Halloween Shadow Work: It’s Also About the Gold!

With Halloween almost here, I recently got a scintillating email from one of my local movie theaters.

I was wondering if they were telling me that they were putting in new and relaxing massage chairs in their theaters — the kind that you jiggle and wriggle in. Or maybe they were telling me there was a 25 cents discount on the second jumbo feed bag of popcorn that you buy.

But no; it was none of the above. Instead, the movie house was telling me that they were going to be holding a major horror film festival in honor of Halloween.

They would be showing such nail-biting films as Night of the Living Dead and The Mummy’s Revenge. Of course they would be featuring Frankenstein and Dracula.

There would be an evening devoted to Lon Cheney and Bella Lugosi classics. In fact, they would be showing one film where Lon and Bela co-starred with Abbott and Costello.

All of this reminded me of two things. First, I needed to buy bags of candy for the trick-or-treaters who come to our home and grace Spiritual Life Center (I am so grateful for SLC’s wonderful haunted house).

Second, the approach of Halloween, haunted houses, and scary movies reminded me of the importance of Shadow Work in the Unity and New Thought movements. When I was a ministerial student at Unity Institute and Seminary, I had the good fortune of having Rev. Robert Brumet as my professor for several incredible classes. They included sessions on prayer meditation, pastoral counseling, and mindfulness/self-awareness.

Many people look at Rev. Robert as being sort of like the Yoda of the Unity movement. One thing Rev. Robert really emphasized was the importance of doing Shadow Work on an ongoing basis.

So what is Shadow Work, and why is it so important? Rev. Robert went back to the writings of that great psychiatrist, Dr. Carl Jung, who postulated that there are so many things that most of us just sweep under the rug. We try to ignore them and forget about them. However, unfortunately, these things do not stay dormant under the rug. They have a way of creeping out at some of the most inappropriate times and places.

There are several types of things that we tend to sweep under the rug. Of course, a great deal of the garbage we try to hide includes the ghosts and goblins from our past. The times when we felt icky and uncomfortable often get shoved under the rug – as well as glaring mistakes, many fears, and key things that we wish were different.

However, Dr. Jung pointed out that many of us also have a tendency to sweep the gold in our life under the rug. For many strange reasons, we do not want to admit to the divine spark that is inside of us. Singer songwriter Joni Mitchell put it so well: “We are Stardust, we are Golden.” And so many of us so often do not want to admit to these reasons.

Shadow Work is not only uncovering the ghosts and goblins under the rug, but it is also admitting to the gold that is inside of us. Let me share with you how this has operated within me during a good portion of my life:

If there was something that I could not do well, then I would often chastise myself for it. But if there was something I could really do well — such as public speaking — then I would just diminish its value and call it a “cheap trick.”

Instead of taking real pride in good public speaking, I would think, “Rick, you just have the ability to talk blarney.” I wouldn’t really admit to much of the gold that is inside of me.

Ironically, it really is a “Catch-22” situation. You sort of “damn yourself if you do, and you damn yourself if you don’t.”

One of the best quotes and observations that captures this phenomenon — of sweeping gold under the rug and making it part of the shadow — was written by Marianne Williamson. It is quite a famous quote, but as Halloween is coming up, I really do feel it bears repeating. Marianne writes:

“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightened us. We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small doesn’t serve the world.

“There’s nothing in line about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us.

“It’s not just in some of us; it’s in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we’re liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.”

All I can say to Marianne’s observation is: “Amen and Amen.”

So this Halloween, I suggest that we really get the broom out and start sweeping stuff out from under the rug. But this Halloween, I would also suggest that you make sure that your Shadow Work includes not only the ghosts and goblins, but it includes the gold that you may also have swept under the rug.

As the great and late astronomer, Carl Sagan, pointed out, “We are made of starstuff.”

Many blessings,

Rev. Rick