Light in the Shadow, Shadow in the Light
“Hope is being able to see that there is light despite all of the darkness.“ — Desmond Tutu (Photo credit)
“You know you have two parents, right? Two legacies to choose from. You seem really focused on your mom and her shadows and all that you share, but you’re not only your mother’s daughter, you know. You could equally claim your dad’s story as your own. He’s a pretty remarkable guy, and you and he are actually a lot alike! You could focus on his inspiring journey of 93 years and counting rather than her dark, devastating one.” Brandy and I were sitting at the bar at our favorite mezcaleria in Guernville, enjoying a cocktail, as she matter-of-factly skipped these pebbles of wisdom deftly across the sea of my consciousness, sending ripples through me as I considered her simple but powerful questions. In all my years of soul searching, no one had ever invited me to consider this line of inquiry. Invited me to shift the focus of my inner work from the darkness towards the light, from yin to yang.
As my journey of inner healing began, in the wake of my mother’s 20+ year battle with mental health challenges that ended with her suicide at 71, I was all about the light. A radiant, joy-seeking missile. My intention in the face of her tragic ending was to go inward and remove obstacles to joy to improve my mental wellness and avoid ending up like her. A self-described light in the darkness, I was MacShever, the joyful fixer, queen of the reframe, and the silver lining. I was a lot like my dad, a man who persevered in the face of life’s myriad challenges, making lemonade out of even the bitterest of lemons. I could find light and hope in even the darkest of circumstances. And yes, as I write this, I cringe a little as I know that my Little Miss Positivity was adorned with ribbons of toxicity. After witnessing my mother’s tortured journey and that of my baby brother, whose adolescence coincided with her descent into the depths of anxiety, paranoia, and depression, and who followed her on his own decades-long downward spiral of mental illness and chemical addiction, I was afraid that if I ventured into my own inner darkness, I might get lost as they had and never come out again.
After leading a 9-year joy brigade through my inner landscape, laying a solid foundation of light and optimism, a ceremony in 2019 drew me into shadowy realms. Until that night, my journeys had been all about the light, no demons, no darkness, just multidimensional, kaleidoscopic joy, kundalini double-time energy pulsing to an upbeat cosmic rhythm. This particular transformational experience took place as the horrors of the #MeToo movement and Epstein’s abuses spread like a wildfire raging through our collective awareness. Survivors' courageous, graphic accounts of the harm they’d suffered at the hands of powerful men were lodged in my consciousness, inspiring deeply emotional and disquieting self-reflection on my engagement with the opposite sex that had started to shine light on my core wounds and raise questions about my true sexual orientation.
As the mushroom medicine started to work its magic, I noticed darkness all around me. This was new. I was surprised but not really scared. I concentrated on my heart and sent light out into the shadows as I had been guided to do. Something inside me shifted, and I became aware that the darkness wasn’t just outside of me; it was also inside me. This was also new. Rather than feel alarm or shame at this realization, I felt a wave of love wash over me as I embraced the shadows within and without, offering them compassionate witnessing that I intuitively sensed they needed. At this threshold moment, my journey of becoming took a turn, pivoting to shadow work. Specifically, mother shadow work. After years of yang strengthening and flexing, I finally had the mental fortitude to examine and tend to my wounded yin side. 6 months later, at the dawn of 2020, a new decade that would come to be associated with a descent into collective darkness, I began to explore and speak to my darker truths, and the real work began.
When I met my forever love a year ago, I had thought my journey through the valley of shadows complete, Jungian shadow synthesis accomplished, only to discover new dimensions of darkness to explore in her powerful relational mirror. In the early days of our relationship, Brandy had taken it upon herself to read the entirety of my Contagious Vulnerability series from start to finish, but until now, she hadn’t really been exposed to anything other than the fruits of my prior laboring. Experiencing only past vulnerability about happenings that preceded our relationship, rather than anything of the present moment.
As we sat at El Barrio that evening, sipping Los Nopales, I’d spent the previous 6 weeks bringing recent inner struggles into the light, giving voice to undercurrents of darkness that I’d been navigating solo for the prior 6 months as our love story unfolded. The day before, I’d written another piece, a deeper dive into the depths of mother shadow, and it was all still very fresh and raw. Her curious questions were unexpected and a bit disorienting. I’ve written and shared a lot on this journey of becoming, and received a lot of thoughtful reflections. But the idea of refocusing my inner healing journey from my mother’s legacy to my father’s, considering my paternal inheritance, rather than fixating solely on that of my troubled maternal line. That was a new one.
My brain was flooded with questions. Had I become Alice, adventuring in a Jungian Shadowland? Going down the rabbit hole following my insatiable curiosity in pursuit of personal and ancestral healing, only to find myself lost in the darkness of a multidimensional, psychic warren with no way out? Was my focus on shadow work eclipsing my own inner radiance and causing me to lose perspective, my shadows like objects reflected with a rearview mirror’s distortion, one that made them appear larger than perhaps they actually were? Only days ago, I had compared my mother to Lady Macbeth. Was I like her, singularly focused on my own shadowy aspects and blinded to the light, seeing spots of darkness everywhere I looked, obsessively attempting to rid myself of them as they multiplied around me? Out, damned shadow! Out, I say! Was it time for me to lift myself out of Shadowland and reconnect to the light?
Despite what my writings might suggest to those who don’t experience me IRL on the regular, my life is far from doom and gloom. In fact, it’s pretty awesome and was so even before I fell head over heels in love last year. Yes, since early 2020, I’ve been exploring the darker dimensions of my inner landscape, discovering shadows and core wounds worthy of compassionate care and courageously giving voice to them in hopes of being of service to others on their own journeys of inner healing, But I’m by no means a goth girl fixated on her darkness or an obsessive-compulsive Lady Macbeth who sees nothing but shadows everywhere she looks. Faithful to Desmond Tutu’s insightful definition, I’ve stayed deeply hopeful throughout, always seeing the light despite all of the darkness.
It’s true that my journey of inner work was catalyzed by my mother’s suicide, by the darkness that stole her light and ultimately, her life. As a result, it’s been largely focused on her life’s tragic arc and the core wounds and shadows we share. Her death woke me up to my own deep unhappiness at 42 and, like the ghost of Christmas Future, showed me a life path that could be mine if I didn’t take action. She effectively gave birth to me a second time, kicking off a nearly 18-year and counting journey of self-exploration that has had a profound and positive effect on my mental wellness, one that allows me to share openly and authentically with you in this series. But focusing on her darker aspects to avoid her catastrophic end belies the myriad positive impacts that she’s had on my life, positive impacts I have not yet really explored or chronicled in this series.
It’s also true that my father has been a source of wisdom and inspiration. We are quite similar and are blessed to enjoy a deep, authentic relationship, one characterized by mutual love and respect forged over decades of facing life’s challenges together. But focusing on his light and the strengths we share belies his shadows and our darker similarities. And because of my matricentric focus, I have yet to fully explore or give voice to the ways in which he has impacted my journey.
Truth is, she’s not all dark, and he’s not all light. And neither am I. Neither are any of us. Shadow work is not about finding and eradicating our shadows until we are pure light; it’s about exploring our darker aspects and the woundedness that fuels them with a compassionate lens, bringing them into balance so that they don’t define us by overexpression or suppression. Balancing light and darkness, yin and yang, and recognizing their interdependence as core to hope.