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Ramsses II
Registered User
(11/24/05 11:05 am)
Reply 		Shadow Work
adastra: This past weekend I attended an Integral Weekend Experiential Training workshop (I-WET)in Seattle, and of the many components of the training the single most useful one for me was the "3-2-1" Shadow Work module.

The basic idea is simple. You choose someone you've had some difficulty with - e.g. they make you angry or upset - and describe the situation first from a third-person perspective; then second person in the form of a dialog between you and the other person; then as first-person perspective from the other person's point of view.

I chose someone who has caused great difficulty on the Integral Naked forum (an online community I've been heavily involved in for over two years) who has recently been banned from IN for various transgressions. The third person perspective went fairly smoothly - I spewed a few pages stating how the situation looked to me in no uncertain terms (we were instructed to not hold back, and I'm happy to report I didn't - it got nasty).

Next I took the second-person perspective, and that was much more uncomfortable as I had to represent the other person's point of view. I hated to admit it, but he was making some good points about my own emotional reactions and projections. By the end of the second part of the exercise, much to my surprise I was almost crying because I started perceiving the situation from his point of view, and it seemed obvious to me that he keeps trying to reach out to people, but is unable to form connections because he is so deeply dysfunctional in the interpersonal realm. This seemed very sad to me and reminded me of my own alienation and emotional repression as a child.

Finally I took the first person perspective from his point of view, and by the end of that most of my previous emotional reactions (chiefly anger/rage) were dissipated and I felt much more empathy toward him than I had previously. I still think I was right all along about the nature of the situation and what needed to be done - this exercise addresses personal and interpersonal reality, not objective reality - i.e. why was I so enraged, rather than calmly assessing and dealing with the situation in a more neutral or compassionate manner?

Now here's where it gets weird. Diane Hamilton, the awesomely competent and inspiring teacher who lead the 3-2-1 session, told us afterward that many times she's known of syncronicities happening following this exercise. The example she gave was of a woman who did work on a friend she had difficulties with but hadn't seen in a while; her friend called the day after she did the exercise, and because the woman had done her shadow work, she was able to interact in a much better way with her friend and patched things up.

In my case, the day I got back from the conference, I received an email from the former forum member in question - who had never emailed me before. Despite the fact that we had been "enemies" throughout the months-long conflict, his email was quite neutral, in fact he was trying to get me to start a thread he thought would be good for the forum. Although I'm not going to do that - for all kinds of good reasons which are beyond the scope of this blog entry - I will respond to him with compassion. What an interesting synchronicity that this email arrived immediately after processing the shadow-side of this issue in myself.

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