Tribal Gender Shadow Dancing

In the last few entries, I've talked a little bit about the shadow aspects of myself. When I say "shadow aspects", I am referring to those aspects that I have rejected, giving them to someone else for them to carry so that I can react against that aspect of myself safely. It's also a process called Projection. When this is an active process, when I am actively dealing with someone that really just riles me up and has me so emotional that I'm irrational, this is my big waving red flag that I am shadow dancing. I'm not actually reacting to the other PERSON, I'm reacting to the idea that I've rejected which I can see in them.

In the last few entries, I've also talked about inhereting ideas from our family or generation, acting out those ideas without any real conscious awareness of their source. In the various history posts, I've attempted to find the psychic source behind the current state of the gender relationship to herself. In essence, the past is what gives birth to today, but the past not only shapes and influences today, but it also passes down all the undealt with emotions.  ((LOL -- Past, passed. The past passes along everything it hasn't finished with yet. hahah. I love word plays like this.))  Eventually, those emotions HAVE to be dealt with. The more consciously this can be done, the better off we are.

The more I'm learning about myself, the more I'm realizing that is the point of this blog -- to consciously face what has been handed down behind the scenes. I'm a child of the 70s and 80s, and one of the shadows which I've inhereted that I have been rejecting extremely violently is this statement which comes from our gender collective ancient past:

The value of a woman is based solely on her physical fertility.

Even brushing up against this idea conjures images of women as broodmares and suddenly I'm absolutely livid. I utterly reject that idea, irrationally so. Not that rejecting the idea is irrational, but my response is always so extreme that I can't even think about it in a rational enough way to form coherent arguments.

It took someone else to point out to me that I was seriously shadow dancing with this idea, and that idea was very much a generational shadow which has yet to be dealt with. In Robert Ohotto's book "Transforming Fate Into Destiny", he has this to say:

"... the more we collectively resist owning the dark parts ... the more [we] are going to shadow dance."*

In short, this is a shadow which has yet to be dealt with by women in western society. "This" is the shadow of where does a woman's worth truly come from? .. or maybe they all already have I'm just late to the party. hah. Anyway, I think it's a shadow because She wasn't sure, and assumed that it was Men who saw women as glorified broodmares. This idea became rejected, without dealing with the source of it, and was automatically given to all Men to carry. Once the shadow was externalized, it could be righteously refuted without ever being owned, or addressed. Since it was not owned or addressed, it was passed down to the next generation.

"The impact of the tribal psychic process of projection upon the individual should never be underestimated."*

In this case, the "tribal psychic process" refers to western women. I was born into that Tribe; I identify with it. As such, that means I've been handed everything it can hand me -- strengths and weaknesses. All women in western society are part of this tribe, and we are all collectively and individually dealing with the process integrating into our own everyday selves and lives everything we've inhereted. The more I learn about working with my shadow, the more I realize just how much of my shadow is actually inhereted from my tribe -- all of my tribes. I have shadows from my race, my gender, my nation, my religion, my family, my states of birth and childhood, my region of the country. That's a LOT of stuff which I'm plugged into!! And each and every single person is similarly plugged into all of their individual tribal patterns. If those are not recognized, they will be acted out completely unconsciousnessly, leaving me to wonder "why on earth did I do that? why did I say that? why am I so angry/sad/wounded by this situation?"

"This pattern is transformed at the personal level by owning our own shadow, befriending it, and then reworking the psychic patterns of the past into which we were born. ... We can't alter a culture without first being conscious of its history and contents -- and we can't change something inside and outside of us without taking part in it in some way."*

Herein is the key -- being conscious of our tribal history and in so doing become aware of the ideas and attitudes we've inhereted which are being acted out without us even being aware of it. Like me absorbing the shadow idea that my worth is measured solely by my ability to pop out babies, and then working very hard to reject that idea as untrue. Since it's been an unconscious shadow, looking at it now has me thinking "huh, no wonder my sense of self-worth has been so screwed up. I'm listening to inhereted ideas of where my worth is or is not, and have never been able to hear what my own ideas really are."

Now the process of owning that gender shadow can become conscious.

"befriending your darker self ... means you have a new awareness of yourself, which gives you the choice to not unwittingly harm others through compulsive action..."*

By not owning this shadow, every time I got close to this concept it erupted into a violent argument. It was compulsive. I had no choice because I was ignorant of what was going on behind the curtain.

"venturing into [the territory of befriending the shadow] will require a new level of self-responsibility that most of us resist."*

This is absolutely true!!!! In too many instances, people would rather kill than face the notion that what they are trying to kill is actually a part of themselves.

The more I learn about this, about myself, the more I'm realizing that working with the shadow is extremely vital. I cannot find the Lioness within myself until I come to know all of myself, until I embrace all that I am and think.

"... compassion, nonjudgment, acceptance and forgiveness ... are virtues that are born out of being whole, not good."*

I would go further and state that pretty much all of the genuine expressions of the virtues are born out of being whole, out of seeing all that I truly am, and embracing it. By doing, I can choose how to react, rather than blindly react.

The key now is working to identify the other gender shadows which have me frothing at the mouth with hardly any provocation. While working on my undergrad degree in history, the professor that I worked for specialized in women's studies, specifically in the historical role and view of women. Thinking about this, I can look back on my life and now see just how often issues dealing with an empowered versus a disempowered Feminine have been abounded. I keep hearing Robert Ohotto counsel some women in his radio show "Dialog with Destiny" that their job is to help women integrate the shadow aspects, help the entire gender come to terms with themselves so that they can move ahead consciously. Nothing short of a soul-full path of helping the Feminine find and express her sacred self! I immediately see the Lioness when I think of this.

A part of me pings every time I hear that, and I think of this blog. I don't have too many followers, but when it comes to psychic and emotional work, even having one person take on the task causes a ripple in the tribal psyche. Since he's given that statement to about 3 callers that I can recall immediately, I think it's a fairly large tribal movement!

Western Woman wants to wake up. She wants to become a more conscious, and therefore more mature, energy. Maturity is about making decisions and taking actions based on awareness which extends beyond the individual. At the turn of the 20th century, she demanded to be given the opportunity to grow up, to step out of the shadow of being the perpetual child. She was given that opportunity. Like a teenager, she rebelled against everything she was told was important -- corsets were burned, and a few generations later so too were bras. She turned up her nose at the role of wife and mother, identifying with the masculine traits as the ones she really wanted to have. Now, like a young adult, she's having to connect with her own value system, and rediscovering for herself what it means to be a woman. Since I'm a member of that tribe of Western Woman, I'm contributing to the maturation process.

I'm thinking the language of Shadow Dancing, Shadow, and Conscious are going to become commonplace here for a while. Now to identify more of these shadows!

- Lioness (in training)

* All quotes come from Robert Ohotto's book "Tranforming Fate Into Destiny: A New Dialogue with Your Soul", Hay House Publishing, 2008, pages 135 through 165.