Those sudden bursts of anger that come from nowhere, that person you hate for some (seemingly) inexplicable reason, your tendency to sabotage situations that, outwardly, should be good for you. These are actions of your shadow: the part of yourself you’ve hidden away because somewhere in life’s journey, it was deemed “unacceptable.”
Everyone has a shadow. A dark side. A yin to a yang. You, me, fictional characters in books and movies (written by real people with shadows themselves). Dorian Gray. Dr. Jekyll. The nameless protagonist of Fight Club. These are famous fictional examples of characters whose shadows overtake them. Though they showcase more sinister shadows, your shadow, my shadow, may be completely harmless.
Harmless, that is, until the shadow is done being repressed. And then it will harm that which is keeping it hidden: you.
When I first moved to Texas, I thought everything would be great. It was, initially. But inside, something was happening. My mind felt tangled. Jumbled. A festering chaos was brewing and I didn’t know why.
I had been described as having a long fuse. Even keeled. Steady. Those parts of me evaporated in a few short years. I became short-tempered. Impatient toward my precious horses. Easily triggered and annoyed by situations that were benign.
This wasn’t right. The feeling was mentally uncomfortable. I felt like I lived on the edge of an outburst. I eventually realized I wasn’t happy. I also realized I was disconnected from my emotions.
I had moved to Texas for a job that I quit the week I moved here (this plays an enormous role in my discoveries). Instead of the path I was supposed to take, I was on a different one. A less fulfilling path. Mediocre. Not just that, I’d essentially lost relationships with people I’d built over years because I left the job and the industry. Moving to Texas also meant I’d abandoned the community I had before, in Washington State.
In Texas I had bitten off way more than I could chew: a 20+ acre ranch with more animals than I could manage in a remote area of a giant state where everything is two hours apart. I was stressed, spread too thin, Alone.
I now describe my move to Texas as my symbolic descent into the underworld. It stripped away everything I was performing, and left me with a version of myself I didn’t like.
Then I lost Margo, my soul dog. My constant, loving companion who made me feel l was happier than I actually was. With her devastating loss, I had to confront what was happening to me head on. I couldn’t mask it any longer.
While I did pay a therapist to talk through what was going on, getting into the roots of some of my issues, the real value I found was in a few books I got from eBay on shadow work. And prompts from ChatGPT.
My shadow was trying to tell me something. It had been for years (even before moving to Texas). I just didn’t know that. The messages first came in whispers, then gentle asides. The shadow lives in my stomach, clenching and tightening in situations it doesn’t like. Fomenting resentment when my outer self made choices it didn’t agree with. Projecting anger at someone doing something it secretly wished to do itself.
Projection is your shadow screaming at you. Its language is jealousy. If there is someone in your life you hate, who annoys you and you can’t always explain why, it’s because your shadow longs to be that, to express those things itself. But instead, you’ve stuffed those things down to be “good.”
My shadow also sabotaged and laid waste to things that, again at the time, didn’t make sense. Why would I allow such things to happen? Why was I avoiding the benign to make something far messier than it had been when it first began?
Because my shadow was attempting to blow it up. To destroy it all because “it all” wasn’t right.
The “midlife crisis” is a misnomer. Not everyone has a midlife crisis. We have midlife crises because we’re no longer young, we’re not yet old, but we’re realizing in a physical sense, we only get one life. If we have a feeling of panic, of crisis, it’s because the one life we’re living isn’t the right one. That we’ve missed a step along the way. That a course correction is in order.
But it’s hard to know where to go if you’re not sure where you are. Or even who you are.
I’d lost sight of myself. We all do. We’re forced to be things to belong. Most of us adapt to fit in with our surroundings. But we can only play pretend for so long.
Who you are, who I am, is who we started as before we shoved down the traits the outer world, or our friends, family, society whoever it was, told us those traits weren’t acceptable. This is why inner child work, conversing with the version of yourself who didn’t know the rules, is so important.
This is inner child Courtney. She loved her dog, Happy. She wore bright colors, loud pants, loved airplanes, horses, and playing outside. She was also an artist, drawing whenever she could, and got rather good. She loved Don Karnage from the Disney show Tale Spin and Darth Vader from Star Wars.
Villains, yes. This isn’t lost on Today Me.
At no point in little Courtney’s life did she want to work in an office. She didn’t dream of being relied upon to make choices or carry so much responsibility. She never wanted to be a boss or a manager. Or sit at a desk most of the day answering emails and slack messages. She’d lose her little mind at “jumping on calls.”
Young Courtney dreamed of being a fighter pilot. She loved going new places and doing new things. She loved playing horses and riding out with her best friend, being gone all day. She loved swimming, going to the beach or the lake, having friends over for sleep overs or going to her friends’ houses to do the same.
But of course, she grew up.
Now she just needs me to come back to her.
Because here’s what’s come up in my shadow work. Radical honesty and uncomfortable vulnerability to follow:
I’m tired of responsibility without power. Of feeling like I need to carry and support so much without having the influence to change the direction of it. This has been a thru-line of my recent career. Being expected to give my skills, knowledge, leadership, manage workflows, employee emotions, but having little to no say in the direction the company takes. But I also see it play out in personal relationships as well. I’ve been the unpaid therapist, the go-to-gal for solutions to their problems. But no power to fix the problems myself.
I’m tired of the supporting character role in my story. I moved to Texas for a job I quit the week I moved here. For a company I helped grow, but my name was not on the leaderboard. And I quit that job because I saw that the role I’d agreed to take on wasn’t going to be what I agreed to do. We had a misalignment. I was essentially expected to be a pass through, a middleman, and I didn’t want it.
I’m tired of being small, to dim my light so others may feel brighter. This goes to the point directly above. I have been a background dancer, sharing the spotlight but never the star, helping others look good. But it goes beyond that, as well. I’ve attracted people who love being listened to, because I have been a good listener. A supporter. But when I have wanted to move out and shine, the support is not reciprocated.
I’m obsessed with my dogs because they love me without conditions. My soul dog, Margo, just wanted to be with me. That’s it. We loved each other intensely. I didn’t need to do things for her to be loved by her, and she didn’t need to do things for me to be loved by me. All she asked of me was me. All I asked of her was her. Most human relationships are conditional. I’ve only been appreciated if I performed for them. Made them something. Made them feel something. Made them feel seen. Heard.
There’s a recurring theme that plays throughout all of these points.
I had lost myself in service to others. I sacrificed too much of me for them. I spent too much of my life doing what other people wanted me to do, and no one (not even me) was thinking about what I wanted to do, be, or even become.
So I lashed out… at acts of selfishness.
My horses are stewards of advocating for what they want. Usually food, or not to be doing “this” (like being saddled). When one of my horses would express displeasure at my agenda, I raged inside and screamed outside. All my horses are fine, they have no fear of me. At all. I’m a blusterer, not a beater. But still. I became enraged at any indication they were bored or upset with my choice to ride. Because my horses spend 98% of their life doing exactly what they want. I ask for a tiny percentage back and get attitude? R A G E.
But there was a second side to that. My horses can safely express “Nah, not today” and run away when I trundle out there with my breeches and halter in hand. The have no hesitiaton saying “I don’t want to.”
I wasn’t doing enough of that. I compromised too much. Said yes to too many things I felt I had to say yes to, but wanted to say no to.
Past tense.
I’m finally understanding who I am, where I went wrong, and how to fix it.
I look back on decisions in my past and see where I should’ve been a better advocate for me, rather than serving others wants. The big one, the one I’m trying to rectify this year, was location based.
I moved to Texas to work for someone else’s company in a powerful position that I learned along the way, would a glorified mouthpiece to the star. Otherwise I never would’ve chosen Texas.
I know where I want to be. I wanted to move there in 2015. I ached for it. It was my home, and if I could go back in time and change it, I would. I would tell 2015 Courtney to do what she wanted, not what would help her parents. Because I returned to Washington from ten days in Southern California with grief. I didn’t want to go back to the cloudy state. I wanted to stay in Southern California. Badly. I had two dogs and one horse. No mortgage, no responsibilities. Just me and my three animals. But the hanging responsibility of feeling I needed to help my parents by living, once again, in a house they’d bought as an investment property, forced me back.
Responsibility and power I’d ceded.
Here’s the sad truth: I can’t change the past. I can’t tell my parents “I can’t do that for you, I have to go live for me” in 2015 to move 1200 miles south with a horse, two dogs and a whole new life. But I sure as hell can learn from that choice so it doesn’t repeat. I’m not searching for who I am, I’m reclaiming her.
This is where my story pivots.
Shadow work isn’t about blame or regret. It’s about recognition. Integration. It’s about seeing the parts of yourself that were shoved into silence and saying, I hear you now. It’s about letting your “no” be just as sacred as your “yes.” Letting the inner child lead you home. Letting the soul dog rest in peace, knowing her person is finally becoming whole.
If any of this hits something in you, that’s your shadow knocking. Not to shame you, To guide you back to yourself.
Let it.
Because if you don’t listen, it will find a way to be heard.
For Margo. Who walks with me. Still. Always.
I recognize that “inner child Courtney”. ????