DAY 7: Confronting the Shadow

DAY 7: Confronting the Shadow

8:50 am

I noticed a slowing down in my energy yesterday and a disenchantment with everything I was doing.
Enter the “Shadow” - the topic of the upcoming week and second phase of the hero’s journey.
I accomplished a lot this week: a new brochure, an idea for a wonderful publicity opportunity, sent emails to UU churches and meetups.

But there’s one problem: NO ONE’S RESPONDING!

This forces me to confront a Shadow that I’ve been wrestling with for a long time - the belief that what I do doesn’t really matter in the world; my efforts won’t bring me what I seek.

So I come back to this journal in order to gain clarity and understanding. This is another reason WHY the 60 Day Journal is SO important! If not for this journal I’d be wrestling with this malcontent feeling without understanding it. If I don’t understand it, one of two things potentially could happen: 1. I would go about my quest in the wrong way, completely becoming ignorant to the needs of others, and come to DAY 60 realizing this was a fruitless quest. 2. I’d become overwhelmed by the quest (or even hide myself from it by distractions) and one day, one week, a month and 60 days go by and I’d be barely cognizant that yes I actually DID give up on my quest whether I wanted to consciously admit to it or not. After all, there’s always the rationalization where you tell yourself I know I can do it - now’s just not time.
During the Shadow phase, we play a game called What Happens Next? in the Destiny 5 Experience.  I’m going to use this game and go through “10 Layers” in reliving yesterday where I bumped up against the Shadow. What Happens Next? is played by reliving a day in your life one moment (preferably in a sentence or two) at a time. In the first round, your partner always askes the questions: What Happens Next? The game will change throughout week, but today is about calling it out on the table.

Me: I came up with this brilliant idea about a new video to release in an effort to gain a corporate sponsorship.
My Shadow: (Layer 1) What happened next?
Me: I wrote what I thought was a neat headline, “How I Almost (Legally) Stole $100,000 from Meetup.com…”
My Shadow: (Layer 2) What happened next?
Me: I sent the headline to 700 people in my network…
My Shadow: (Layer 3) What happened next?
Me: No response whatsoever. The effort was stupid.
My Shadow: (Layer 4) What happened next?
Me: I thought once I release the video it will make a difference…
My Shadow: (Layer 5) What happened next?
Me: My friend forgot to meet mp for an appointment to help me make my back order of videos so I wasted two hours.
My Shadow: (Layer 6) What happened next?
Me: My efforts felt impotent - I’m wasting my time.
My Shadow: (Layer 7) What happened next?
Me: It made me realized that NONE of the leads I contacted this week responded to me (even from the personal emails I’d written)…
My Shadow: (Layer 9) What happened next?
Me: I all of sudden felt a drain of energy. I felt like giving up.
My Shadow: (Layer 10) What happened next?
Me: I realized I was confronting my Shadow on the quest. It made me feel good to know that this was a natural part of the quest.

KNOWING this information was all I needed to keep going - it’s on the map!