The Shadow of Unease
When I lost my father, I was emotionally numb for two years.
My first wife hated it. She decided the best course of action was to tell me stories of why she thought my Dad was a bully and a poor husband. My wife told me how she thought that my mother was a victim to him because she could not stand to see me vulnerable. She had no idea that during my childhood, my mother had bullied me much harder than my father.
My wife thought that destroying the character of my Dad in my mind would be a good emotional ‘kick-up-the-arse’ to force me to change my state of mind out of being depressed and vulnerable.
This was her shadow of unease in action.
"We ask men to be vulnerable, we beg them to let us in, and we plead with them to tell us when they're afraid, but the truth is that most women can't stomach it. In those moments when real vulnerability happens in men, most of us recoil with fear, and that fear manifests as everything from disappointment to disgust." Brene Brown, Daring Greatly.
That is one of the best definitions of the ‘shadow of unease’ that I’ve come across. Another great example of the shadow of unease in women about men’s vulnerability made me laugh out loud. I saw the following post from a woman on social media.
“There’s 8000 nerve-endings in the clitoris and there appear to be a lot of middle-aged men on here that are more sensitive than that.
I think the observation was graphically accurate. And, it’s a message directly from the shadow of unease that cannot bear to believe that men are just as capable of being victims as women are.
Social media platforms are a massive echo chamber of disempowerment where people compete to see who is the biggest victim in a race to the bottom.
And this is precisely why I draw a very keen distinction between trauma and drama.
Don’t get me wrong - if you’ve survived a war zone, a rape, or other violence and come out alive - there’s no doubt you have almost certainly been traumatized and I don’t want to dismiss or minimize that harm that needs professional treatment. However, there are so many folk that claim to be “trauma-informed”, when they really aren’t. What they are is deeply enrolled in their own drama and they like to bond with others who are also there in the shadow of vanity with their victimhood.
On social media platforms, there are millions of people desperately trying to maintain the illusion that they are “in-control” and are screaming to enrol everyone else in their drama and using the “trauma-informed” label to bond with others.
Social media platforms are now a tool of politicians & billionaires attempting to maintain their illusion of being ‘in control’ in a form of institutionalized victimhood that mirrors their own crippled emotional intelligence.
“For men, shame is not a bunch of competing, conflicting expectations. Shame is one, do not be perceived as what? Weak. I did not interview men for the first four years of my study. It wasn't until a man looked at me after a book signing, and said, "I love what you say about shame, I'm curious why you didn't mention men." And I said, "I don't study men." And he said, "That's convenient."
And I said, "Why?" And he said, "Because you say to reach out, tell our story, be vulnerable. But you see those books you just signed for my wife and my three daughters?" I said, "Yeah." "They'd rather me die on top of my white horse than watch me fall down. When we reach out and be vulnerable, we get the shit beat out of us. And don't tell me it's from the guys and the coaches and the dads. Because the women in my life are harder on me than anyone else." Brene Brown, Listening to Shame.
Following the outburst from my wife, I decided I did need help but not because of what she had said.
To me, the emotional attack on me by my wife was unforgivable behaviour and it deeply triggered my own shadow of unease.
My shadow of unease also made me impetuous. I reached out for help to an acquaintance I had made at work that somehow I intuitively knew would help. She pointed me to a hypnotherapist who was visiting Wellington from Christchurch. (If you’re out there Tanya Redmond, you need to know just how much your small piece of advice to me over 20 years ago was a life-saver.)
The hypnotherapy was an amazing wonderful experience that allowed me to say goodbye to my father and it put me on the road to recovery and to divorce.
When my wife found out that I’d been to see the hypnotherapist, she went ballistic. She physically attacked me in an attempt to slap some sense into me. Having been to a school where physical violence and intimidation were a daily occurrence, blocking punches and kicks was in my muscle memory and I just did that until she realised she couldn’t land a punch on me and stopped. There was absolutely no way I could bring myself to hit her back because I knew that would put me in jail.
My intuition was screaming at me to get out of the situation. My wife was seven months pregnant with our first child and I was massively depressed.
I didn’t want to admit to myself that I had made a mistake and I needed to get help and get divorced and I felt deeply ashamed that I had married the wrong person.
That hesitation with my shame held me back for three years before I got separated - and I felt the massive relief in my heart as my own shadow of unease lifted.
Men are in the minority when it comes to my coaching clients, precisely because to dive into the shadow work that I do with my clients it requires courage to directly reveal vulnerability when the predominant culture is that men are shamed by women for doing so. This is common in both Western and Eastern cultures.
This is why I talk about the gift of delicious adventure because I would rather people chose to come to work with me to open up freedom to enjoy life by healing themselves - but it’s absolutely clear from the success of social media that most folks would rather bond in mutual drama than face into their shadows.
For indeed - it was the promise of adventure and treasure that lured Bilbo Baggins to forgo his second breakfast in his comfortable hobbit house, and run down the street without a pocket handkerchief to join Gandalf.
On the journey, Bilbo discovered how engaging with his own shadows of vanity and unease revealed amazing gifts of courage and resilience in himself that enabled him to confront and outwit both Gollum and a dragon.
Where do you feel your shadow of unease?
Are you ready to forgo your own second breakfast for the promise of adventure and treasure to join me on a journey of doing the shadow work to reveal your own gifts of courage and resilience?
Contact me.