The Shadow

6) THE SHADOW

"One does not become enlightened by imagining figures of light, but by making the darkness conscious."

—Carl Jung

This story entitled The Shadow differs from the other stories I've written about my life in that it's intermingled throughout every moment of my life, from prior to birth until this moment. As there's no specific event or time period to focus in on, it's proved challenging to write about it in a concise and informative way.
What's arisen is that me, Stevie, has given an overview of the topic from my perspective, then Diablo—that’s my shadow, yes you’ll meet him shortly—has given his version of events. Why not, I say? After all this is his story.

I define the shadow as that part of one’s psyche that's hidden from conscious view. It exists in everyone, but is almost universally disowned, or at the very least repressed. The intensity with which the shadow is energized in any individual varies enormously, ranging from a gentle sea breeze, to a category five cyclone.
The shadow contains our most painful emotional woundings, our darkest secrets, and our most shameful actions. It's the origin of the impulse to cause suffering—both to ourselves and to others—and it's at the root of all addictions. The shadow will do anything to maintain its existence . . . and its disguise. When the shadow is controlling our behaviour—when it’s in the driver’s seat, as it were—it causes us to act in ways that are selfish, gluttonous, and narcissistic.
My personal understanding of the origin of the shadow is that it’s present in a rudimentary form at birth. Perhaps some aspects of it are carried forward from one lifetime to the next as our soul's emotional karma, or perhaps the id—the psychic reservoir of our animal instincts that's present at birth along with our rudimentary consciousness—harbours the precursor of the shadow. Either way, it develops and grows throughout our childhood and early adult life when painful emotions associated with traumatic life events are not fully experienced and metabolized as they occur. These painful events and their associated negative emotions are then suppressed, trapped, and stored in the unconscious depths of the mind.
Eckhart Tolle, in his essential book The Power of Now, uses the term painbody in what I believe is a similar ballpark to what I'm calling the shadow. I find this term to be quite useful as it points to the propensity for cumulative psychological pain to coalesce into a psychic structure—a body, the painbody—which influences the behaviour of an individual in unseen, and mostly negative, ways.
Through the course of my inquiry into my own shadow, I've discovered that there are three aspects to the personal shadow. These three aspects correspond to the three instinctual drives that are inherent in living in a human body, and which are associated with maintaining the survival of the DNA. All humans possess and express these three drives—the self-preservation drive, the sexual drive, and the social drive—in varying degrees.
The shadow side of the self-preservation instinct is centred around survival of the individual life form. It can manifest as excessive attachment to security, work, money, or possessions. Extreme avarice, collecting and hoarding, workaholism, overeating or obsessiveness around food, addiction to shopping, gambling, or certain substances such as alcohol, as well as schizoid withdrawal are examples of this aspect of the shadow in action. Harbouring a ‘death wish’ is an example of the self-preservation drive when it is imploded or disowned, as are disabling issues around not having enough money.
The shadow side of the sexual drive manifests as an overindulgence in the pursuit of pleasure, sex, love, or intimate relationships. It may be subtle, and only allowed to manifest in private—such as in the case of fetishes or addiction to masturbation—or it may be overt, and manifest as frequent sexual partnering, or constantly changing love interests. Imposed celibacy occurs when the sexual drive is repressed or disowned.
The shadow side of the social drive revolves around power, and manifests as the need to be in a position of power within a hierarchy of some sort—a family unit, a work situation, a political structure, a social circle, a spiritual sangha, etc. It involves the need to control or hold power over others in some way, and to wield that power either covertly or overtly. It may manifest as ambition or social climbing, and at times may incorporate back-stabbing or power plays to achieve its goals. In recent years social media has changed the playing field of the shadow aspect of the social drive (as it has for the sexual drive too) for many people, as it’s now possible to carve out an online presence—real or imaginary—that is supported by other online parties, often unseen and unknown, as a way of satisfying this urge. When the social drive is completely disowned, we give away our power and become powerless victims.
If I was to estimate the relative prevalence of the three instinctual drives as they've manifested throughout my life, I'd say it would be something like: sexual 90%, self-preservation 10%, and social <1%.
From these numbers, you can see that my social drive was virtually non-existent in my early life, and as a result I really never developed shadow issues around power or ambition; it’s just not my thing. My egoic tendency is towards deflation rather than inflation, with the result that I’ve had a tendency to give away my power. So, in my case the shadow side of my social drive has manifested principally as inferiority, inadequacy, and shame in a social sense (for those of you who know the Enneagram, very much the feel of the social 4 fixation). Reclaiming my personal power, and admitting that ambition is actually a part of my experience, have been important steps towards true freedom for me.
With respect to the self-preservation drive, at various times in my life I'd say I've been more concerned with work and money than might be considered balanced. At a deeper level, however, these activities were merely playing their part in the drive to achieve more sexual pleasure, and were not primarily acting to accumulate more money and possessions in order to attain more security. Personally, I've found shadow issues around the self-preservation drive to be fairly easy to see through, and they've exerted relatively little negative influence throughout my life.
My sexual shadow, on the other hand, is quite another story, and the one that I’ll focus on here. I would say it's the biggest story of my life, and certainly the one that's taken up the most time and attention — both in its construction and indulgence prior to 2003, and in its dismantling and transcendence since that time.

Alright, alright. Enough already, Stevie. I’m getting pretty sick and tired of listening to you go on and on, justifying me and my behaviour; I take full responsibility for my actions, and I'd do them all over again given the opportunity.
Hello. You can call me Diablo, Angel Diablo, or just Angel. I’m Stevie’s shadow. Pleased to finally meet you. Stevie’s kept me locked up and hidden away for . . . well pretty much his whole life!!
Actually, Stevie was unaware of my existence—or at least not consciously aware of it—until just a few years ago. I guess he started trying to find me in around 2003. One day, there I was happily controlling his life from my secret location in the depths of his psyche, when lo and behold Stevie shows up, flashlight in hand, snooping around. I gotta tell you, I got quite a shock. I mean, I know lots of shadows—some of them mean motherfuckers—and almost none of them has ever had light shone directly on them; it’s just not natural. I really wasn’t happy about it at first; it felt like Stevie wanted to get rid of me. For a while he even started blaming me for everything that'd gone wrong in his life. Baaaaahhhh!!
Slowly, though, we started to work things out. Bit by bit I let him see who and what I am, where I came from, what motivates me, and what purpose I serve. Step by step he's come to see me for what I really am, and stopped blaming me for doing my job.
These days we’re good friends. I get to express myself occasionally, without judgment or negativity. Stevie gets to feel and utilize the energy inherent in my very existence when I’m not repressed, or indulged and given away to material pursuits—in my case, primarily the pursuit of sexual pleasure.
But that’s now. I should fill you in on what I was like before Stevie discovered and shone the light on me. Let me tell you, I was terrible, Muriel!! TERRIBLE!!
What’s that Stevie? Oh, OK. In a minute.

It's a mystery why some human beings are called within their lifetime to turn their attention inwards, and examine what's unhealed in their psyche in order to discover the deepest truth and freedom of the unity of existence, and why for others this urge never arises.
The movement to look inside is one possible response of the soul/ego to the longing to know the Truth—theistically speaking, the longing to know God—that may mysteriously arise at some point in a human life. I believe this longing is always present if we look deeply and quietly enough into our experience, but the busy-ness of everyday life—and the practice of following desires in the outside world—is usually too noisy to allow this longing to be heard or noticed.
For many of the people I talk to who are on the spiritual path, the longing for Truth was present for them from before their earliest memory, and so has effectively always been with them. For others—as it was for me—this urge consciously awakened later in life. So for me there is a distinct contrast between life before the onset of the urge to awaken, and life on the journey from the moment of the initial awakening experience towards abiding, and ever-deepening, awakening that continues today.
If absent or latent in earlier life, this longing for God, this longing for freedom, often first appears around the time of a pivotal life event when extreme emotions have been triggered, such as after the death of a loved one, loss of a relationship, a period of ill-health, loss of a job, or the falling apart of a previously stable life stage.
When we turn our attention inward—rather than continuing to direct it out into the external world, and into further indulgence in the story and in material desires—a true, ardent examination of what is discovered there can be undertaken. Inevitably, in this process of self-inquiry, one will eventually come face to face with the shadow.
Importantly, the goal of inquiring into the shadow is not to get rid of it; judging the shadow as bad or wrong will simply make it go more deeply underground. The goal—if there is a goal at all—is to be curious about what created it in the first place, to see how it functions and influences one’s life in the present, possibly to heal and release any traumas that contributed to its development, then to no longer react and re-identify when these triggers occur.
What I've found occurs as the shadow is exposed to the light of inquiry more and more is that it's understood to be a natural part of the human experience, and once accepted it can be given a voice. The shadow can be allowed to come out of hiding, express itself, and come into alignment with the natural flow of all of life (see the Carl Jung quote at the beginning of this piece).
As emotional healing occurs through the process of inner self-inquiry, the unhealed parts of our psyche become more and more subtle, and more difficult to access. When the light of consciousness is shone into the far recesses of the mind where our most painful memories lurk, unmetabolised emotion associated with traumatic events from early in childhood may be discovered. These events often occurred prior to the full development of memory and language, and the memory traces associated with them may be indistinct, often felt as sensations in the physical body rather than as images or voices. I've discovered—thanks to guidance from one of my core spiritual teacher, Eli Jaxon-Bear—that these early childhood events can be revisited in a hypnotic regression and watched like a movie, either from the perspective of an external observer seeing the younger version of oneself as they were in the actual event, or seen directly through the eyes of the younger self if one associates into the memory. By playing the scene of these traumatic memories through a few times it's possible to see what was unseen or unresolved at the time of the event. In that seeing, the incident—and the painful emotions involved with it—can be released by entering into the memory and changing it. One can enter the memory as the younger you with the necessary information or resource to act freely, rather than be a victim, and you can make a different choice. In this way, the trauma can be healed, and finally resolved. Lingering negative thoughts, emotions, and egoic identifications in the present that had their origin in this particular early traumatic event then collapse, and the insight that arises from seeing what was overlooked can positively transform the experience of life in the present moment. The result: more openness in the psyche, more depth to one's Self-realisation, and a life that flows more freely and creatively. Our story can then be transcended, and it becomes a teaching story, which can benefit others in the awakening process if they’ve had similar experiences and woundings.
When I inquire into these early events in my own life, the primary memory I encounter is a period of time spanning about six months during my third and fourth years of life. I see a three-year-old version of myself who's starting to see that his family—who represents the whole world for him at this age—are completely caught up in their own individual stories, they’re believing their thoughts to be real, and they’re unable to see me as I truly am. Young Stevie is starting to intuit that everyone is, in some sense, insane. He's seeing that his family is unable to see his essence, his true nature—which is pure love and joy—and that he’ll never get the love he longs for from the outside world without making some serious changes to himself.
Young Stevie reacts to this overwhelming sense of loss by feeling that it's his fault, that he's done something wrong, or that he's damaged somehow. He blames himself for being damaged, and he feels the fault lies with him. As time progresses, he grows more and more distant from his essential nature, and shame and self-loathing move in and become the core of his egoic emotional milieu.
Feeling this painful emotional state of separation is avoided by employing strategies such as trying to improve himself, striving to be the best he can be, trying to be perfect, trying to control his environment, and blaming himself and others for his failings.
Young Stevie goes about spending most of his life energy trying to fix himself, to make himself more lovable, more attractive, so that his family, and finally the world, will see him and love him. This movement to be seen and loved is really the avoidance of opening to, and feeling fully, the shame and self-hatred that's an integral part of being identified as a separate ego.
This particular desire to be seen and loved, when animated by the sexual drive, is the flavour of the energy at the core of Stevie’s shadow. For people who know the Enneagram, it’s the sexual 4 fixation in action, and it's the very nature of Diablo.

Sounds plausible Stevie, but really you don't know the first thing about me. For us shadows, it’s all about money, sex, and power. Simple. For me personally, as Stevie’s shadow, it’s mostly about sex, and the incessant, unending, insatiable pursuit of pleasure.
I’ve been able to play my role pretty easily throughout Stevie’s life, because he was always wallowing in some sort of psychological pain, or indulging in some emotional drama or another—not being good enough, feeling inadequate, seeing himself as worthless, feeling unlovable, not feeling seen, wallowing in self-loathing or despair—it was pretty much constant.
When Stevie experienced these painful emotions, it would give me the green light to come out and orchestrate some sexual pleasure for him, so that he could momentarily forget how much it sucked to be Stevie.
Before Stevie started to work with me, I used to influence his life and actions—at least to some degree—most of the time. If I wasn’t fully in the driver’s seat and engaged in some full-on shadow action, then I was planning future pleasure for him, and orchestrating the necessary steps to achieve these experiences.
I was always busy making sure he looked good so that possible future sexual partners would find him attractive. This involved making him go to the gym regularly, making sure he ate healthily, making sure he dressed in a certain way, making sure he had an appropriate job to support this lifestyle. Generally making sure he had the right overall look and image. I was extremely good at my job, even if I do say so myself.
I was particularly good at tapping into Stevie's creative side when doing my job as his shadow. This took the form of having Stevie get dressed up—sometimes flamboyantly and outrageously—and arrange for him to go to certain events such as gay dance parties where other sexual shadows had gathered together searching for me to satisfy their cravings. Yes, drugs were sometimes involved in these events, I’m not going to lie. Stevie was always trying to be sensible about the drugs, but I’d convince him to take more as they temporarily stopped him from seeing himself as disgusting and unlovable. They lightened things up, and allowed me to really get to work.
Now I’m going to let you in on a special secret here that I’ve never told anyone before. It’s about how I utilise the male sexual drive—and my partner-in-crime, the orgasm—to keep myself in business.
Have you ever seen footage of a live sperm? Yes? Well, then you’ll know that it has a very fast vibratory movement, is highly energetic, and its one goal in its short life is to fertilize an egg; that’s its sole purpose for existence.
Well, the male sexual drive is pretty much like that. Simple. Of course, society views this one-pointed desire to fertilize an egg as callous and somewhat sociopathic, so it gets dressed up with flowers, dating, dinner, a few glasses of wine, kissing, foreplay, la, la, la; you know the drill. Bottom line: the male sexual drive wants to deposit its sperm in the closest possible proximity to an egg, as often as it can, so it can score the jackpot and reproduce . . . the DNA must go on!!
Now, when the inherited sexual attraction of the male human form is homosexual, as it is in my case, the male sexual drive described above gets a little skewed . . . or should I say screwed. I mean, there’s no egg to fertilize, right? I believe one result of this is to overcompensate, and spread the sperm around as much as possible. Maybe it thinks it’ll achieve its goal just by virtue of sheer abundance, who knows.
This, combined with the fact that the human nervous system is wired in such a way that a massive outpouring of electrical impulses and pleasurable hormones accompany the ejaculation of semen—the much hallowed, and widely worshipped, orgasm—means that gay men have honed the art of brief sexual encounters to a level of mastery.
One of the lesser known features of the orgasm is that it’s accompanied by a momentary cessation of thinking. This means there is a momentary dropping of the individual identity of the ego. The French call it le petit mort: the little death. In this brief gap of no-mind, revelatory insight into the nature of Reality beyond the mind can flash into one's awareness. I believe this momentary break from the incessant suffering of being a mind-identified human being is the source of the obsessive, addictive pursuit of the orgasm.
Now in the moments leading up to orgasm, I, Diablo, get to have free reign; Stevie’s pretty much gone. One of the core features of my very nature is that I’m insatiable; I always want more. So, in the moments before orgasm I plant the seed in Stevie’s subconscious mind for the next sexual encounter, and thus the next opportunity for sexual pleasure is already being planned as the present one is ending. This seed germinates and grows in the days and months that follow as Stevie re-encounters the pain and suffering of life once more, and thus the cycle continues. I perpetuate my role as the pursuer and orchestrator of pleasure.

Thanks Diablo, most enlightening.
The shadow can be a complex and difficult aspect of the psyche to engage and come to terms with. If it hasn’t been seen completely through to its core, it will still be operating covertly in some way in one’s life. Once fully seen, however, the life force that was distorted by its repression or indulgence is freed up, and flows into activity, energizing one’s life more fully. Being wakes up from identification with human being, and a true life—a life free of programmed conditioning and suffering—can be lived.
I believe that at some point on the spiritual journey a close examination of the shadow is vitally important. This is sometimes referred to as shadow work. As mentioned previously, for some of us the shadow is mild, or virtually non-existent, and causes little or no trouble for us. For others, it’s a major burden in our lives—we all know people who might be described as having demons--for whom transcending the shadow is the main task to be undertaken . . . as indeed it was for me.
Initially, an earnest investigation is required to see through to the core of the shadow. Once this initial examination has been undertaken, vigilance is required as the shadow can go underground, re-group, and re-emerge again in a different guise.
The payoff for this investigation and vigilance is the greatest gift available to humanity: the gift of true freedom, true unconditional happiness, a life of true fulfilment and authentic service to love . . .

Angel Stevie

Paris & Sydney,
November 2014 - May 2015.

Listen to the song, Below Shame, that I wrote about The Shadow.

7) CANCER

STEVIE'S STORY: INDEX