I have #2 issues and it’s become a #1 problem. Yeah, I know…not sexy. I bore this pain baby three days ago and it’s been with me every part of the day. It’s quite uncomfortable. Imagine someone digging their fingernail into your skin to the point of pain and keeping it there like a physical manifestation of Gilbert Gottfried’s voice to your nether regions. That’s what this throbbing baby feels like–constantly.
This pain baby was born as a physical reaction from emotional consequences. Let me explain because it’s going to sound weird, but trust me, it’ll make sense by the end.
Last week, I had two separate encounters with coyotes. Coyotes aren’t uncommon in Austin, but it’s not like you see them daily. I’ve gone months, maybe years between coyote sightings. Some folks may not think visits from animals have symbolism or mean anything. These are the same people that think Oswald was a lone gunman and enjoy room temperature cottage cheese.
But, for me, these were signs popping up at the right time. Chalk it up to mid-life, but I’m choosing to look inward rather than buying a Miata and getting a hairpiece.
For the past few months, I have been obsessing about discovering my Shadow self. Ob-sess-ing! Buying books, scouring the web, devouring YouTube videos, thinking, thinking, journaling, reflecting. All for the sake of trying to discover this part of me that’s kept hidden. The undesirable part of myself–The Shadow. The anger, the rage, the jerk, the deep-seated killer within.
You know the part of you that conjures up an image which you immediately shun and wonder how it even popped into your head? Yeah, that’s a part of your Shadow. How about the part of you that gets really angry at your co-worker, spouse or mother (well, isn’t that a rabbit hole we won’t go down today) for something they said or acted a particular way? If we look deeper, that same trigger is within us–we simply don’t acknowledge it or refuse to see it–that’s our Shadow.
So, I’m in talk therapy (can you tell?). He’s great. I really enjoy going to the therapist. I find it fascinating that I can go in with a particular problem or issue and drill down to what is at the root of the perceived problem.
Spoiler #1: The problem is rarely the problem.
Spoiler #2: I’m gonna need a bigger drill.
This work has helped me discover more about myself than I could discover on my own. Sometimes it’s fun, sometimes it’s sad, sometimes it leaves me drained, other times I leave full and excited.
The therapist follows Jungian psychology. I don’t know enough about other types of therapy to compare, but I feel what he and I are trying to do is reach for individuation.
According to Jung, Individuation is a process of transformation whereby the personal and collective unconscious are brought into consciousness (e.g., by means of dreams, active imagination, or free association) to be assimilated into the whole personality. It is a completely natural process necessary for the integration of the psyche.
Out of the shadow and into the light.
Becoming one, becoming whole. Accepting the darkness and the light. No longer suppressing feelings, thoughts, owning those feelings and thoughts. It’s standing up for the scared little boy within. It’s allowing myself to feel the feelings fully, all emotions, and neither suppressing anger nor rolling over to comply.
Rolling over.
The phrase even sounds weak, like some trained dog as servant to the master. Rolling over in a difficult situation at work or home or daily life…the Self cannot speak for itself, so it relies on the Ego (the conscious me) to do the work for him. In the past, I’ve been so conditioned to “be a good boy” which means:
- Don’t make waves
- Keep the peace
- Don’t talk back to people
- Say yes, sir and no ma’am
- Do what you’re told to do
*This is difficult for me to write about it because it is vulnerable and true.
Sitting in this stew of weakness and vulnerability allows for emotions to rise–sadness evokes because I’ve been so compliant, anger rises for not standing up for myself, and anger that I’ve allowed myself to act this way for so long, sadness towards that part of myself that didn’t have a voice and I turned away and pushed down for so long.
It’s embarrassing to admit that I’ve rolled over at times and taken an easy out. Being the nice boy has built up resentment–primarily in work.
The social norms of “being a good boy” helped shape a nice pleasant boy into a nice pleasant man. It’s also pushed down the other parts of the boy becoming a man. Now, it’s manifesting itself at midlife wanting to come out. I welcome it. I’m shining a light in the dark corners of my psyche with hopes to gently pull the Shadow out. It’s uncomfortable, it’s weird, it’s scary at times. I feel my physical body resist through back and hip pain and the aforementioned #2 issues.
The search for the Shadow is in every part of my day
like driving in the car, I’ll listen to a podcast on the Shadow. During a run or working out, I’ll watch something on YouTube. Before going to bed, I’ll read a book about the Shadow. While taking a shower or bath, I’ll fixate on what wants to come out, what needs to come out. Besides short interruptions where work/play/family pops into the picture, everything else is Shadow work. I’ve gone down this rabbit hole of self-discovery so deep that I’ve had a hard time doing anything else.
It is exhausting.
Enter the coyote.
I smoke which helps relieve anxiety. I have guilt about smoking to relieve anxiety because I feel it must be something I’m covering up that wants to come out, but I’m masking it with herb. Am I dropping a lid on the pressure cooker of my soul, keeping it all down below while lighting a flame beneath over the cause of anxiety? Even with all of the Shadow work, I have another layer of angst beneath. Or maybe it is guilt because I’m trained to “be a good boy” and good boys don’t do things not prescribed by a doctor.
My stash is outside tucked under a cabinet inside an old rusty soda cracker box. I go there at night, step out from the light of my house into the darkness, into the shadows. Quiet except for the wind and the hum of a distant highway, I crouch like Gollum, reach into unseen darkness and pull out the societal forbidden smoke.
One night last week, I was struck how much this act mirrors the Shadow.
Dark, crouching down, hidden below, tucked away behind the creaky hinge of the old tin box, locked away not to be seen in the light of day. Crouching low, I’m a scavenger. Hiding, deep in the shadows. It’s dark. Kept hidden and repressed. This is a shadow part of myself.
Then, the trickster archetype popped into my head as I’m scavenging and reaching for the goods.
The next morning, I’m journaling and wonder why my evening crouching Gollum and my morning regimented persona are on two different pages. Where’s the individuation here? These two should meet. It’s worth an exploration into why these two feel so far apart. What makes them so different? What makes them similar? Why don’t they get to know one another? I’ll set a date for the two to meet.
How does the trickster fit into this?
Coyote encounter #1
On Tuesday morning, I’m at a client’s house to kickoff a landscape project. The house backs up to a green belt which is a native swath of land home to urban wildlife and the occasional creek when it rains in Austin. In the distance, I hear a dog barking and rustling of leaves and cracking of sticks as something is running through the woods. It’s a young coyote trotting, almost hopping through the field. He and his fluffy tail bounce through the woods on a familiar path until out of sight as a red-tailed hawk screeches overhead. A few seconds later, a barking pit bull ambles through smelling, searching for his new friend. Sorry, pit bull, but that coyote sighting was for me. Not you. Or maybe a thank you to the Pitbull is in order for rustling the coyote and having him pass in my presence.
On the morning commute to this house, I’m listening to a podcast about–(drum roll)–the coyote as the Trickster archetype. And then, 15 minutes later, I see a coyote, the trickster revealing himself to me. Chills run down my arms and back. It’s too coincidental, right?
Look, I’m not some beads-in-the-doorway kinda guy or feeling like I’m forcing this to happen. It is amazingly serendipitous that I have the trickster in my head, journal about him that morning, then listen to a podcast about the Trickster AND then see a young coyote that morning?!? That’s badass.
Coyote encounter #2
I am sitting in a cemetery eating lunch. The upside to eating in a cemetery is that no one there will bother you.
Cemeteries aren’t a frequent lunch spot, but I’ve been here once before because it’s a quiet, peaceful park-like setting with huge Live Oaks nestled in the city. Try it out. If you’re lucky, you can be an audience of one to a grieving family.
So, I’m enjoying lunch and a guy on a tractor pulls alongside me. He doesn’t say anything, he just points to my left in an open field and drives away. As his tractor ambles away, a coyote is revealed in an empty field.
I’m in shock.
A second coyote sighting? C’mon man. Really? Yes.
Goosebumps returned and I watch in amazement this beautiful coyote. This one appeared to be somewhat older, yet still playful. He walked around the open field, went back into his tree lined home, then pops out again for another round. Several times, he looked at me (I was about 30 yards away). He would sniff the ground, have a seat, look around and continue on his task.
Two coyote sightings in a week, both in urban settings. It is too coincidental for this not to have some symbolic meaning.
What’s my interpretation of all this? Glad you asked.
I turned to reading more about the coyote and what he represents. Here’s a good interpretation found on the web:
“The American Indian regarded the Coyote as a joker because of its highly amusing antics and habit of appearing to ignore the obvious. As a power animal, Coyote will teach you more about yourself and will help you to learn from your own mistakes. It can help you to smile at your own acts of foolishness, and not to take everything so painfully seriously. Coyote is concerned with breaking down the ego which is blocking your spiritual progress, and “tricking” you into things you may find difficult, but which are necessary in your development. Coyote encourages you to recognize that the mess you are in is largely your own fault. Ask Coyote to help you to look beneath the surface of the situation, and to see the course of your own actions from a different perspective. Then, see the humorous side and laugh at your mistakes. Coyote will continue to dog you if you persist in making the same mistake again! Explore the present chaos. See life’s humor. Let go and laugh. Welcome the unexpected.”
Source: Sams, Jamie and Carson, David. Medicine Cards (Santa Fe: Bear and Company, 1988).
This resonates with me. I have been for so long–months and months–trying to find my Shadow. Doing shadow work and allowing parts of my Shadow to come to light. By doing this work, everything else has been stripped aside–no humor, no laughing, the silliness and fun in me has gone. I’ve been very serious in my task of seeking wholeness, seeking individuation, seeking oneness that it’s left me feeling dark and alone.
My Shadow incorporated into the Ego.
Oneness: the two working in concert as a whole. Through the dive into my Shadow–the part of myself I reject or don’t want to face–in an effort to make whole, it has severed a part of my being that is stripped away. I have become very serious, constantly seeking an answer. THE Answer (as if there’s only one).
“Coyote is concerned with breaking down the ego which is blocking your spiritual progress, and “tricking” you into things you may find difficult, but which are necessary in your development.”
The coyote does not want me to stop looking inward, but rather look inward with a different light. Not one of harshness or seriousness. This work can also be done with a kindhearted perspective, not only with a stoic resolve of solving the great mystery of self-awareness.
What does this mean for me?
I have to stop taking the mystery of life and trying to figure it out so seriously. Lately, I’ve been approaching life’s meaning like it’s a challenge from Jigsaw on those “Saw” movies and I need to solve it before moving on with life, meanwhile…life is passing me by.
Seeking to learn more about myself is not a bad thing. It is neither good nor bad; however it becomes a problem when it gets out of balance. Enter the coyote telling me to lighten up. My takeaways from the coyote: Lighten up, have more fun, don’t take things so serious. I can still strive for individuation and wholeness while seeking to learn more about the Self, but I cannot allow it to consume me.
I realize that when life is taken too seriously, it’ll manifests undesirable consequences. I miss out on the beauty around me. I become hardened. I get in a rush. I get frustrated. I become even more lost in my search for meaning. Life, for a time, became dark and depressing.
I know I must turn inward to discover more of myself–to shine a light on the dark corners of my soul, illuminating all parts of me. The parts that I reject, the parts that I’m ashamed of, the parts that are embarrassing…all are to be looked at and examined with a non-judgmental eye and recognize they are a part of me and a part that deserves attention and not squashed down, hidden and chained to the radiator in the basement of my soul. If I take these parts, the anger and grief, the sadness and quirks and allow them to have a voice, incorporated into daily life, then individuation and wholeness occur. I can seek these parts of me, not squash them and that is a good thing, but the coyote has taught me to keep it light. Don’t take it too serious. Even be the fool.
The coyote has taught me to approach life less seriously. Seek the unknown with playful wonder, not long-suffering grit. I’ll continue to follow the unknown and follow the energy within to see where the path leads me…me and my trusty sidekick the coyote.
