Feminine Flow: Let's Have *The* Conversation. The One About the Collective Shadow Work Confronting Us All Now
Modern times got you down? Feeling hopeless, depressed, and dissociated? That might mean you're more alive than you thought.
We're in a state of collective shadow work, and the impact on the collective psyche is profound. Can we talk about it?
*This may not be for everyone. Take only what resonates, explore your reactions and responses safely.
The current issues with the climate, politics, economy, war, and technology have us facing on onslaught of shadow material from our collective unconscious. The masculine shadow at the structure level, especially of the U.S., has stretched itself to an incredible limit that we are now seeing snap back. Without the balance of the feminine woven into our western cultural values, violence, greed, theft, narcissism, scarcity, exploitation, and zero-sum competition became our prevailing values. It turns out, those values were never going to be sustainable, and we might be at the point in time where those limits reveal themselves, as well as everything we’ve colluded with (in an attempt to survive) the whole time.
Structures that have existed without question for as long as most of us have lived are showing signs of fragility. On the one hand, we may be hopeful that this can lead to something better since those structures were only ever there to help some and harm the rest. Perhaps it's time those harmful structures are replaced. On the other hand, this moment is terrifying, in part, because we've invested in these structures with our money, identities, labor, values, even our faith, and these structures invested in us by teaching us how to conform to them, how to be good soldiers. If we don't begin to divest now, as a part of that collective shadow work, and get back home to our own inner authority, our own instincts, our own sources of vitality, we may crack along with the structures. I want to help.
If you’re feeling depressed or confused about how to live in the world right now, let me first say that I’m sorry for your suffering and I can deeply relate. Is there room to consider that your pain is actually a sign of your vitality? It’s not your failure, it’s not your lack of health, it’s not yours alone to bear. If you’re not well now, it’s because you’re not okay with the current exploitation of empathy and what it’s revealing about everything that came before this moment. You don’t accept this masculine-shadow world as a viable place to live. Your values aren’t reflected in the world around you but your values are not up for negotiation, so you’re taking them somewhere safe, even if it’s the depressive, isolative, dissociative world of your own inner life. This is a good thing, ultimately, even though it causes immediate suffering and overwhelm. But reframing it as a source of life within you may help you get closer to the innovation, the imagination, the fantasy of a better world and the creative energy that compels you to contribute to the development of it right now.
There’s more to discuss, but if you’re a therapist or healer, on the front lines of the current hopelessness crisis, subscribe here (free option will do it) for ways to join the community.