OWN YOUR
SHADOW
For the last few months, my wife and I have noticed an interesting pattern with our first son, Zaim. He’s just about to turn three years old and is, as most three-year-olds, a little wild man. Each Monday and Friday we have a nanny, Alexa, who comes for five hours to help watch the boys while my wife takes care of essential tasks and her own needs. We noticed that after the nanny left, Zaim would go on a mini-rampage. He’d scream, knock things over, try to throw items off the counter and be much more likely to hit his younger brother. Full-on destructo-mode.
At first my guess was that he was upset that Alexa left because he enjoys playing with her. I would ask him about it and empathize that it was hard to have her go. This seemed to help a little, but it certainly didn’t make a big difference. Neither my wife nor I had a better idea, so we stuck with the “contain and empathize” approach for a little while, until one day when my wife was home while the nanny was over. She overheard a fascinating conversation that changed everything.
While my wife was taking care of tasks in the kitchen, she overheard Zaim and Alexa playing a game with stuffed animals in the living room.
Zaim : Arggh! T-Rex is going to fight you. Fight!
Alexa : Let’s have T-Rex hug instead.
Zaim : T-Rex is going to fight you. He’s going to kill you.
Alexa : Oh no! I don’t like killing games. Let’s have them be friends.
This is by no means a rare occurrence. I’d known for a while that Alexa was a very nice person, in all the ways described in Part I of this book. Of course, she would want to guide Zaim to be nice too.
As soon as I heard this, I had an idea. The next time Alexa left, I ran over to Zaim and said, “Let’s play a chasing game!” He was intrigued and his eyes brightened as a big smile expanded across his face. As we raced around the house, I came across the T-Rex stuffed animal. I picked him up and abruptly stopped to turn towards Zaim. “T-Rex is going to fight you!” I announced dramatically.
“No, I’m the T-Rex!” Zaim declared, grabbing the stuffed animal out of my hand.
“Ok, I’m the Triceratops!” I replied as I grabbed another stuffed dinosaur.
We fought it out so hard with those dinos. They flew in the air at each other, smashed each other, cast magic spells at each other, and killed each other. It was glorious. And it was extremely calming for Zaim.
How come? Because he’d just spent five hours with someone who represses her own shadow and unconsciously guides him to repress his. This creates a pressure that he then needs to release in the form of agitated, destructive, and aggressive energy.
The one major difference between a three-year-old and an adult, is that the adult can be much better at stuffing their shadow and keeping it out of sight for much longer periods of time. This makes it subtler, often out of our conscious awareness, and takes a much greater toll on our lives.