Confrontation with the Shadow

“This confrontation is the first test of courage on the inner way, a test sufficient to frighten off most people, for the meeting with ourselves belongs to the more unpleasant things that can be avoided so long as we can project everything negative into the environment. But if we are able to see our own shadow and can bear knowing about it, then a small part of the problem has already been solved: we have at least brought up the personal unconscious. The shadow is a living part of the personality and therefore wants to live with it in some form. It cannot be argued out of existence or rationalized into harmlessness. This problem is exceedingly difficult, because it not only challenges the whole [person], but reminds [them] at the same time of [their] helplessness and ineffectuality.” –C. G. Jung

Dear embodied souls,

Deep tender breath. Embrace the discomfort you feel right now. Stay with it like a devoted friend. Confronting the shadow is doing anti-racist work without and within.

This is how we access and activate wildness. Wild power. The decolonized, undomesticated, depoliced, queer, erotic, subversive, life affirming, revolutionary force of your being. That which is other than the fences of meaning erected on skin color, gender, arousal, love, economics, cultural inscription, traditions of oppression, systems built to deforest your bodysoul.

Listen in

to Resmaa Menakem, therapist and trauma specialist, discuss race and healing on this On Being podcast. Go deeper with his practice offering here.

Also to Brene Brown’s interview with Ibram X. Kendi. https://brenebrown.com/podcast/brene-with-ibram-x-kendi-on-how-to-be-an-antiracist/

And READ his book, How to be an Anti Racist.

Journey through

this reference list of anti-racists resources 

As you move through this work, keep a journal by your side. Track what comes up. Notice what happens in your body. Breathe into it. Learn/feel/recognize the full complexity of your current story with racism. Experiment again and again with the gestures, utterances, beliefs, feelings, sensations, embodied acts of anti-racism.

Here some resources from Rabbi Tirzah Firestone: 

1. Self-Education: This is an amazing Op-Ed from the LA Times by Kareem Abdul-Jabbar: "Don’t understand the protests? What you’re seeing is people pushed to the edge." And an indispensable essay, "On American Racism" by my friend Rabbi Mordechai Liebling. I am also engrossed in these books: White Fragility by Robin DiAngelo, Blindspot: Hidden Biases of Good People by Mahzarin R. Banaji and Anthony Greenwald, and My Grandmother's Hands by my friend and colleague Resmaa Menakem. Also check out this great resource list of articles, films, and more from At The Well.

2. Donate directly to the Movement for Black Lives. National Bailout is an important Black-led and Black-centered collective of organizers, lawyers and activists who help people facing pre-trial detention and mass incarceration. Use ActBlue's secure donation link here to simultaneously send money to up to 39 (and counting) nationwide bail funds. 

3. Take a few minutes to truly FEEL what is going on within and around you.
To HEAL the world we must FEEL the world!Then please write, call, and contact the people who can help us make a difference. Click here for the most needed calls! And take five minutes to send petitions to key decision makers.