Writing the Shadow: What triggers you?
“Unless we do conscious work on it, the shadow is almost always projected; that is, it is neatly laid on someone or something else, so we do not have to take responsibility for it.”
—Robert A. Johnson, Owning Your Own Shadow
We all react differently to different things.
One person might have a sudden intense response to a situation or a headline or a social media post, while others don’t even notice it happening.
There might be an emotional surge: anger, frustration, shame, fear, sadness, or embarrassment.
There might be a physical response: flushing hot or cold, sweating, speeding heart, feelings of discomfort, nausea or diarrhoea, weakness in the limbs, tightness, curling or hunching the body.
You might find yourself fixated on whatever it is, ruminating and thinking about it over and over, out of proportion to the way others might see it.
Take notice of when these things happen and under what circumstances, then consider whether your reaction might be related to aspects of Shadow. Of course, “sometimes a cigar is just a cigar,” as the psychologist Sigmund Freud is reported to have said. But you might catch a glimpse of the Shadow this way.
Don’t start with the big, contentious societal issues that trigger so many. They are much bigger than we can handle here.
Start with the smaller things, those more particular to you, and that are in your control. These tiny triggers might help you gain an insight into your unconscious, and if you can work through some of these, you can scale up to the bigger issues later.
* * *
I’ve been creating in public since 2008, so I’m used to comments and emails from people who don’t know me, as well as negative reviews of my books. But some things trigger me more than others, usually when my Shadow recognises a grain of truth.
Someone once emailed and said, “You’re boring and you create tepid content.”
I’m English and we usually apply the word tepid to a cup of tea that is weak and not hot enough. You wouldn’t want to drink it.
This might not seem like a big deal but the words made me flush with shame and denial. I was immediately angry — clearly triggered. I felt a need to reply and justify myself because I work really hard to create content that (thankfully) a lot of people find useful.
Years later, by considering what I have learned about my Shadow side, I can understand why that triggered me so much.
Returning to the analogy of Plato’s Chariot, my white horse controls my content as Joanna Penn. I’ve certainly held back some things I might have said because I want to be useful and I want people to like me. I fear judgment and criticism and I don’t like conflict, so I shy away from writing things that might attract it.
If I’m honest, sometimes my content as Joanna Penn is tepid. Not too hot, not too cold. Acknowledging why I reacted so strongly brings my fear out of the Shadow, and I can consider whether I need to make a change, and how I might do so.
These days, enough people find my Joanna Penn content useful that I don’t need to change it, and there are plenty of other voices out there to listen to. I am also expressing myself with less of a filter through my patron community on Patreon.com/thecreativepenn, sharing things I don’t on the main public site.
That email and many others have also helped me realise that many people in my community don’t even know I write books and stories as J.F. Penn — which are not tepid or boring! It underscores my need to integrate that darker side of myself, one of the reasons I’m writing this book.
What do you judge or criticise in others?
“What I criticise in others may be true of me.”
—David Richo, Shadow Dance
What types of people or particular behaviours do you judge or criticise?
Again, pay attention to anything that arouses a strong emotional reaction, particularly if others don’t consider it a big deal.
For example — and it seems ridiculous to write this — sometimes I judge others for having fun. I see people relaxing and enjoying themselves and I think they’re lazy and wasting time when they should be working and achieving something with the day.
Lazy is a trigger word for me. It’s something I would hate to be called.
But in examining the deeper reasons behind this, I can see that I’ve been rewarded in my life for my work. So much so that my self-worth is intrinsically linked to it.
If I don’t work, I am not worthy, but this deep-seated attitude leads me to work to exhaustion. Not a healthy way to live!
I’ll cover this further in Chapter 2.5, The Shadow in work. For now, it’s an example to help you pay attention to even the little things — that may have a bigger issue lurking beneath them.
Questions:
• What triggers you? Consider the small things rather than the larger societal issues.
• How do you know when you’re triggered? How does it feel?
• Pick one small thing that triggers you and investigate it further. Why might you react in such a way? What might lie behind that reaction?
• What types of people or particular behaviours do you judge or criticise that others don’t find so objectionable?
• Why might you feel that way?
Resources:
• Shadow Dance: Liberating the Power & Creativity of Your Dark Side — David Richo
• Owning Your Own Shadow: Understanding the Dark Side of the Psyche — Robert A. Johnson
