Teresa's Blog

I am not sure if I talked much on my blog about working with a coach although I worked with a coach for several months and really enjoyed it.  I am on a hiatus at the moment to reserve funds however I hope to someday resume training with her.  The last thing we were working through was the book The Dark Side of the Light Chasers.  This looks like an easy quick read at first glance although it is deceiving.  The real work is in the exercises.  The general idea of the book at least as I get it is to come to understand and eventually incorporate what is often referred to as our shadow.  The shadow is the side of you that you do not consciously understand and that may be seen as darker or less appealing traits.  The shadow may also show up as things that we tend to dislike in other people and the idea is that we dislike those things in other people because we haven’t yet come to embrace those things in ourselves.  This is a really hard concept to get so I am not going to try to explain it in anymore detail however based on my reading so far I believe it can be empowering and enlightening to come to accept these darker things within ourselves. There have been many exercises, some involving meditation, journaling and reflection.  One of the exercises involved reading a list of words and saying I am… greedy, fat, arrogant, stupid, loud, resentful, etc. (there is over a page of words).  And with each word if you found it hard to say that sentence of I am… then there is charge there for you and the direction was to work to embrace this word, with the understanding of we are all of these things at sometime or another.  The words or traits that bring us the most charge/resistance are likely the ones that drain the most energy from us because we do not yet own them ourselves. The exercise I am most excited about requires help from others.  The task is to interview others and find out which three things they like the most about you and which three things they like the least.  The books suggests that our friends and family will be the best at providing insight into some of our traits that we ourselves do not see, both more positive than we understand about ourselves as well as more negative than we chose to see.  And it says its important for you to know that its okay to be honest.  I feel like getting this feedback could be a wonderful tool for me.  I have been working through the other exercises and this will be another way for me to work on embracing my shadow.  If you want to help I have set up an anonymous form so its the best form of feedback and I think should take away the fear of being honest.  If you want to share your feedback with me openly feel free to email, post as a comment, or call.  Please share three of both sides if you participate. As one way you can understand I am using this shadow work I have found one thing that really bothers me is when a car either cuts in front of me as I am walking, turns quickly behind me, or otherwise is in a hurry and seems to threaten me while I am crossing the street.  This often results in me giving them a thanks neighbor wave which I have trademarked.  I don’t give anyone the finger although I may throw my hands up angrily or sarcastically wave at them.  Its interesting because Elliott is often with me and he doesn’t get charged up in the same way so I know there is something about this situation that involves shadow work for me.  I am not sure quite what it is although I believe it is related to my own tendency to be running late and being in a hurry.  I know my hurried and running late tendency is annoying to others although I think I may not quite own that yet, so I am working to embrace I am running late and that is harmful and annoying to others.