Just let me have my moment
Shadow work is the new black.
It’s popping up in all sorts of spiritual circles these days. There is no shortage of teachers, coaches, and gurus encouraging you to integrate the shadows of your soul.
Look at the parts you would rather not see, they say!
Embrace the darkness to find the light, they say!
Carl Jung famously said, “Until you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life and you will call it fate.”
I’m here to live my best life, and dammit I don’t believe in fate. I’m here to create.
I’m gladly participating in the shadow work movement. As a lifelong good girl, I really like the idea of meeting my darkness.
Maybe I am a genuinely despicable person. Perhaps my trauma does define me. What if I actually am as broken as I feared I was?
Juicy 💦.
So bring it on, Shadow! Show me what you got. I guess if I really am a hideous troll on the inside, I would rather know, right? (Spoiler alert: I’m not.)
My shadow integration has been a long, strange trip and I know I am only at the beginning.
There has been a shit-ton of ugly crying, physical breakdowns, and rage-fueled journaling so far, but one thing I didn’t expect is that there would be moments where I could simply laugh at myself too.
I went into all of this romanticizing the ugly, bracing myself for the worst, and queuing up my journal so that I could record every last drop of discomfort and nausea.
Turns out, I actually don’t need to take myself so seriously and I don’t need to martyr myself to my shadow. The darkness that I have been hiding is not interested in being romanticized.
Let me regale you with the tale of a Weird Rainbow Cat and Notorious B.I.G.
The Weird Rainbow Cat
I went into this particular healing session with the intention of addressing my body image pain. This was the stickiest point of my healing journey so far. Every time I made some progress with cultivating kindness and compassion toward my body, it felt like I took two steps back.
This was the ultimate shadow work for me.
I was deep in my session, feeling the release of stagnant energy from my body. I had a profound awareness of what was happening, yet I didn’t understand it exactly.
I am a very visual person. Clairvoyance is my strongest psychic tool. I have seen many awe-inspiring visuals through the lens of my third eye.
This one took me by surprise.
Suddenly, I felt a stark energetic release from my hip area. I immediately got the visual of a creature that I had never seen before.
It looked sort of like a cat, but mangy and mythical. Its head and body were white. It had out of control eyebrows like Doc Brown in Back to the Future. Best of all, it had a big, bushy rainbow tail. Its tail was similar to a raccoon or a lemur, but multi-colored.
It had been booted out of my energetic field. Apparently, it had grown quite comfortable in its nest because as it was leaving, it was hissing at me.
Yes, I was weirded out for sure.
At the same time, I felt relieved. I felt lighter. I felt freer.
The next day, my brain took over, and immediately wanted to understand. What the actual fuck was up with the Weird Rainbow Cat?
I knew it was tied to my body image pain. It was living in a space on my body that I have always been intensely critical of, my hip area. Although I couldn’t make much sense of it all, I intuitively knew that this was kind of a big deal. I knew that I had taken a big step forward toward developing a healthy relationship with my body.
I ultimately came to the conclusion that I would drive myself crazy if I kept trying to explain the unexplainable. It was hard, but I let Weird Rainbow Cat go.
Weird Rainbow Cat Returns
About a week later I was doing my early morning journaling routine. I like to get up before everyone else, make coffee, and bask in the quiet. I have been doing this nearly every day for years and it helps me process my healing.
As I was writing, I felt the presence of Weird Rainbow Cat come back. It was shy and hesitant. I was guarded. I was not really interested in welcoming back the body image pain that I had just released, which is what Weird Rainbow Cat represented to me.
I noticed that its energy had shifted. It was no longer angry about being kicked out. It wasn’t aggressive at all. In fact, it was humble and gentle. It looked like your typical house cat, mostly. It was white and it still had the rainbow tail, but it was softer and it seeking a different relationship with me.
We began to communicate. It told me that it was sorry, but it was just trying to protect me. It was keeping me safe by keeping others who might harm me away.
It recognized that it was being overprotective. It told me that whenever I would start to let my guard down and get close to someone, it would irritate me. It would scratch me and burn me because it needed that energy for fuel. Being mean to me was the quickest way to get a little burst.
Suddenly, I understood. I forgave it. It curled up in my lap and started to purr. We connected.
I told Weird Rainbow Cat it was off-duty now. It could rest. Hell, it could retire! I was ready to love my body and I am able to set my own boundaries. I didn’t need its services any longer.
Honeys in the Hot Tub
This story gets weirder.
As soon as Wierd Rainbow Cat was released from guard duty and granted retirement, I heard the song “Big Poppa” by Notorious B.I.G. play in my head.
I saw Wierd Rainbow Cat in a hot tub.
Smoking a blunt.
Surrounded by some honeys.
Living life at 💯.
Weird Rainbow Cat had morphed again. It now showed up as a big fluffy housecat. It was fat, happy, and fully relaxed. The rainbow tail was gone, it was just a greyish-white all over now. It looked exactly like every other fat cat smoking a blunt in a hot tub. Totally normal.
I felt so happy for Wierd Rainbow Cat. I felt relieved because it was finally off-duty. I felt excited that I had closed a chapter of pain and suffering in my life.
I found this whole experience to be terribly amusing, and it felt so good to just laugh at the absurdity of it all.
Of course, I immediately pulled up “Big Poppa” on my phone and found a whole new appreciation for the lyrics. Biggie was living it up, having nice dinners, mackin’ on honeys, and chillin’ with his crew.
It got me thinking…
What if I embraced that level of pleasure in my life?
The Next Chapter
Wierd Rainbow Cat and Notorious B.I.G. inspired me that day. I played “Big Poppa” on loop for the next few days. I lived in my body as I danced around my kitchen while I packed lunches. I folded laundry with a little more swagger. I was in it.
I realize that a super vanilla, nearly 40 soccer mom was probably not the intended audience for someone singing about smoking L’s while you do me, but neither is a Weird Rainbow Cat. I would like to think that Biggie would be ok with my catching his vibe.
So if you see me in the Starbucks drive-thru in my Subaru Outback with “Big Poppa” turned up to 11, please don’t judge. Just let me have my moment. ✌️
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