More Energy! Your Shadow's Gift

There is a direct link between Soulful Leadership, your shadow and Halloween.

Don’t let it ‘spook’ you! 

Carl Jung has done powerful work around exploring the shadow as a path of both personal and leadership development. Today, Stephanie and Maren share how that can be done in a playful way. By consciously using Halloween (or any time of the year) you can embrace the beautiful leadership gifts that are stuffed in your shadow.

In their fun, insightful way, Stephanie and Maren share the deeper side of our current customs so we can all mine some inner gold - while fully enjoying our holiday.

If you’ve ever wanted more energy, freedom, healing, creativity, abundance or anything else, you will want to listen in - regardless of the time of year.

• 02:02 A Deeper Level of Halloween
• 06:13 Embodying our Shadow
• 08:26 Feeling stuffed or allowing the sweetness
• 11:04 Life is a guest house
• 12:37 Golden Shadow
• 14:22 More energy (healing, creativity, peace, etc.) please
• 18:38 Einstein and the Friendly Universe
• 20:20 The List Practice
• 22:10 The easier, more fun way to transform

LINKS

Transcript

YouTube Video

REFERENCES

11:04 Rumi Poem, The Guest House — Jalaluddin Rumi, translation by Coleman Barks (The Essential Rumi)

This being human is a guest house.
Every morning a new arrival.

A joy, a depression, a meanness,
some momentary awareness comes
As an unexpected visitor.

Welcome and entertain them all!
Even if they’re a crowd of sorrows,
who violently sweep your house
empty of its furniture,
still treat each guest honorably.
He may be clearing you out
for some new delight.

The dark thought, the shame, the malice,
meet them at the door laughing and invite them in.

Be grateful for whoever comes,
because each has been sent
as a guide from beyond.

18:38 Albert Einstein — ‘The most important decision we make is whether we believe we live in a friendly or hostile universe.’

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Transcript

Stephanie Allen: 0:04

In a world where we have everything and it's still not enough, we're often left wondering, is this really it?

Maren Oslac: 0:10

Deep inside you know, there's more to life. You are ready to leave behind the old push your way through and claim the deeper, more meaningful life that's calling you.

Stephanie Allen: 0:19

That's what we invite you to explore with us. We're your hosts, Stephanie Allen and

Maren Oslac: 0:25

Maren Oslac, and this is The Soulful Leader Podcast.

Stephanie Allen: 0:30

Yay! Hi! Welcome to The Soulful Leader Podcast. This is Stephanie, and I'm here with Maren, and I've got to say this is a special podcast because it celebrates, and we're going to explore, an interesting time of the year. Not only is it fall, but one of my favorite things to celebrate is Halloween or Hallows Eve and All Saints Day. And I'm going to take it from a different look, more from a Soulful Leader kind of look, rather than just kind of an everyday event that children get dressed up and go out and, you know, knock on strangers doors and ask them to give them candy. There's a deeper meaning. And I know some of it is from kind of a religious background, or a Pagan background, but we're going to take it to another whole level. Wouldn't you say that Maren?

Maren Oslac: 1:17

I would, and I love that there's a link. There is a direct link between Soulful Leadership and Halloween that excites me 100%!

Stephanie Allen: 1:25

100% because, you know, November 1 is All Souls Day, or All Saints Day and All Hallows' Eve is Halloween. So it's when the veil between the light and the dark is very, very thin.

Maren Oslac: 1:40

So let's unpack that a little bit, because when we say there's a direct link between Soulful Leadership and All Hallows'Eve, Halloween, what we now call it. And you mentioned dark and light that seems like, Hmm...where does that fit? Can you talk a little bit about that?

Stephanie Allen: 2:02

Well, there's, you know, this is Carl Jung sort of work in the way that if you don't explore your shadow, you marry it. And that always fascinated me, because it's like, well, first of all, what does that mean? If I don't like bring forth my shadow from within me to look at it, then I actually marry the person who's holding my shadow. What I'm saying is that we are everything. We are the hologram of the whole planet. So whatever it is that you don't like outside of you, whether it's a politician, whether it's a person that is in your life, that's a client or a relative, someone that irritates the shit out of you. It's in you. It's in you. So it's like when we say, I'm this, and not that... it's bullshit, because we're actually all of it. So anything that you love or find beautiful also is also in you. So when you see someone, you go, Oh my god, I just love them. They're so lovely, they they're so talented, or they're so good at this. And, well, that's also in you. You wouldn't be able to see it unless it was in you. And that old saying of the shadows, when you point your finger to the person who is the pain in the ass, and you're like, I don't like you. And the fingers going outward towards them, there's three pointing back at you, because it is a projection of what you may be suppressing inside. And that doesn't mean that you're acting the same as that person, but you may be acting internally with you, with yourself around that, if that makes sense. So that's what I mean by shadow.

Maren Oslac: 3:33

So, what I'm hearing, is that like the veil between the light and the dark maybe it's easiest to see the deeper levels, and we can look at Halloween as the surface-level level candy, and, you know, dressing up and having fun and and there's nothing wrong with that. There's also this opportunity for us to go to that deeper level. And the veil, quote, unquote, like the, you know, it's like, instead of having closed drapes, you have like, shears on the window right? And it's a little easier to see that. Oh, that's also me. That's not just that person out there. That's also me. Whether it's somebody that I love, that I think is amazing, or if it's somebody that I'm like, Oh, my God, that person bugs the shit out of me. They're both. They're all me,

Stephanie Allen: 4:23

They're all me. And so when we say we, you know, if we don't look at our shadow and bring it forth, then we marry it. It means, like, you don't really know somebody until you fight with them. Like you might be friends with somebody forever, and you think they're the greatest thing, then you have a fight and you're like, wow, what happened to them? Like they just went off the rocker. You know what? That's what happens. And so when people get in relationships and they go...yeah, we have such a great we never fight, I would either say one of a couple things, either one, you're totally in denial and you're not going underneath the surface to go deep enough, because fighting is neither good or bad or right or wrong, it's just that you're on an edge and of your uncomfortable zone, so you're actually growing and evolving. So I'd say if you're not fighting, either you're doing your shadow work really well, you're working with your own your own internal conflict and bringing it to the relationship and and transcending that relationship, or you're totally in denial.

Maren Oslac: 5:23

And given how much or how little we actually talk about shadow and going into that deeper level of work, for most of us, I think it's the denial.

Stephanie Allen: 5:34

Yeah most of us it is and I think if we looked at... Boy! You know, everything that irritates me and everything that I love and find beautiful is also in me. I think we, I think we would treat ourselves and each other a heck of a lot better, and I think we would make more space to go in and look at this. So this comes back to Halloween. It's such a great opportunity to practice this, whether you're in a relationship, whether you're a leader in the community or, you know, running your own business, this is a great opportunity to go to to the light and the dark, meaning, if there's something inside of you that you just know...hmmm... So here's an example. It's like, you know, I want to go for a dream. I have this ideal in my life, and every part of me, inside of me, is going, are you freaking crazy? There's no there's not enough time, there's not enough money, there's not enough energy. There's like this curmudgeon, little witch inside of me that has cast a curse of spells to say, whatever you do, you're going to sabotage it, right? So here's what I could do on Halloween. And I've done this since I was a child. I love doing this... is that I would literally say, okay, for this Halloween, I'm going to be that witch. I'm going to have that pointed nose, I'm going to have that freaking pointed out. I'm going to be like, pointing the finger and waving it at everybody, and I'm going to curse, and I'm going to do this, and because I want to bring that to the light, because I don't want to keep living it anymore, because there's a cost. If you keep living that witch or that curmudgeon or that whatever that is inside of yourself that you keep trying to stuff away...

Maren Oslac: 7:05

Right. Living it as the shadow.

Stephanie Allen: 7:07

Living it as a shadow, we either project it out into our environment, so our animals, our loved ones, our Earth, our politicians, the famous people, our neighbors, whatever. Or we say, 'You know what? I'm gonna clean up the junk in the trunk, and I'm gonna take the witch and I'm gonna embody her so that I really get to know her on how she is manipulating my life right now'. And so what I'm saying is I'm embodying her so that I can get to know her. They say an enemy..."In-a-me"... so you find those enemies inside you, and you embody them, and you friend them. That's why they say, you invite them to dinner and then you eat them. (laughter) You know, you invite them because you're like, hey, I want to understand why you think this way. And we find that this witch, I'm using my example again, we find the parts inside of us, and we say, you know, why are you so doubtful and fearful about going for our dreams? And the witch will tell you, and then you have an opportunity for healing. And when we have an opportunity for healing, we actually then offer that as a trick or treat. You know, it becomes a treat to all humanity. If it doesn't, it tricks us into thinking we're not good enough and we can't do it and we're hopeless.

Maren Oslac: 8:25

I love that, because then as that embodiment, we can literally go from door to door. And what I find is that a lot of people are buying candy and eating their own candy, and then feeling stuffed and overwhelmed, right? And feeling sick on the sugar already, and thinking, oh my god, there's more sugar. But we're craving the sweetness as a culture, as individuals, on our teams, in our in our lives. We're craving that sweetness. Otherwise this wouldn't be out there in the world. This is exactly the shadow that we're talking about. So we can look at it, at the surface level of just eating the candy and then feeling sick and then not wanting to, and then eating more candy and feeling sick and just keep going through that. Or we can take this opportunity to look at what's craving the sweetness, so embodying, like, using your example of the witch, embodying the witch, and literally going door to door and being like, what do you need? What do you need, what do you want, what do you need, what do you want, you know so that you can actually get to know what this part of me, why this part of me is so grumpy and like what the need is.

Stephanie Allen: 9:45

What a great thing what you say, asking, going door to door, and you're actually practicing asking for help, and you're actually practicing receiving it. So that's doing it from the dark side, you know, like taking that dark side, because there's great gifts. I think if we go in and we talk to our witch, or our Warlock, or our zombie, or, you know, our mass murderer self part that murders our dreams, right? There's a mass murder in all of us, right? You know that that kills our self esteem and our self-worth worth. We could act that out and then go, okay, this is a safe place to actually act it out and bring it to the light so that I can find the gifts and the sweetness behind it.

Maren Oslac: 10:28

When I say going door to door, like you're not asking your neighbors to literally participate, you could if you've really, really cool neighbors. For me, like whenever I would get a piece of candy, it would be a symbol or a metaphor for, like, something that I'm taking into myself, and not that I had actually had to eat it. It was just like I would be grateful and thank the person for this bit of sweetness that they're giving me,

Stephanie Allen: 10:58

And that's a practice too of giving that...

Maren Oslac: 11:00

That is a practice of allowing that sweetness in my life.

Stephanie Allen: 11:04

And you know, Rumi says, you know, this human being is a guest house every day, a new arrival, you know, a meanness, a sadness, an unexpected visitor comes to our door, you know. And sometimes you let them in and they violently sweep your house empty of all its furniture. I'll invite them in anyway, because they're clearing you out for some new delight. This is Halloween. You know, you're opening the door to all of those shadows, and you're meeting them with a sweet heart. And that's the transformation, that's the liberation of that. And it's like it is a practice for our humanity from beyond, like beyond, you know, October 31. What if you could meet the curmudgeon mean parts of the parts that are showing up in ourselves and as well as coming to us in our business or in our lives or relationships, and you meet them with a sweet heart and kindness and ask them, hey, what do you need? I'm here for you.

Maren Oslac: 11:59

There are two things that come up for me. One of them is, when you say a sweet heart, I think of the candy, the sweet tart, yeah, right, and so, and then I think of like a Snickers. So you could, you could meet it with a snicker right? So that's what I mean by taking those candies that you get and literally looking at them as a metaphor, or what are they? What's a fun interpretation for you and this part of yourself, so that you can be in the conversation. And it's not some heavy thing and it's, it's a beautiful way of meeting it in the world,

Stephanie Allen: 12:37

Exactly, and, you know, and the other part of it, if you don't want to do that dark, shadowy aspect, you could also do, we put our gifts and our light in the shadow too, like you might have an artist in you that, you know as a small child, you were very creative and artistic, and someone shamed you so well, you'll never get a career in that. And you know, or you know, you're making everybody else feel so bad on how good your art is, or, you know, those things will go in the shadow too. So you can look at the parts of you that you go, you know, I want to really embody that this year.

Maren Oslac: 13:11

Because I said it just now, it's like, it makes me think of two things. And that was the second thing I was thinking of is like, maybe you want to be a superhero.

Stephanie Allen: 13:19

You know if you were a superhero, what superhero do you want to embody this year? And why?

Maren Oslac: 13:24

And why? Because we do tend to shove our hero and/or parts of ourselves, of that are, there is this golden shadow where we shove our gifts and our strengths into the shadow, and we go, oh, I can't do that. That's not okay, etc, etc, right? So what is that that you're attracted to, that's calling you, that got, that got tucked away, you know?

Stephanie Allen: 13:52

Yeah! I mean, it's such a great opportunity to practice embodying or transforming some part of you that might be holding you back, some fear, some you know, shadowy aspect. And if we can start to actually claim back our shadows, whether there are golden shadow or light or the dark shadow, then we'll actually be given more energy, more healing, more possibility, more creativity. It's amazing how things open up.

Maren Oslac: 14:22

So that's interesting, because as leaders, that's really kind of important, right? We're like, oh, somebody says you want more energy. You're like, yeah, please. You want more peace, yeah, please. You want better teams, yeah, please. So could you speak a little bit more on why in this moment? Because we have this opportunity. So I will say, before I get into that, we do have, the veil is thinner, meaning that it's easier to see this time of year. That doesn't mean that we can't do this every day of the year. We get to have fun with it and play with it by, you know, embodying a costume, etc, etc, and it's an ongoing practice. It's a great place to start it. But going back to my question for you is, can you speak more to, when you do a practice like this, whether it's for one night or hopefully on an ongoing basis, what do you mean mou get more energy? You get more, you know, peace? You get more all of the stuff that you get out of it? How? Why?

Stephanie Allen: 15:37

Well I actually do make it a daily practice. That is something I do. So when I'm deeply annoyed by something or someone, I know that there's a shadow piece in it for me, like there's something then that I'm projecting out into the world. And I know many people are saying, no, no, you're perfect, you know, Or that's what we say, Oh no, I'm perfect, and it's about them. That right there, as soon as you said that, if it's black and white, then you're totally in shadow. But even that word 'cost', you know, it's a cost. We wear costumes all the time. It's like, we might be the people pleaser. We might be, like I said, we might be that which we might be. You know, if I'm not claiming where I'm a petty tyrant to myself, where I'm like, that little inner narrative is so mean and hostile, I will actually create that in my work life and in my relationship life, there'll always be somebody who's going to try to take power over me, because it's teaching me where I need to step into my own inner power inside myself, because there's a part of myself that's treating myself that way.

Maren Oslac: 16:53

Yeah putting on a superhero costume might be really powerful for somebody who has an inner petty tyrant, because you're not claiming your own hero.

Stephanie Allen: 17:06

Right, if I keep looking outside myself, that's going to cost me time and energy, because I'm looking for answers instead of going inside and saying, I'm going to find that petty tyrant inside myself. I'm going to find that is tearing myself down and and see, we tend to go inside and we tend to go, that's enough. Don't treat my Stephanie that way. That doesn't always work. It's like to go inside and be curious of that part inside yourself, and say, Hi, I noticed you're really tearing me down. What is this about? Like, what are you needing? Like, again, meeting it with sweetness inside yourself. It's not easy work. This is hard work, but if you can meet it with love and kindness, just like the practice of Halloween, with curiosity and wonder, of like, oh, who's at my door now? Oh, you're so scary, and you can meet them, and you go, what are you needing right now? From Me? Not trying to shame them or control them, because every part inside of you has a gift to give you. There's something just like every you know boss or co-worker or client or whatever have you is literally teaching you something. And that's the shadow work. It's like, I wonder what they're teaching? What is evolving inside of me, what is being asked of me, that I need to start embodying, which would change this outer situation? Because I must have this going on inside.

Maren Oslac: 18:38

What I love about this is it takes us past the right, wrong, good, bad. It reminds me of Einstein's saying about the like, the most important decision that you can make is whether you live in a friendly universe or not. And if you live in a friendly universe, then everything that shows up in your life is there to help you, whether it's your petty tyrant or, you know, the person who doesn't like you, or the person that you're envious of, or, you know, it's like all of the what we consider junk, the stuff that we want to avoid. If we have decided that we live in a friendly universe, then we can be curious about that and say that's here to serve me somehow. How? Talk to me about that, that inner part of me, right? And that's when you said, you do the shadow work every day that I do, too. It's that curiosity, and it can be as simple as, not easy, simple as asking those questions and reminding ourselves 'I do live in a friendly universe'. So when you know something explodes at work, it's not pointing fingers out there. There is a sense of responsibility. I'm not saying that there isn't, there's also a piece for me to look at inside. There's always going to be...

Stephanie Allen: 20:04

Like, what is within me that is attracting that, whatever that is, that person or that thing that's irritating me right now, what is within me that is attracting that, what is it calling me to become, so that I can overcome this. So one of the part of the practice that I'll do is I'll make a list, and I'll say, okay, maybe this person really irritated me, and I might know them, they I might not know them. They might be just in the news or something. I'm like, this just drives me crazy. And I'll write it down. I'm like, Well, what is it specifically that drives me crazy, you know. And they might be, you know, they're narcissists, you know, they don't care about anybody else but themselves. And they're not looking at the big picture. They're just totally looking at the small little details. Or micromanagers. I might just make all of those lists and then, so what I do is I go, okay, that's interesting. Where might I be doing this to someone else? You know? Where might I be doing this to myself? Am I treating this too... so I'll go outward, and I also go inward and where does this resonate?

Maren Oslac: 21:17

Yeah like where am I micromanaging someone else, right? Where am I micromanaging myself?

Stephanie Allen: 21:25

That's exactly it, and if neither one of those resonates, then I'll say, Okay, I see this. What? What quality would I like to see more of and then, you know, it might be just compassion and a greater vision for what's possible and surrender or more freedom. Okay, where do I need to practice that more in my life? Okay, yeah, so, so that's why you look at those three different levels. I either look outward, where am I doing this to someone else? Where am I doing this to myself? Or what is the situation calling for me to become? What do I wish they had more of? And that's often what I need to actually practice.

Maren Oslac: 22:10

And that's so powerful for any leader in any situation. Again, not saying that the situation itself doesn't need to be addressed in the outer world, it does. And what I found for myself is so often, when I do this work, what shows up in the outer world looks really different than what I originally saw. So something has shifted. Something has shifted, and either a solution is right there, and it's like, oh my God, that's right there. How did I not see it before? I couldn't see it before because I was in my own way, right? And/or it gets resolved without my... you know, like, there's so many different ways that it gets resolved. Because the whole purpose, one of the purposes of the issue, was for me to look inside, because it's a friendly universe, so it's serving me. So when I can actually go in and do that work, then now I'm serving how I came to serve.

Stephanie Allen: 23:10

It's so evolutionary, isn't it?

Maren Oslac: 23:18

It really is.

Stephanie Allen: 23:19

And then we grow. Yes, it's challenging, yes, it's difficult, but it's, it's actually less traumatic to grow that way. It's actually, you can actually be very playful and imaginative, and that's why, coming right back to Halloween, what a great opportunity where, you know, it's a collective, you know, community that says, hey, let's go out and play and let's, let's try this on and go for it. You know, I often look at even the shadow of I'll see like young parents, and they're taking out their children and to go to Halloween, and the child is too shy to go up to the door and knock on the door or open the door or ask for it, and so the parent goes up and does it for them. And I'm like, oh, that's interesting. And it's like, I'm like, I'm of, Like, oh, that's an interesting shadow part. Again, it's like, where do I... so here's a here's my example. Where do I want to go and carry somebody else's shadow? Because I don't think that they can do it on their own, or they're afraid or that, and I haven't empowered them enough to go and do it on their own. And I think coming back to relationships, coming back to Soulful Leaders, we tend to carry each other's shadow, yeah, until the other person claims it back for themselves or, or you say, I am no longer going to be that for you, you need to find your own inner witch and take her back, because I no longer gonna ... or inner hero

Maren Oslac: 24:41

interesting, because earlier, when you said it evolutionary, my immediate thought was That's our responsibility as leaders, to be evolutionary. And when I use the word responsibility, I'm using it in the essence of the word. It's our ability to respond. And it's not a title that we put on this leadership thing. It's an ability to respond at an upper level and to keep pushing that upper level so that we are the evolutionaries. And when I look at Halloween as an opportunity for me to do that in a playful way, it just excites me. So one of the things, if you've already picked out your costume. Because I know we're just like, right there. Halloween is this week. Look at what costume you've picked. It probably is not an accident.

Stephanie Allen: 25:52

Yeah, if you happen to be listening to this after Halloween, go back and say, you know, did you embody, you know, a shadow or a light quality, or maybe you didn't even choose to do it either. And why? What, what made you either choose or not choose? What was that? What were, and so what you're doing is hunting down, literally, energy that's been bottled up and placed inside of you, so now you're free flowing it. And like I said, cost-ume, allowing yourself to put it in the costume, rather than allowing it to cost- you and - me. That's what costume means, costing you and me. You know, life force, put it out there consciously so that you can transform it.

Maren Oslac: 26:38

And putting this at a collective level. The more each of us does this individually, the more we talk about evolution, right? Evolutionary, the more we evolve who we are as a species and on the planet, and we desperately need them right now. Right? The collective shadow that we're carrying, it's huge. It's huge. It's been passed down to us and passed down to us because people have not been doing this work themselves. So it's time for us to step up and actually take some of it on. And I love doing it in a playful way. Makes it fun.

Stephanie Allen: 27:15

So great.

Maren Oslac: 27:17

Thanks for joining us this week. We look forward to oh my gosh, please send us some pictures. Post some pictures of your costume and what it meant to you on our Facebook page or on our LinkedIn page. Both of them are at Soulful Leaders, or send us an email with it. We would love to hear from you. You can also find us on our business page, which is www.tslp.life. And do me a favor. Share the podcast with somebody that you know? We'll see you all in a couple weeks on The Soulful Leader Podcast.

Stephanie Allen: 27:55

And that wraps up another episode of The Soulful Leader Podcast with your host, Stephanie Allen

Maren Oslac: 28:01

and Maren Oslac. Thank you for listening. If you'd like to dive deeper, head over to our website, at TheSoulfulLeaderPodcast.com

Stephanie Allen: 28:12

Until next time...