Warning: This blog post contains references to Eldritch Horrors – also poop.
For some months now, I’ve been talking about the shadow; noting days in the planner to engage with the shadow; and attempting to meet, process, integrate, and befriend my own shadows. I even signed up for a very intense shadow work course. I was all in on the shadow work, baby!
The result? Bluntly, a whole lot of digestive upset. Apparently, despite my hyper-cerebral, overthinking, intellect-uber-alles nature — when it comes to the shadow? It’s all somatic baby! It’s in my body (at least until it decides not to be in my body anymore and then it’s REALLY not). Sorry this is gross, but it was a massive surprise to me to discover that all the guided meditation and journaling exercises just facilitate the down and dirty, nasty, lived experience of this process for me. Down in the snake pit.
Interestingly, the result of the actual “work” part of “shadow work” isn’t the integration at all, it’s the magic that makes the universe sit up, take notice of my intention, and deliver opportunities galore to have shadow experiences. The work is just to set up this huge blinking sign above my head that says “shadow triggers welcome – land here!” It’s the urge to say “let’s split up, I’ll explore the root cellar!” It’s picking up the hitchhiker with the ax. In deepest irony, the feeling of having failed at my shadow work (particularly the spectacularly well-crafted and really powerful Rune Soup course, Shaman’s Devil) is, in itself, a shadow of mine. Of course it is! Instead of approaching this process in a logical, organized way — brain first, as it were — I’m feeling my way along. Groping in the dark. Cue the jump scare.
I have been in my body in a way that is actually incredibly powerful (if admittedly also unpleasant). And that’s gotten me thinking about what my body is really doing here. Because I’ve realized that the sense of touch is different from any of our other senses – it enforces reciprocity.
It is completely possible to see something that does not see you. I can look at something that can’t technically see me in return or someone who’s looking away, or has their eyes closed. I can watch you while you’re sleeping (preferably while standing outside your window in a Scream mask). It’s also feasible to hear someone or something that doesn’t hear you. I can hear music even if the music doesn’t hear me. I can eavesdrop and overhear. My hearing something doesn’t require being heard in return. I can be downwind and smell something that doesn’t smell me, as predators will tend to do. Even the sense of taste, bound up as it is with both touch and smell, can be independent. Stand on the seashore and open your mouth. You can taste the salt, but the sea can’t taste you in return. I can taste death on the wind, but death won’t be able to taste me (I run from the zombies!).
But you cannot touch something without also being touched by it. And you cannot be touched by something without touching it in return. Our language reflects this. You can say “I see what you did there” or “I hear you!” or “it didn’t pass the smell test” or “it left a bad taste in my mouth.” But say “you touched me” and you are also saying “I touched you.” They are all tools of perception, of understanding, but with touch that understanding is always bidirectional.
And I think, interestingly, that this also applies to the things that you feel INSIDE your body. When I feel queasy because of a sense of inadequacy or a repressed childhood memory, I’m touching that shadow part and it’s touching me. The call is literally coming from inside the house!
At first this was annoying. I’d be like, time to get my journal and journey to engage with my shadow parts! And my body would be like “or we can visit the bathroom! … again.” At some point in this… well, it’s hardly a process… at some point in this B-grade, body horror flick I just decided to lean in and be in it. And because of that blinking sign over my head (shadow vacancy at the Ivy Motel) I keep getting the experiences that encourage me to do that.
Spooky season jokes aside, this is a deep rabbit hole. Think about the Harry Harlow (“Cloth Mother / Wire Mother”) Experiments or what it means to be touch starved or how intimacy really works outside of a purely sexual context. Think about how bidirectional touch can permeate the other senses (like are two people eye fucking touching each other through vision?). When you say someone hurt you, you likely mean emotionally, right? But it’s still touch. It’s somatic. It’s in your body. People can die of a broken heart. Emotional feeling is still feeling – and being felt. And you can’t feel something without the bidirectionality: without the reciprocity of feeling that thing that made you feel in return.
Consider how this works in regard to magic. Particularly “wet work” AKA malefica. When you are touched by someone (whether that touch is pleasure or pain) you have made a connection with them – a two-way connection. Be careful what you send down that wire, because it’s also coming back at you. And the reverse… the last thing I’ll mention about this is a text I received last week from someone from my past who I definitely have a bi-directional / shadow part kind of engagement with. I struggled to respond and engage with what was feeling like an unwinnable kind of situation (insert Admiral Akbar “It’s a Trap” meme). And after feeling all the feelings in my body (the nausea! the tight breathing! yay!) I realized that I needed to engage with myself. I needed to be in my own feelings — to be intimate with the part of myself that was feeling uncomfortable and unsafe — and that means DISENGAGING with the actual person.
This was revelatory for me. Integrating a shadow doesn’t mean you have to allow new ones to create themselves. Instead you can reach in instead of out in order to touch and love and comfort the lost parts of yourself. Maybe this is a journey, or a conversation using automatic writing, or a conversation you hold with your inner voice. But if you’re me, it’s a full body, full contact hug. Oh, and a need for additional fiber in my diet.
