affected me.
Why was I so much more emotional about the content than other people, why had I been enraged when people around us laughed at some of the blatantly oppressive comments? I could see that my buttons had been pushed, or actually bashed, in a big way.
Ken Wilbur in his book Meeting the Shadow suggests a simple and very clear distinction to determine whether what you are experiencing is 'your stuff' or not.
'...
if a person or thing in the environment informs us, we probably aren't projecting; on the other hand, if it affects us, chances are we are a victim of our own prejudices'.
I was so deeply affected by that film because my own capacity to be oppressive, deeply buried, was being reflected to me in a most powerful manner.
This conclusion is supported by my history.
I spent years working in NGOs and other organisations dedicated to undoing oppression and developing the under-privileged.
I consulted to corporations on black economic empowerment and corporate social investment, dated more black men than white and was always very outspoken on matters of racial and gender discrimination.
I wasn't simply informed about these things, I was fighting them.
I understand this now as the obvious outcome of my own prejudice being dis-owned, being in the shadow.
It has been painful for me to acknowledge this, especially because now I am seeing evidence of my prejudiced thoughts everywhere! They follow me into my relationship with Garrick, with my body and in how I make choices about where to live.
But it's important to note that there is nothing I can, or need to, do about my prejudice other than fully and softly see it.
Just the act of observing creates a distance, a gap, between the real me and those thoughts.
Over time that gap will grow sufficiently for me to naturally, gracefully, use prejudice consciously rather than unconsciously (it can be done and it can be useful).
The shadow does not need to be forcefully eradicated, it needs only to be gently brought into the fullness of the light.
Here's to each of us bringing our shadow into the light so that the shadow of humanity will follow the same path.
Like many of you, I have been exposed to Shadow work through the books and films of Debbie Ford who has popularised the notion of the shadow, a concept which was originally named and described by Carl Jung.
It is only as I sit down to write this that I realize (of course!) that life has been putting me through exactly the same journey on which I intend to take my Growth Club members.
So this week I have been meeting one of my shadows and her name is Prejudice.
Painful as it is, let me share with you two incidents that happened this week that have opened up my prejudice to me.
On Monday, after doing some work with an NGO in the city, I had a fit of 'I'm-not-your-typical-white-South-Africa-I-embrace-diversity', which resulted me in deciding to do my weekly groceries at a Pick N Pay in Newtown rather than my regular, suburban branch.
I felt rather virtuous about my choice to shop in the city and rub shoulders with people who are very different from me.
Of course my virtuosity, my sense of being a good citizen, my superiority even, followed me right on into the shop and caused havoc.
Everything went wrong from the time I tried to park (Newtown Pick N Pay doesn't provide parking because its patrons are largely on foot) to the time I tried to pay showing my Vitality card (Yini Vitality?!).
I got in everybody's way, slowed down the lunch-time shoppers with my big trolley and kept people waiting behind me at the till because no less than three different items of mine would not scan.
I stuck out like a sore (white) thumb and I cringed inside at what I could so clearly see: in my effort to cross boundaries I had entrenched them even more.
This is always the result of effort, of trying, of going out of your way to be good instead of following your natural path, your authentic desire.
Wherever you are trying to be good (at parenting, at spirituality, at eating etc) you will inevitably, in some form or another, either produce or attract the reverse of what you want.
This is because, contrary to what most of us would believe, the universe or God is in support of wholeness, not holiness.
If you have to try to be or do something, if it is not a natural joy or an authentic desire, then you are repressing something, pushing away a part of you that you wish wasn't there and that is the shadow.
Whatever gets pushed into shadow will be what you unintentionally display or bring towards you so that you can see where you are in denial or being fragmented.
In trying so hard not to be a stereotypical, racist white South African I had become just that.
My prejudice was in the shadow.
The following evening Garrick and I went out with friends to watch the phenomenal film District 9.
Sitting in front of that screen was, for me, like being repeatedly punched in the stomach.
I could hardly tolerate the oppression and homegrown prejudice.
If the film wasn't quite so brilliant I would have walked out the cinema from the sheer pain of watching it.
In-between my sobs afterwards I sssssaid to Garrick that I was interested in the degree to which District 9 had affected me.
Why was I so much more emotional about the content than other people, why had I been enraged when people around us laughed at some of the blatantly oppressive comments? I could see that my buttons had been pushed, or actually bashed, in a big way.
Ken Wilbur in his book Meeting the Shadow suggests a simple and very clear distinction to determine whether what you are experiencing is 'your stuff' or not.
'...
if a person or thing in the environment informs us, we probably aren't projecting; on the other hand, if it affects us, chances are we are a victim of our own prejudices'.
I was so deeply affected by that film because my own capacity to be oppressive, deeply buried, was being reflected to me in a most powerful manner.
This conclusion is supported by my history.
I spent years working in NGOs and other organisations dedicated to undoing oppression and developing the under-privileged.
I consulted to corporations on black economic empowerment and corporate social investment, dated more black men than white and was always very outspoken on matters of racial and gender discrimination.
I wasn't simply informed about these things, I was fighting them.
I understand this now as the obvious outcome of my own prejudice being dis-owned, being in the shadow.
It has been painful for me to acknowledge this, especially because now I am seeing evidence of my prejudiced thoughts everywhere! They follow me into my relationship with Garrick, with my body and in how I make choices about where to live.
But it's important to note that there is nothing I can, or need to, do about my prejudice other than fully and softly see it.
Just the act of observing creates a distance, a gap, between the real me and those thoughts.
Over time that gap will grow sufficiently for me to naturally, gracefully, use prejudice consciously rather than unconsciously (it can be done and it can be useful).
The shadow does not need to be forcefully eradicated, it needs only to be gently brought into the fullness of the light.
Here's to each of us bringing our shadow into the light so that the shadow of humanity will follow the same path.