The Shadow

*Note: The following text is the output of transcribing from an audio recording. Although the transcription is largely accurate, in some cases it is incomplete or inaccurate due to inaudible passages or transcription errors.

Bill Berthel
Welcome to the Get Emergent Podcast. The Get Emergent Podcast guides leaders to creatively strengthen relationships and improve performance of their leadership and those that they lead. We like to provide concepts and ideas that you can turn into pragmatic experiments to help you develop your higher potential in your work and in your leadership. And hopefully you’re going to find some better practices to apply in your work. I’m Bill Berthel.

Ralph Simone:
And I’m Ralph Simone. And Bill, I am really excited about today’s topic. We are going to talk about the shadow side of leadership. And I’m wondering if you could break that down a little bit for our listeners as to what we mean when we say the shadow.

Bill Berthel
Yeah. So the shadow, I think where most people have heard of this concept, or maybe they’ve even done some shadow work themselves, is from Carl Jung You know, Jungian psychology is best known for this idea that the human psyche has both a light side and a shadow, or sometimes dark side. These are ancient ideas where there’s many ancient philosophies and religions and cultures that saw this kind of duality of the human condition. Right. The dark and the light. Look at Taoism with the yin and the yang. Right. The dark and the light. So it’s really most understood in contemporary spaces through Jungian psychology. The biggest misconception, I think, Ralph is that we associate dark or shadow with bad.

Ralph Simone:
Yeah, I was wondering about that. And perhaps that prevents people from leaning into their wholeness.

Bill Berthel
Absolutely. And I think we at Emergent do pride ourselves in doing holistic development. So what does that word mean? It’s really rooted in the whole person. Right. Holistic in the sense of everything about the person, the leader. We focus on leadership development. Maybe I’m going to rely on you to keep bringing me back to leadership on this one because it is such a fundamental piece of the human psyche. This affects us as humans, not just leaders, but as leaders, we are working both in the conscious and subconscious. Right. That’s the way Jung looked at it. Instead of calling it dark and light, the conscious is what’s in the light. It’s what we can see, it’s what. We know, it’s what we’re aware of. Awareness. Right.

Ralph Simone:
And then the subconscious influences our behavior, but we’re either less aware or unaware of it and unaware of how it is driving us. Would that be, a way to describe it?

Bill Berthel
Beautiful. And it’s exactly that. I think another layer into that that’s really important is the subconscious. Isn’t this like other entity that we are victim of, the subconscious is part of us. That’s where the holistic comes in.

Ralph Simone:
And my guess is that this shadow or the subconscious piece of us does look out for us and it actually provides. So not to be construed with bad, it actually provides a service of perhaps keeping us safe.

Bill Berthel
Absolutely. To quote a previous mentor in my life, she would say it ain’t all bad. Right? It’s not all bad. Yes. There could be some things there, just like in our consciousness that we are concerned about, are challenged with. Maybe we’re even fearful of. There are things we’re aware of in the light that we’re afraid of. Same goes for the subconscious. So I think we need a little bit of permission to start entering this space.

Ralph Simone:
And I think we sometimes have to re language or reinterpret things so that people can even step over the threshold. I’m wondering if we could give a tangible example of something that might be part of a leader’s shadow.

Bill Berthel
Yeah, I love that. So the LCP, the Leadership Circle Profile that we work with and that we use uses the language of reactive tendencies and creative competencies. The reactive tendencies are just that, they’re kind of automatic. We’ve mostly coached around the idea that they are fear based, or protection based. There’s a high likelihood that those elements, maybe it’s something like I need to be perfect perfection. Maybe it’s some type of complying in a relationship where I’m really fearful that I’ll do harm by just being my authentic self, so I’ll comply with people. There’s probably roots within our subconscious or our shadow side that are protecting us in that, that are saying there’s some type of programming, some type of experience we’ve had that is saying be really careful, be almost fearful sometimes.

Ralph Simone:
So if at some level we feel that is helping us or protecting us or helping us fit in, why would we want to lean into it? Why would we want to embrace it more?

Bill Berthel
Cause here’s what happens more often than not is we start over relying on those reactive tendencies in a way that actually becomes kind of a poor energetic investment. We’re really pouring energy into overcoming some type of perceived inadequacy or fear that we have. We really kind of faced it. We’d be able to maybe not overcome it, but work with it in a more effective, less energy taxing way.

Ralph Simone:
I was thinking about you might be able to transcend it and I was thinking of my own, personal example where I tend to keep a distance around certain things and it’s to protect what, my insecurity, maybe not belonging or not being good enough.

Bill Berthel
Yes.

Ralph Simone:
And so we would say lean into that, embrace that. Because I may be holding back some gifts that would contribute to my team, would contribute to my organization. Are we saying that?

Bill Berthel
We are. So the context is really important, right? We’re not saying necessarily do that in every aspect of your life, but there might be some lower risk or relatively safer ways of experimenting with that. But here’s how shadow work usually goes. And I want to recommend something different than what’s most commonly thought of as the shadow work. It’s often the frame that we should cast light into our shadow. So in a way, what sometimes the analogy is you’ve got two rooms in a house, and one is well lit and one’s dark. And what you want to do is you want to open the door between those two rooms and let the light go into the dark. I think it’s a great first step. There’s nothing wrong with that. I think that’s how we get some initial awareness. And maybe that’s the conversation we’re having right now about some of these examples. I think we have to get to the place where we are brave enough to actually enter that room, take a shadow object out and bring it into the room of consciousness, bring it into the light,

Ralph Simone:
Expose it.

Bill Berthel
Expose it safely. And when I say carefully, I don’t mean cautious, I mean as full of care as we can• given the context. That that might look like having a conversation with a highly, trusted mentor, coach, loved one. It might mean journaling more strongly about that thing that’s in the dark side, the shadow side, that we’re afraid of. It’s bringing it out into the light. Think about it this way. If you cast light into a room that is dark and there’s objects in there, you’re actually only accentuating the shadows those objects cast. The light that you’re casting into that room is actually making the shadows bigger. The reframe is just identify one thing that might be in that space. Maybe it’s the fear of being found out that I don’t belong here. How might you bring that into the light?

Ralph Simone:
Maybe we make too big of a thing of it. And maybe it’s simply bringing my vulnerability about something to light by naming it in a session where I’m feeling vulnerable, so it doesn’t hold me hostage, so I’m not trying to protect it, so I’m not working so hard, energetically but by bringing it into the light, I’m actually talking about it, not just shining the light on it.

Bill Berthel
That’s right.

Ralph Simone:
I’m actually exposing it. And it then has less of a hold on me. Is that part of what we’re saying.

Bill Berthel
Has less hold, has less power, has less energy, and we can possibly find room for that object in the lit room of the house that we have? using that analogy of the two rooms, we might find out that there’s actually a place for it in the lit side of the house. It doesn’t have to be in that back closet anymore or hidden anymore. We also might find out, to your point, that having some awareness, that initial awareness of that object being in that darker room, it’s like when we’re little kids, that monster in the closet is huge and scary. But when we do open the door and realize, oh, it’s actually just my stuffed toy or whatever that thing is, and we invite it into the room, it no longer holds that scary power.

Ralph Simone:
That’s a nice example. So what would we encourage leaders or people to do to kind of invite their shadow into the lighted room?

Bill Berthel
So I think this is the hard, challenging part, is that those things that are in the subconscious are outside of our awareness. So I think in coaching terms, we often say blind spots.

Ralph Simone:
Got it.

Bill Berthel
And you know this, you know this really well. What helps us see our blind spots and around them is getting feedback from others, trusted other individuals that can give us some meaningful feedback about our behaviors and our performance. I think that we can start to trust some of that more, maybe even have an appetite for some of that feedback.

Ralph Simone:
And I guess I would add to that, as leaders that may be higher up in an organization, you’ll have to actively seek that feedback out because it may not be easy for people to give it to you.

Bill Berthel
I think you do. I think you do. And you might be seeking feedback from others that don’t see your station or your role as a barrier to giving you feedback. So you might be looking for feedback in other places than just your organization or just for those people that are closest to you that are reporting to you.

Ralph Simone:
Like in the grocery store.

Bill Berthel
Yeah. It might be more meaningful feedback at home, grocery store, maybe places you volunteer.

Ralph Simone:
And the cashier doesn’t know my role or station. And ask him or her how they’re experiencing me.

Bill Berthel
And I would say, you know, so I love that you’re laughing. Notice the seeds of truth that are in humor, there’re often clues in that. Right. When somebody says, well, you’re kind of weird, you know, it’s like, what’s the situation they’re saying you’re weird about? Well, is there a clue in that that I’m missing? Right.

Ralph Simone:
So here’s what I’ve been noticing these last few months. I’ve been in a number of meetings, our business, another business I’m engaged in, and also my volunteer organization. And I’ll ask afterwards, did I come across too hard or was I too rough or too direct or was I hanging on to that? And I believe something is going on in my shadow and I’m asking the question because I’m suspecting something’s going on, but I’m not sure. And I was disappointed, but helped because both recent times I’ve asked, I was told, yes, you were being too hard on that individual or you were too hard on that point. And so there was some work for me to do. Now I’m not sure exactly where that’s pointing me to, but there’s something there. By asking for the feedback, there was something in my shadow I was either trying to, keep in the dark and not exposed to the light.

Bill Berthel
So I think perhaps another word for your suspicion is your intuition. You may have been sensing something. And so I think that’s another way is to make space, allow some downtime or journaling time, some mindfulness. It’s meditation. It might be kind of unplugging for a little while to get more in touch with your intuition. I think the analogy I want to use here is there’s subtle knocks on the door from the dark side is some of that intuition that’s happening.

Ralph Simone:
So you’ve got to allow enough space to hear it. And by allowing that space and then asking for feedback, we’re enabling ourselves to become more conscious and to lean into all of who we are.

Bill Berthel
It is. A third clue or idea in that is perhaps when you get some feedback, you’re going to notice you bristle about something, you’re going to disagree with it. You may not even voice it in that moment, but you can feel yourself saying, that’s not right. That’s not me. I don’t do that. I challenge you to really lean into that.

Ralph Simone:
I do that in my head, but I say, oh, thank you very much, I appreciate it, but I really don’t because it’s maybe hitting me too hard in the moment or I really don’t want to look at that and you’re saying that’s an invitation to take a look. Okay.

Bill Berthel
Really is. Cause that’s the discomfort, challenge, or maybe sometimes as strongest pain showing up, which is a pretty strong indicator that that object will be found in your subconscious somewhere.

Ralph Simone:
Got it. So how do I use it to move forward? So I’m an achiever. So I want to use this information so that I can move forward in my relationships, forward in my leadership, so I can be more effective in my role.

Bill Berthel
So there’s no shortage of information today. Right at our fingertips. We could look up anything. I think once you get a sense of what kind of topic might be. Right. It might be. I think you were using the idea of distancing myself. I’d say research that. Look to see what’s out there from a literature perspective. That’s suggesting what might be going on for you. And then find some practices in your real life that you’re willing to experiment with. How do you get closer? Right. Just look at distance.

Ralph Simone:
Yeah.

Bill Berthel
What would you be willing to experiment to get closer in some places. And start safe. Right. Start small.

Ralph Simone:
Maybe I’ll high five people at the football game. Something I don’t like to do.

Bill Berthel
Yeah. Yeah.

Ralph Simone:
But as you’re giving an example, I was thinking about something I think most people can relate to. And I wonder if we could make a connection to the shadow. So in the book of lists, most people, their first fear is fear of speaking in front of a group.

Bill Berthel
Usually number one.

Ralph Simone:
My guess is that there’s something in their shadow and their subconscious that is contributing to that fear.

Bill Berthel
Absolutely. I think you sitting here for 30 seconds, I bet the two of us could come up with five to 10 items that that might be right. So that’s some of the complexity of that. Was I told as a child to be seen and not heard? Was I interrupted a lot in my relationships? Do I not really know what my own voice is? Do I feel like an imposter?

Ralph Simone:
Was I called upon to read out loud in a third grade and I stumbled?

Bill Berthel
Yes.

Ralph Simone:
And so then, you know, people that teach public speaking and we teach it, one of the ways to embrace it is to actually get up in front of the group and do it, practice it, and see that part of your strength might be part of that shadow. It actually might come out. It might actually create connection with other people as opposed to disconnection.

Bill Berthel
So this is going to sound almost a little sadomasochist, and I don’t mean it to be this way, but if you can do that experiment, and find some joy in it, as scary as it is. If you’re going to practice high fiving, people do it and like, yeah, like, live it. You got it. Nobody can see your face right now, but I can.

Ralph Simone:
The joy might be just doing it. The joy might be the fact that I just did it. And the world didn’t fall apart. Right?

Bill Berthel
The world didn’t fall apart. And the key aspect there is you are rewiring your emotional relationship with that behavior. So if you can just find a shred of joy in that thing that previously scared you or challenged you or just created a little bit of panic. Now I want to be really careful with this. If we’re talking about true trauma, if we’re talking about deep. Right. This is not the place to play. That’s not what we’re talking about. Right. We’re talking about, every time I talk to somebody in authority, my boss, my supervisor, I just shut down. All right. There’s something there, right?

Ralph Simone:
Yes. Could be around giving feedback we’ve already talked about. It could be about presenting in front of a group. It could be about engaging in conflict.

Bill Berthel
Yes. I don’t know if you’re familiar with Donald Hoffman’s work. It’s the conscious user interface theory. I love this theory because it gives me permission to think about consciousness just a little bit different. And that the potential is there for all of us. The idea is just like a computer interface, right? Like the icons on your desktop. Right. You click on a Word icon to open up a Word document, right? Well, that little icon that’s there is the user interface. That represents something much bigger, much greater. Something you can’t even start seeing even after you click it. You’re in the Word document. You’re seeing such a limited part of what’s possible in that whole program. That user interface is the place. It’s kind of the door between consciousness and subconscious. Now I don’t have to understand every aspect of how a certain program is coded. And believe me, I’m not going to, but I can get proficient in the use of that program with a willingness to click on the icon, go in and start learning.

Ralph Simone:
It sounds like that willingness enables us to be more courageously authentic. It enables us to tap into our fuller selves. And it probably enables us to be more impactful in our lives and in our leadership.

Bill Berthel
I think so. And I think that’s holistic growth and development, Ralph.

Ralph Simone:
Yeah. The whole thing, not just the pieces that I’m comfortable with.

Bill Berthel
That’s it. That’s it.

Ralph Simone:
Wow. Well, that’s interesting conversation about a topic that I think I’ve been a little bit tentative to touch.

Bill Berthel
Me too. I don’t want to come across as a hypocrite, but me too. It can be challenging.

Ralph Simone:
Great. Well, thank you, Bill. Appreciate it. I think we got some good insights on how we as leaders can tap into our shadow.

Bill Berthel
Thanks, Ralph. This was fun. And thanks for listening. We hope you enjoyed this episode and that you’re looking forward to more. You can listen to a new podcast two times every month here at Get Emergent or wherever you listen to your podcasts. And if you pick something up, you’re going to apply to your leadership and your work. Let us know, let us know how it goes. And just reach out to support@getemergent.com or directly to Ralph or I. Thanks for listening.