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Newsletters>
Turn on the Light
August 25, 2006
Turn on the Light
Have you ever ended one impossible relationship only to
find yourself involved with another person with almost
identical characteristics?
Are there certain people who get under your skin?
Do you find yourself disgusted with people’s behaviour,
saying to yourself, “I would never do that?”
Then I have some good news and some bad news. The bad news
is that the common denominator in those impossible
relations is you. When people get under our skin or
disgust us, it’s because they are triggering a “hot button”
deep inside that exists because there’s a hidden part of
ourselves that we can’t be with. We may be squelching this
down because we judge it as wrong, but it lives within us,
as do all human qualities, expressed or unexpressed.
The good news is that by noticing these characteristics and
behaviours we can begin to uncover concealed personal
qualities that we are ashamed of and then integrate them by
finding their gifts.
If I judge others and myself wrong for being selfish, I may
miss the gift of selfishness. A positive side of selfish
is that I take time for myself to go to the gym, eat
healthy and get the rest and quiet time I need to
regenerate.
When I point a finger and say that someone is stingy, I am
not seeing that the gift in stingy may be to have a healthy
financial plan and savings for the future.
It only takes a slight shift in perception to begin to
transform our thinking and thus our lives.
When I get dressed for a special event, I always check in
the mirror to see how I look. I cannot see the whole
picture by just gazing at what I can see by myself. This
is true for my personal qualities also. I only have a
limited view of myself, but I can look out at you and
really see you thoroughly. What if you are acting as a
mirror for my personal qualities? What I see in you is a
reflection of a part of me more difficult for me to
discern.
While I began with the negative, the opposite is also true.
What I admire most in others is a part of myself that
again I may be missing. That charismatic leader who
transforms the world through her media exists in part
inside me too or I wouldn’t be attracted to or admire those
qualities in her. I may not have developed that aspect of
myself to the same degree she has, but it is a part of me
or I wouldn’t see it.
We are born with all the qualities humans possess. The
potential for almost anything exists within us. As we grow
up our families begin to influence what parts of ourselves
are valued, respected and encouraged and what parts are
frowned upon, unappreciated and disliked. While we start
out being able to openly express any characteristic or
behaviour, through repeated messages of approval and
disapproval, we gradually learn what about us is ‘good’ and
makes other people happy and what about us is ‘bad’ and
others don’t like. In order to keep the love and support
of the people closest to us, we often shut down or stop
expressing the aspects that don’t meet with approval.
Take a sensitive child who takes things to heart and cries
easily. Add in a parent who is concerned about the child’s
welfare and worries that she will be too hurt by life if
she doesn’t develop a thicker skin. Throughout the child’s
growing years, the parent tells the child to toughen up,
that she’s “too emotional”. Gradually the child
internalizes the message that she shouldn’t feel the way
she does and starts to shut down that depth of emotion.
Eventually she finds herself unable to feel her feelings
much at all and because of these experiences, decides that
there’s something wrong with her.
This decision she made about herself then becomes what
author Debbie Ford calls a shadow belief. We create shadow
beliefs by interpreting the events and circumstances that
happen to us. They form the basis of what we think about
ourselves, other people and the world. Some common shadow
beliefs are: “There’s something wrong with me. I don’t
matter. The world is not safe. Life isn’t fair.” Shadow
beliefs establish the limits of what we can and cannot do
and they draw to us people, events and situations that
reinforce these shadow beliefs. If I believe that I am not
safe, I will try to protect myself and not take many risks.
I will see other people as potential threats to me.
Always on the lookout for danger, I will see life very
differently than will someone who doesn’t share this
belief.
When we find that certain aspects of ourselves are not
acceptable to others we begin to hide these traits away and
some become so well hidden we forget that we ever possessed
them in the first place. Have you ever hidden something in
a safe place and then completely forgotten where you put
it, and eventually forgot it existed? That sensitive child
who learns to stifle her emotions may develop a shell of
insensitivity. As an adult she may even wonder why she
doesn’t seem to feel things very deeply. If she finds her
life unfulfilling and begins to do some inner work, she
will eventually find that hidden gift of emotional depth
she buried long ago. That buried treasure of our true
nature is often the greatest gift we can share with the
world. Deep emotional depth and caring for others are
qualities that make a great doctor, teacher or social
activist.
Shadow work involves unconcealing disowned and unclaimed
aspects of ourselves and integrating them back into our
psyches. It involves shining a light on the parts that are
hidden. Some of them will be negative traits that we’ve
spent a great deal of energy trying to not be, while others
will be qualities that we long to own and express and were
not aware were already living within us. It is exciting
and powerful work that one must approach from a loving
point of view. To read more about it, I recommend Debbie
Ford’s The Secret of the Shadow and The Dark Side of the
Light Chasers.
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© Rosemary Heenan BA ECEC CICP
About the Author: Rosemary Heenan is a Certified
Integrative Coach Professional. Her specialty is coaching
successful, professional, mid-life women who desire to be
fulfilled and live balanced lives.
Rosemary has been a college professor of early childhood
education for 30 years. If you were forwarded this by a
friend, get your own copy by signing up on the Newsletter
page at http://www.rosemaryheenan.com
Her ebook, Attract a Loving Relationship is available for
purchase at http://www.rosemaryheenan.com
Email rheenan@mnsi.net
NOTE: You’re welcome to reprint this article online as long
as it remains complete and unaltered (including the “about
the author” info at the end)
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