Shedding light on the shadows
I was one of those kids who was deathly afraid of the monsters under my bed, and the shapes in the corner of my room made by piles of clothes forgotten for weeks. Darkness, quite literally, terrified me. As I got older, the shadowy cracks in my mind freaked me out too, and for a long time, I managed to avoid looking at them too much. That didn’t mean I didn’t have issues and everything was cool; it wasn’t. But it did mean that, along the way, work and my career became a place I actually ran to in order to hide from the darkness, and it meant I was already over a decade into my career and in a pretty high level of leadership when I started to really understand my shadows - and how, despite my best efforts, they followed me right into my role.
What I realized is that often, the more visible we are in our roles - the higher in leadership, the higher stakes the work - the more we are motivated to turn away from what makes us squirm about ourselves instead of toward it. The rewards for turning deeply and consciously toward our dark spots are few and far between, offer only delayed gratification, and involve a lot of time-consuming and often painful healing work. It’s lonely, and can be downright excruciating.
As a leader of an organization and team, I had no choice but to peek in the corner. In fact, my weaknesses were on full display, particularly for those closest to me, namely my peers in the organization and my team. To be honest, I wasn’t surprised when they noticed my shadows. After all, I’d been living with those piles of laundry, the ones making seemingly nefarious shapes in my room. I’d just ignored them to the point of not really seeing them. Now, it was like suddenly I had new friends coming over and I had no choice but to clean up.
Over time, I learned to greet my shadows with love, as though I was greeting old friends. The goal has never been to eradicate them - that isn’t even possible (although I am a believer in putting my clothes away). The goal is to see them, get intimate with them, and recognize how they sometimes inform my actions - so that I am empowered in how I interact with them. This process allows me to get intimate with my light, too; for example, I’ll always be someone who values perspectives, and wants to understand a problem from all the angles. But sometimes this means I opinion shop, or get caught in the false and patriarchal belief that there is a “right” answer and I just need to find it. Our strengths can also be our liabilities - at the same time.
To be clear, I’m a deep believer in leveraging your innate superpowers and strengths to do great work in the world, as long as you are wielding them responsibly. But I’d argue that, in the long run, shedding light on our shadows means we can lead from a place of deeper authenticity, equity, and love - holding space for others to see and engage lightly with their shadows too. Khalil Gibran writes about this in “The Prophet”: One can’t fully experience joy or the true depth of love and compassion without experiencing heartbreak, turmoil, and anguish. Once you’ve befriended your shadows - they unlock the light. Are you willing to look?
