Materials: walnut, brass, brass,nuts and bolts, enamelled copper wire, and metal paint.
Dimensions: (h)45cm x (w)34cm x (d)14cm
Weight: 8kg 7kg
Undamning the shadow
I started this piece thinking about the aspects of ourselves we don't like.
We are born whole, but our parents and caregivers to whom we are dependant as children are more often than not unable to welcome every aspect of us.
In a well meaning and socialising way, they disapprove and punish negative behaviours involving aggression, anger, hate, pettiness, selfishness and
so on thus forcing us to reject, disown and push away these apects of ourselves in order to maintain loving bonds and survive. These negative emotions
do not disappear, however.
This act of self rejection is the beginning of the split between the conscious and subconscious mind. The disapproved of aspects are pushed into the
unconscious where they stay, dictating our present behaviours unbeknownst to our conscious mind. And so forms the shadow, in everyone. The shadow is
what you don't know that you don't know. This is why sometimes we feel completely out of control of ourselves, why we know what we want to do but end
up doing something else in complete contradiction. If we are born into a family that strongly disapproves of anger, for instance, we disown our potent
feelings, choosing instead to see ourselves as easy going. Everybody around us, however, sees us as an angry person. We cannot see, at first, what we
have buried.
Shadow work, then, is the process of making conscious what we have suppressed. It is difficult work, and most people avoid it because when we do it we
bring up the memories of how we rejected this part of ourselves, which is painful and traumatic. We grieve the parts of ourselves we shunned and lost
in order to be loved. We also realize we are not as wonderful, virtuous and perfect as we like to think we are.
"Unfortunately there can be no doubt that man is, on the whole, less good than he imagines himself or wants to be. Everyone carries a shadow, and the
less it is embodied in the individual's conscious life, the blacker and denser it is. At all counts, it forms an unconscious snag, thwarting our most
well-meant intentions."
(Carl Jung)
The beauty of doing this work is that it keeps repeating and magnifying until we become conscious of what we are doing. The patterns recur until they
are recognised. Once we do see these darker aspects of ourselves, it is vital we acknowledge how important they are, and accept and welcome them as
valid parts of ourselves. We need to be okay with both the great and the horrible potencies within us. This is how we become whole again.
And there are huge benefits. We get to step away from destructive habits, engage with a more objective reality and start making conscious choices,
because now we can see what is actually happening instead of looking through a filter of unconscious beliefs. We become more authentic because we know
who we are and what we really want. Blocks in our lives unstick because we are being truthful with ourselves, and can see what needs to be done. We
can choose relationships that are healthy and pleasurable for us instead of enduring unnecessary pain and strife thanks to inherited dysfunction. And
most of all, we no longer expend huge amounts of energy suppressing these emotions, which can unlock abilities and capacties that have laid dormant for
years.
€5000