I had the absolute pleasure of being invited to the Team Coaching Studio’s summer retreat this year, where the topic was Acts of Courage in Team Coaching. Bringing shadow work to this topic felt like a hand-in-glove fit as it’s often what’s lurking in the shadows, out of sight, that causes our courage to fail. So it was with great excitement and purpose that I headed off to Winchester.
And then…oh hello troublesome psyche! Now? You really want to come out to play NOW?!
Everything is obvious with hindsight, even a cheeky parallel process, but I was unprepared for my own ‘act of courage’ journey that presented itself whilst I was facilitating my sessions, and for 24hours my nervous system was hijacked as my shadow led me in a merry dance of overload and panic.
And then, once I’d danced with my shadow long into the night, came the most incredible sense of ease, clarity and presence; and the remainder of my time on retreat had an ephemeral lightness to it as I absorbed, with deep gratitude, the insights that allowed me to become more of myself, in real time.
Big words, I know, so let me walk you through some detail of the challenges I faced so you get a sense of my journey.
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1. You ruin everything
Monday was my chance to meet and socialise with the group of participants ahead of leading my sessions on Tuesday and Wednesday. As I went to my hotel room on Monday evening, I had a niggling feeling I couldn’t quite place. It wasn’t nerves, exactly; not quite anxiety. But something was off, and as I searched for what, I caught myself thinking: “But they’re such a lovely group of people!” to which my inner voice replied, “Yeah, but you’re not.”
One of the wounds I carry from childhood is that I ruin everything. There is a shadowy dance that plays itself out between my father and me, where he projects his sensitivity onto me (unconsciously, of course), he then criticises me so I cry and he can judge me (unconsciously, of course) for being such a sensitive cry baby who ruins everything.
This shadow game is as well-worn into me as a fingerprint, so I knew I had hit on the sticky feeling when I made this connection.
I asked my shadow figure what it needed from me, to help it settle, and I envisioned asking each participant what they thought of me as a way to challenge old assumptions (I’m not welcome) with up to the minute reality. This got Tuesday off to a really good start. But then…
2. How very disappointing
As the first day continued, I could not escape the increasing whiff of disappointment. A conspiracy of parts wanted me to believe that the source of disappointment was the group.
“They’ve come all this way for this? It’s not good enough, you’re not good enough…DO BETTER” they screamed, unsettling me at every turn.
Or, even worse, maybe the disappointment came from the person who’d commissioned me to attend, the one that would be getting my invoice. For me, there’s an amplification of fear in the face of financial exchange, so the old, familiar fears come knocking:
“How DARE you charge money for this. Charlatan! Liar. Greedy grasping con-artist.”
(Yup, parts really know how to get right under your skin, in all the painful places.)
And yet I’ve done enough inner work to know, deep down, that the disappointment was all mine. Just as fish don’t know they’re swimming in water, for decades I didn’t know that I was swimming in a sea of disappointment. It’s another projection from within my family system, and I have lived a life that has carried the faint whiff of disappointed in all my endeavours.
This awareness served as a life buoy in choppy waters, keeping me anchored to the present even as the waves of the past threatened to engulf me.
3. But it’s hard!
I took my jangled nervous system out for a walk at lunchtime on day one, desperately trying to return to the presence that I felt I ought to be modelling – after all, how could people believe that shadow work had benefits if the person telling them so was a hot and sweaty mess?
I was grappling with the conundrum that whilst I felt I was where I was supposed to be, I was having an experience of real challenge and difficulty. This felt like a contradiction…until I eventually recognised the naivety of equating purpose with pleasure.
Sometimes ‘where we’re supposed to be’ is face down in the dirt. Because it’s only then we can find what it is we need to draw on to stand up again, shake the mud from our fingertips and go again. Acts of courage are required when we’re under-resourced, feeling exposed or vulnerable. Yup, I was feeling all of those things!
Turns out this was exactly what I was supposed to be experiencing as my own first-hand, in the moment, call to courage.
4. The dignity of authority
I got through the day exhausted. Having so many ghosts from the past interrupting resourcefulness in the present burns through psychological calories.
I grew up in a threatening environment so I’m naturally hyper-vigilant, always scanning the air for threat. And my default strategy to compensate threat is appeasement. A one-down position.
I have started to recognise how this plays out in my one to one coaching, but was less aware of the insidious impact of it when facilitating. And here I was – projecting threat onto the group and then leaning back to appease that threat. Which it turn increased the feelings of threat because I wasn’t fully present…and the merry go round of nervous system agitation was in full swing. Dizzyingly so.
Once I recognised what was happening, I called on my shadow for some wisdom;
What is needed? What is missing? How can I bring a different energy to day two?
The answer? Gifts that came straight from my golden shadow.
‘Access your authority and your fight. Don’t let the Victim archetype be the authority figure in this story: step into your own authority.’
Walking to the training venue on day two with these insights, I felt my shoulders drop, my heart open up and I spontaneously laughed in the face of oncoming traffic. In this moment, it felt good to alive. Win, lose or draw in the workshop, I felt dignified and whole. I already had what I needed.
Suffice to say, day two was magical.
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This retreat stretched me. In the 24hours of turmoil over the first day’s delivery I called on all that I have learned through working with shadow and was rewarded with a bumper pack of insights that I know have fundamentally changed the way that I will approach my role as a facilitator.
Having closer contact with my authority is an incredibly rich seam that I know will continue to bring colour to areas of my life where I have held myself in the grey, playing small.
It’s a beautiful paradox to me that bringing a quality from the shadow means there is already so much more light in my life.
I am grateful that this experience wasn’t smooth sailing throughout. For every moment of self-doubt, struggle and panic my reward is a closer encounter with my own grit, resilience, courage and fight.
And ultimately, the dignity to persist, to rewrite limiting stories from the past and come home to more of who I am.
And for that, I am deeply grateful.
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