My dog is wilful!

My dog is WILFUL! 

And, because I speak the language of shadow, I was able to turn my frustration at her wilfulness into a useful insight into my own hidden tendency towards compliance in the coaching relationship.

Here’s how.

The easiest way to get started with shadow work is to build your vocabulary, just as you would when learning any language. Tuning into projections is a great first step to doing this.

To understand what a projection is, here’s Ken Wilber in ‘Meeting the Shadow’: 

“Projection on the Ego Level is very easily identified: if a person or thing in the environment informs us, then we probably aren’t projecting; on the other hand, if it affects us, chances are that we are a victim of our own projections.”

In this instance, Edie’s wilfulness was very much affecting me. I was disproportionately furious that she was exercising her right to choose the route of the dog walk! The strong emotional charge indicated that something was happening for me in relation to that attribute.

My next step was to ask: How does this show up in my coaching?

So I tried on the attribute, to see if it had any useful emotional or somatic charge for me: ‘As a coach, I am wilful.’

I couldn’t find any energy in relation to that phrasing, so instead opted to explore the polarity - the next great building block in discovering your shadow vocabulary.

It’s important to say here that there is no one ‘right’ answer; instead, it’s more intuitive, ‘trying on’ different attributes until you find the energy that reveals hidden treasure.

In this instance, I got that charge when I landed on ‘compliant’ as a potential polarity to wilfulness:

‘As a coach, I am compliant.’

Yup, that one had me wincing with a flicker of knowing - you know, the knowing that you’d rather not know.

And yet I know that the beauty of shadow work is that it takes the heat out of the wince and transforms something limiting into something useful.

So let’s go back compliance.

With this word now on my radar, I remembered a recent session where a client opted to keep the video off on the Zoom call. My response to this was: “Okthenthat’sfine.”

This phrase did not go via my brain; there was no consultation. It was a familiar phrase that exploded out of me from deep in my history. If someone else expresses a want, I defer. Compliantly.

Needless to say, this area then became a RICH source of discussion in my next supervision, resulting in new insights and practical tools for how I can stay in presence, more of the time…even when someone expresses a want.

I hope that’s a helpful walk through of some of the simpler applications of taking shadow energy and transforming it into insight and action.

And all because the dog didn’t want to go left….!

To find out more about bringing shadow into your coaching reflections, check out my upcoming retreats here.