I have always been able to see the shadows - the darkness that people didn’t say but were there. I didn’t like this quality. I thought it meant that I wasn’t an optimistic, light person. I thought I must be dark because I saw it.
Something has shifted recently since I have been guiding professionally. I see the shadows, but I see them as ghosts attached to the pristine spirits of people — separate but attached. It is a big shift, to see the shadows as removable rather than integral to the person and therefore something to fear. The shadow can still make the person behave in ways that are less optimal, but I see that there is some wiggle room there where I used to see the shadow as fixed.
I also have begun to see the shadow as connected to a series of stories and events. This past weekend, I met a friend of our friends who came to dinner at the house we were renting. The man had a lot of agitated energy. I could see his shadow. He was in constant search for relief from his own company. He would take anything and everything to get a break from life as usual inside his own mind. In the past, I would simply find this sort of person annoying - too on edge. But now I saw that he was running so hard and then I saw that his domineering father probably made him feel small and rejected. I saw that he was revolting against a father who was no longer there and ended up revolting against everyone he came in contact with instead. I saw how his work as a conservative speech writer was at odds with his own experiences in the world, but that he justified it as a job he needed and pay he enjoyed. I saw that his wife was constantly trying to steady his boat. I saw that she was driven by a desire to help which she probably developed as the child of an alcoholic. I saw how exhausting it was for her and how she would give up at some point. I saw all of this and I didn’t know these people or if any of it was true.
Some of us have trauma and are able to separate it from our spirits. Some of us can’t seem to do it on our own. Ghosts of people and situations past attach to their spirits and keep them from being in their now - keep them from their light. They emit complicated, confusing energy. They are preoccupied and not present. They are seeing their world through a fog.
Working with psilocybin mushrooms can be very painful. It can leave your spirit floating outside a familiar drama. And when you return, it can be hard to feel what you got so used to, you stopped noticing. This is the best sort of pain if you are equipped to handle it. The fog is replaced with an acute pain that requires a shift.
You may ask: Am I a good person? What sort of parent am I? Have I been too self-serving? Am I a consumptive person? Do I have a purpose in this life beyond feeding my own ego? Am I connected to my partner? Am I connected to anyone? What is worth actualizing in this lifetime?
So much can change in an instant if we can face the questions with honesty and emerge with certainty.