3 Communal Shadow Work Prompts
I’ve recently written about shadow work and the importance of engaging our personal shadows.
These are the parts of ourselves we’d prefer to leave unexamined and unseen – both by ourselves and others. Many of us try to avoid these shadows, launching ourselves into our work, our relationships, our activism, and what Ernest Becker refers to as our “immortality projects.”
But doing this just keeps us running on autopilot, grinding through our days from one task to another without a true sense of our meaning or connection with the world around us.
And here’s what makes it even harder to get off autopilot: we also have communal shadows.
These are the stories that our communities (especially the individuals within them who have power) would prefer we not engage with.
They might include:
Systemic injustice,
past and current harms,
structural issues within organizations,
traumatic histories within friend groups/families, or
other experiences that, if named, would raise uncomfortable questions or challenge the prevailing narrative of the community.
If you want more in-depth guidance in your own shadow work, sign up my free 5-day email series here.
Communal Shadow Work Prompt #1:
Take a moment and think about one of your communities: your family, your workplace, your school. What is something that often goes unsaid or unchallenged in this space? What is something that, if questioned, might put at risk the existing order of things?
When we don’t name, examine, and act on our community’s shadows, we perpetrate harm.
This is one of the biggest dangers of remaining on autopilot: our non-attention to and non-intentionality toward the world has real impact.
Is this familiar? You experience something that feels “off” or harmful in a community setting and you want someone to say something. But you really don’t want to be that “someone.” So you freeze – and the moment goes by.
It takes capacity and intention to metabolize our experiences of harm and "off-ness" and to begin to name the issues in our world – especially in a timely and healing (not harmful) manner.
Communal Shadow Work Prompt #2:
Think of a time when the majority of your community “looked the other way” when a hard topic or incident came up. What feared outcomes were being evaded and avoided in that moment? What possibilities of beauty were sidestepped because of that avoidance or rejection?
A few months ago, I asked my Instagram followers for communal shadows they witnessed.
Here are some of their examples:
“The expectation that women will take on all the administrative and managerial work without asking.”
“We’ve had extremely high turnover with amazing workers leaving every month. Nobody is openly talking about it.”
“Anti-Blackness, classism, a general desire to maintain the status quo.”
“Transphobia.”
“My mom’s church dwindled in membership from 200 to 30…but everyone had an excuse for it. Nobody wanted to engage in a real conversation about the underlying issues.”
“The demographics of our managers versus those of our staff.”
“Our paychecks and the reality that more women are getting hired but almost never getting promoted.”
Communal Shadow Work Prompt #3:
When you think of communal shadows in the spaces you reside, who is being harmed because they are not being named or engaged with? Who is benefitting from these shadows not being addressed? What needs to happen within your community's culture before a healing conversation or intervention can happen?
If you want more in-depth guidance in your own shadow work, sign up my free 5-day email series here.
The Wednesday 1-2-3
Teachings, Questions, Resources.
Every Wednesday, I share:
1 contemplative and embodied teaching,
2 introspective questions, and
3 resources to help you get off autopilot and begin engaging in your inner work.
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