Family Shadow...

There is a huge family shadow that engulfs my family.  Some know it as “the elephant in the room.”  We dance around this shadow elephant, not wanting to make it angry, by confronting it with its dysfunction, and how it has impacted the family. We walk on eggshells so as not to disturb the elephant.  But Saturday night “the elephant” reared its head and spoke about her shadow – her life story of pain, struggle and suffering.  Of course, we knew most of it already, because we have been a silent partner to it all her life, but the shadow elephant needed to speak about her darkness – to tell us what she thought we didn’t know.  More to relieve herself from her pain, than for us, and for the shock value I think.  But it didn’t shock. We have heard and witnessed most of the story before.  Because I have done this dance with the elephant for so long and seen how the elephant *likes* her story, to wallow in the graphic details of her drug addictions, her pain, abuse, and her blame for those she deems at fault, and for some reason is unwilling to be open to healing, to take action on her own behalf, to participate in any help that has been offered – I felt nothing…  Which surprised me actually…  This may sound unkind, I know, to those of you who have not lived with a family elephant in the room.  I would have liked to have conjured up a deep well of compassion – but I couldn’t. 

And I’ve been thrashing about it ever since; about my lack of compassion, and the anger that arose.  I wrestle with the difference between compassion, co-dependency and enabling. Not to make this about me, but there are things to be seen in the telling.  And I’m needing a change of perspective…  I’m having to learn, once again, to see differently,  learning to accept what is, to try to see the elephant for who she really is behind the shadow, knowing that the broken elephant doesn’t *want* to be fixed, and be okay with that.

It has been enlightening to watch my reaction unfold, acutely seeing how the mind does not want to embrace what is.  Mind wants life, and other people to change, to be a certain way, to stop being the dysfunctional people they are, at least my mind does.  And mind wants life to conform to the image of what mind thinks *should* be, a recipe for struggling and suffering as I discovered – for all of us.  I saw this clearly in the shadow elephant, and in myself.  The shadow elephant in a sense has become my guru, to show me where I am still in darkness, struggling with the shadow of myself, and my mind.  I started questioning my “spiritual path” and wondered, despite any “awakening” that has occurred, what’s really real...  Wondering if I am deluding myself and still swimming in a sea of unconscious blindness – caught in the family shadow.  I certainly can’t claim full “awakening”, only glimpses that have faded over time as the veils of my own shadow self surround me again, not allowing me to see clearly.

So instead of meeting the elephant from a place of inner Beingness, from Love, I became agitated, frustrated and angry – internally, not expressed - which took several days to unwind.  I became part of the shadow dance, and it triggered those shadow aspects in myself.  I was disappointed in myself that I couldn’t access innate wisdom, that I couldn’t step back into my True Nature.  I couldn’t tap into the reserves of compassion, but felt numbness as her drunken dumping flooded the room for two hours.  There was too much emotional baggage with the family shadows to be of any real “help” – although there were offerings of insight and support.  They were met with blank stares, and “yes, but...”  My husband seemed to be able to break through at times, beyond the glazed-over eyes.  But she kept going back into her story, as if to validate and perpetuate her trauma.  I was silently incredulous at the psychology of this…

I realized that the anger I experienced has to do with feeling out of control and not knowing what to do.  It has to do with the fear of having to pay the consequences for her unconscious life choices that led to her debilitation.  I know her choices, and lack of choices, were born out of pain, and wounding by others that she had no control over.  And I know I have done and continue to do the same at times, making choices out of pain and wounding – the shadow – unawake to the Wholeness that we all really are, even in our shadow. 

This poem, by Danna Faulds, says what I really want to say to “the elephant.”  So I sent it to her today…  May you find peace…

“Despite illness of body or mind,
in spite of blinding despair
or habitual belief,
who you are is whole…

Let nothing keep you separate from the Truth.
The soul, illumined from within,
longs to be known for what it is.

Undying, untouched by fire or storms of life,
there is a place inside where stillness
and abiding peace reside.
You can ride the breath to go there.

Despite doubt or hopeless turns of mind,
you are not broken.
Spirit surrounds, embraces, fills you

from the inside out.
Release everything that isn’t your true nature.
What’s left…
the fullness,
light and shadow.
Claim all that as your birthright.”

Danna Faulds